About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

G is for Giant, Tanks and S.P.G.

I've published too much AFV stuff in recent weeks and must get back to figures, but wanted to post these as Wotan and the Philosophic Toad were taken with the Jean tanks the other day, and these are quite similar in design/construction.

Funny company - Giant, they are no more than an American (New York) import company for Hong Kong products, similar to Woolbro, Gordy or others, but they hold a semi-mythical status among some collectors. The main reason being they seem to have had a close relationship with one or two of these HK producers only and therefore carried a few half-unique items over the years such as these.

However their products were issued outside the States by other companies, or in non-'Giant' packaging, and most of their products were copied, also some of theirs weren't that good, so no different to the range of HK stuff in general, or any given rivals oeuvre. Because they hold this unearned status, dealers are happy to charge extra, or even pass-off non-'Giant' as Giant, particularly the Cowboys & Indians, so buyer beware and wait for the bargains!

As you can see, these have the same M26/46-47 Pershing/Patton hull of so many H0/00 vehicles of the time (EKO, Aurora, Ingap, Blue Box......Roco - the model for all the others!) but with totally fantasy superstructures. Also the wheel/track arrangement is all Jean and that's got to be a laser-ray gun on the tank, hasn't it?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, definitely a laser-ray ^_^

Hugh Walter said...

Yes - It's got those rings round the muzzle, all ray-guns have rings, everybody knows that, they're the positrionic baffle accumalator dubry accelerators...or something...aren't they?

WOTAN said...

ooohh - tanks for everything Mav, i want some of those now, too!