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Thursday, September 7, 2017

C is for Combat Cannon

As opposed to a Stay-at-home-and-get-the-tea-on-or-do-some-ironing Cannon!

This was supposed to be part of Rack Toy Month, but due to the vagaries of my budgeting, the fact that RTM overran and that Royal Fail use a bank-holiday Monday as an excuse to do bugger-all for about four days, it didn't arrive until the late posts were publishing and I wasn't near a computer.

I'd been watching it on feeBay for a few weeks (months maybe?) and it had come down in price so it ended-up being a bargain, but had I been flusher it would have been cheaper still . . . and this may be worth noting as a sales technique if you are a seller:

Having reduced the lot (there was another bag included which we'll look at another day!) by a pound after a few re-listings, the seller still didn't sell it (although he would have if I'd been in a better position, but I had insurance to get!), so kept it off evilBay for a few days and then re-listed it with a 10p increase . . . it immediately got two watchers?

When I saw it had been re-listed I grabbed it - having been the only watcher over the previous few weeks! But it makes you think; a steady price-increase might get watchers to strike before it goes up some more? Worth a thought . . . anyway; let's look at it.

On feebleBay it was hard to gauge the figures, I thought they were about 55/60mm and new poses, or new to HK copies of less common US or Euro figures from the 1960/70's. It turned out they are common'ish copies of the old 45/50-mil Monogram (later Revell) GI's, with another pose - see below.

The gun - the real reason for the purchase as I've never seen one before - is a quite crudely manufactured, spring-loaded, shell-firer with a satisfying, clicking, elevation-mechanism noise.

The firing rod can be fitted either way, and due to it's length matching the breach-length rear of the catch-slots, I suspect should be the other way round but this was how it came, and both it and the spring are laid in the breach-cavity, then the two are pinned together and the whole held firm by an ethylene O-ring and the barrel.

One of the shells is a miss-mould . . . or a dum-dum!

One of the 'Unknown' MPC spaceman copies has been ID'd! Or at least attributed to a generic rack-toy and married to some Monogram copies! Maybe the 'dum-dum' is a chemical munition!

Range, at a vague 35% of elevation, is a pretty consistent 'over 3-meters' and at near point-blank will knock-over a Britains Deetail cowboy!

Base-mark on both is a small, neatly-lettered but poorly-stamped, full 'Made in Hong Kong'

How they go in the archive; gun, shells and figures one side of the index card, header-card, bag and staples the other. Both the staples and the shells get their own smaller self-seal bags (I don't use the term 'baggies' - it's baby-talk), of which I only use four sizes across the whole collection, all others (as they come-in) are used to go back out, or given to trader-mates.

The main reason I de-bagged this one was that the staples were so rusted, the card needed a clean/to be protected from them and was going to come loose with handling at some point anyway. The card will get annotation at some point, I just photographed it first!

The staples are kept so that when/if I need/desire to restore the packaging, I can match them with new, clean ones of the same size; feeding them through the same holes and closing them by hand.

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