4D is for Tank Killer

I had an odd experience this week (just gone), on Monday there was a tray of eight different 'generic' clip-together aircraft models for a pound-each in the Blue Cross animal-charity shop, I bought one for the record - as it were - and thought little more about them, beyond the forming of an idea for the article you're reading, until the Wednesday - when the odd bit occurred.

This is the whole set, there was one of each in the tray, and they appeared to be new production (rather than a 'member of the public' donation), at a pound each it was worth a punt on one of them and I chose the AH-64 Apache.

Eight little boxes; each containing a bag of bits and a rudimentary instruction sheet. They seem to be about 1:100 (or box-scale?) and branded - as imports - on the blank panel to Candy Toys, who keep popping-up these days.

The bag of bits contains two small runners, one a frame-runner with transparent pieces and the other a branch-runner with the rotor blades, there's also a two-part stand and a handful of helicopter body-parts; both de-'sprued'.

More interesting is the fact that the bag is marked-up for 4D, but I suspect not the same 4D Master who was responsible for the PVC-type tank available from The Works a few years ago, the recent Kangaroo and other stuff seen around.

The packaging also usefully tells us what the model is made of; ABS (Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene); probably the rotors, and GPPS (General-purpose polystyrene) also known by the trade name Akurate; the green parts and transparencies.

They (4D) have been seen on various (antipodeans'?) Blogs issuing simplified, but useful AFV's in similar hard-plastic materials. Note: they are using the bags from Oker, also seen here at Small Scale World in relation to other brands/makers toy packaging!

It's a reasonable model, although a bit small, construction being similar to 4D Master (who they may be a part of, it's only a suspicion they're more clone'ish) and an excellent budget source of air-power for some of the modern 'corporate' gaming systems?

What was odd about it? On Wednesday the same tray appeared in the Scope charity shop, but with a price of £1.20p per set, that's another £1.60p per dispenser's contents which seemed a little greedy!

The Apache was still there so it wasn't a question of buying the remains of the tray from next-door but four and marking it up - obviously there's a batch of these doing the rounds of the charity community as some sort of corporate clearance/tax write-off; there's similar card-construction sets from PMS (one of the defunct 99p Stores' brands) in Help The Aged [Age Concern] at the moment, in both cases - get 'em before they're gone - I got a haunted house; with six figures!