L is for Lido . . . Not . . . Load of Limp Lookalikes!

These are quite fun, even though they are no more than blatant piracies, again from the March show at Sandown Park I think? Also the copies are soft polyethylene against the hard polystyrene of the originals - if it's not obvious from the pictures.

There are other aeroplanes in the  Lido military range as seen on Kent Sprecher's site (about half-way down the page).

From the fact that both Jeeps and both Tanks ARE here, the conclusion is that someone simply bought the Lido set and posted it to their mates in Hong Kong, who pantographed it, hawked it round the Westerner's agents and probably had it back in the shops competing with the originals within months!

Although - Lido (as can be seen in the link) carried a lot of HK tat toward the end, and this could very well be a complete (less card) No.56 Army Mobil Unit from Lido? It's rack-toy tat anyway!

When I first saw them I wondered if the whole Lido tool might have ended-up in HK, but following the link above will show you that Lido's have a better finish, and while I can't compare with mine for a week or two more (sold my shares yesterday to pay for the removal van!), I know the undersides are neater on the originals, so these are definitely copies, even down to the 'tail-docking' rubber-grommet tyres (tires), but could still be Lido-sanctioned copies?

I'm not sure if I have these two as hard-plastic originals in the 'Dime-Store' tubs; I should have, but I've always been rather puzzled by the World War II Stug (Sturmgeschütz {German} 'Storm Gun') a self-propelled assault-gun (SPG) built on a Panzer III chassis, being included in a line-up of otherwise American toys? Although when I say Stug, I mean 'vaguely Stug-like' . . . really it's another space-tank!

Added on the 14th November 2018 - Here are the main elements compared with the original 'Dime Store' Lido production (most of which i did have!), you can see the finish is better on the originals, detailing is sharper (and different at points) and they are overall slightly-larger models. I don't think I have the Lido 'planes (they may be with all the other micro-planes?), so left the HK ones out of the comparison.