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.

Monday, October 17, 2011

M is for Mini-trucks, Part 5 - Types 4A-4E

Another line-up, these are really very similar to look at, the differences being either on the underside, as markings or in the number of grill-bars to the radiators (something I haven't documented as it's a step beyond the level of fartiness I've already taken this to!!

Type 4A

Soft polyethylene plastic
All plastic black ethylene ‘spoked’ wheel/axle mouldings
Windows appear for the first time
Marked with ‘HONGKONG’ (all one word) across cargo-bed and ‘666’ (or inverted 999?)
Smaller still, various coloured bodies, black plug-ins some of which are semi-flat
42mm long

Sets –
MARINE INVASION SET

Type 4A - sets - continued;

ARMY VEHICLES
(small, bagged)
ARMY VEHICLES COMBAT SET (larger, carded, 1966)

Type 4B Fire engine ladder-truck and sketch of underside

Type 4B Bell/water-tank fire engine and markings either side of centre-line

Type 4B

Soft polyethylene plastic
All plastic black ethylene ‘spoked’ wheel/axle mouldings (flimsy)
Windows
Marked with ‘HONG KONG’ at angle or offset from the centre-line by 90-degrees
Red bodies, silver plug-ins; semi-flat, mould damage to underside
42mm long
Sets – Budget Christmas Crackers (where one of mine came from, approximately 1974)

Type 4C

Soft polyethylene plastic
All plastic black ethylene ‘spoked’ wheel/axle mouldings (crude)
Windows
Marked with ‘HONG KONG’ across cargo-bed
Green, black plug-ins, poorly moulded, low sides to cargo-bed
42mm long
Sets –
TANKS WITH SOLDIERS AND ARMY VEHICLES 
BATTLE OF THE SEA

Type 4D

Soft polyethylene plastic
All plastic black ethylene ‘spoked’ wheel/axle mouldings
Windows
Marked with remains of large ‘HONGKONG’ (all one word) across cargo-bed
As 4C but poorer quality, plug-ins unknown
42mm long

Type 4E

Soft polyethylene plastic
All plastic black ethylene ‘ring tyred’ wheel/axles
Windows
Marked with neat medium sized ‘HONG KONG’ across cargo-bed
Cleaned-up/redesign, flat underside to cargo bed, various coloured bodies with black plug-ins, new loads include an ambulance cabin and a ‘blunderbuss’!
42mm long

2 comments:

Giano said...

Hi! I had a few of those 4E (I think) when I was a kid. They were in absurd colors, and also the plugins were coloured. I remember an orange lorry with a white ambulance cab.
Also one had a white rocket, and if I recall exactly some radar pans were grey. My favourite had a brown machine gun (or maybe a ray gun, it was quite a strange device).
They were packed together with 1/72 soldiers, copies of Airfix stuff.

Hugh Walter said...

Thank's Giano, I feel civilian vertions of most will turn-up now i'm looking for them, but I tend to amass the military ones as they come in with the figures in mixed lots and I had them as a kid!

As well as colours, I'm sure there are many more loads/plug-ins to be found, but that's what keeps us collecting once we've ticked-off the 'Want's' list!!