W is for even more Wagons

Continuing with the 'theme de jour'...

These are nearly all marked 'Germany' or 'W.Germany' and are usually Manurba (Manfred Urban). The two upper ones are Hong Kong copies, I've only ever seen the HK ones with black wheels, but Manurba originals come with black or white. War-gamers and modellers only need to cut the horse off and add a new team. The Giraffe wagon is particularly sought after and harder to find. Other colours are white and dark blue, for some reason I absentmindedly duplicated the middle one? This is a copy of the other type of 'W.Germany'/Manurba wagon, I do have lots of these, mostly originals, but have lost the box (I saw it only the other day so it can't have gone far), the figures are actual 'Giant' figures, but neither the wagon or the packaging is, such is HK production! Most copies are of the one wagon, with the three pieces of luggage on the roof, although - again in the missing lot - they did produce copies of one or two others. The German ones run to about 12 variants including a Santa sleigh which is more sought after, my missing lot was the 'wagon display' at my old house, and it makes you wonder if you should only display duplicates, to ensure the collection is in one place and easy to find! These are probably late production/post 'Giant' Giant wagons, although I know if I unpacked them there would be faint traces of the 'G' and 'T' from Giant on the white Frontier Coach sets horses, inside the flank, and a faint Giant near the tail of the Blue card sets horses. Note also, that like the Guards I posted a while ago, one of the cards is overprinted with the W.H.Cornilius 'Success' trade mark. These could be Giant or immediate post Giant, the graphics shout Giant, and the contents are right, and given that these were bought in the UK, and that New York is not in the UK, there's no reason to expect 'Giant' to appear on our issues, although sometimes they do!! Also without removing them from the pack you don't know what the marking is in the underside of the wagons...Doh!