C is for il Circo; the Circus, le Cirque

Speaking of Italians as I was the other day, Italy provides us with a nice range of own-language Starlux sets, very similar to the window-fronted boxed sets in French - contents wise - these Italian market sets have a completely transparent lid which is stapled on to an under-tray.

A couple of shots of the set with the lid still on, the contents don't really add up to a circus in my opinion, but there is play potential there for a younger owner, not least the big cats eating the other members of the cast...well; if it hasn't got tanks in, you're going to have to make your own ultra-violence aren't you?!!

Lid off; this is a delicate operation, that involves carefully opening each staple for re-use if you can't match them exactly with modern staples, a lot of old staples have a round cross-section which is impossible to match with modern domestically available ones, these were easier and a match was found - I have three staplers and about 5 different kinds of staple for exactly this purpose.

Various studies of the contents and a couple of colour variations, the dark bear with the farm/civilian pig and the paler lion with the two clowns (another old scan previously published in black and white). This is hardly a circus, with two keepers, two clowns and a compare that leaves a lion-tamer as the only 'performer'?

For added play/educational value there was a data-card (small poster) and a sticker (on the right) included in all these sets and we'll look at a couple more over the coming days.

I love the artwork on these, it's sort of the cusp between 1960's psychedelia and 70's style pop-art, all Heals or Habitat, A Clockwork Orange, the Magic Roundabout or the early packaging for Britains Detail, dating this nicely to the early 1970's...around 1971/3?