E is for Explorer Cars . . . More Space Tanks!

Good things come in threes, although there's been a bit of a gap between the 2nd and third posts 'cos I was busy elsewhere! We're back with LB for a look at a few Space Tanks which have come in over the last six months, five in fact, taking my fleet to nine or ten I think, but I know two are trapped behind blisters (an LB generic and the Mikephil), however, one is a  duplicate of one of those seen below anyway! The other was here.

These came almost together a while ago, a single boxed reconnaissance vehicle and a three-deck set, over-branded to Delamare with a sticker firmly, almost hysterically, stating "THIS IS A TOY"! I think these three-deck sets had several brandings and a generic version? The contents however are all LB.

This might confuse your brain for a second, I just couldn't work out how better to present the three scans as a single collage, but it's just for fun, the artwork is infant-oriented and definitely - no futurist classic!

Note the box has two codes, the '7536' being Delamare's, while the '704' is common to the various boxing's of this I've seen and must be Lik Be's own stock code, similar to the Explorer Car's 404, 405 and 406 series'ing? 

The trays follow the order of similar sets by Blue Box, Lucky, Woolbro and the like with a larger piece and a few smaller items, in this case the soft polyethylene small-scale versions of their astronauts/spacemen, the middle tray getting two of the 'cake-decorating' pieces.

Of particular interest with the two tanks; another recce' vehicle and the troop-carrier/living accommodation 'space bus', is that one of the track units has the holes for a bulldozer attachment, the other three don't. Presumably these [specific sets] were issued after those small-box 'construction' versions and they were just using-up the old track-units by throwing them in the same picking-bins as the blanked-off ones; the packers only having to colour-match a left and right unit?

The three together; the other one on its box, a tad-smaller than the Airfix readymade's boxes, but somehow compatible, in thought, if not in deed!

Box art; I don't think I've ever seen a blue one or a silver-blue/metallic one, but the two shades of orange (reddish and yellowish) and the deep olive-drab seem equally common, grey ones have been reported (?) and while the occasional one gets the later bright green tracks, some get silver, most seem to get black.

The boxed one had so much glue blobbed on the aerial mounting-hole it melted the plastic after the machine was put in the box, leaving it with an attitude somewhere between rakish and daft! I don't think it's mendable due to the amount you'd lose cleaning it up, leaving it permanently loose, a problem which already afflicts the spot-lights on several of mine.

We've seen this one before I think - with a dozer-blade. Note the 404 (box code) is on the base plate, this is true for the 405 versions as well as the 406's, the code differences being explained in the packaging.

The other two came in a few weeks ago, courtesy of 'Tony'. Now . . . Tony says nice things about the Blog, and I bought from him a few years ago and gave him a shout-out in one of the subsequent posts involving that lot, only I didn't know he was using his mates' eBay account then, so I name-checked someone who probably doesn’t even know the Blog exists, let alone give a fig about it! So; Hi Tony, here they are, in their new 'good home' and thanks for the kind words and past-bargains!

Top left is another dark-olive green recce' vehicle and I temporarily added the dozer-blade to the above Delamare boxed sample for this shot (top right), while bottom right is an orange rocket launcher, my first with a push-and-go motor, next to the older (in the collection) newer (in issue-time) one with high carpet-wheels.

The launcher is quite a common design, originally from Lone Star die-cast army trucks, although they got a late space theme in blue and chrome, we saw it recently attached to a Hong Kong copy of the Crescent rocket launcher!

The bottom image shows the three types of wheels hidden behind the Panzer IV track-units, from the left; push-and-go motor with rubber wheels, free-wheeling plastic still with the old push-and-go base plate, and the newer, lower-cost (?) all polyethylene base plate and clip-in wheels giving it a more toy-like (as opposed to 'model' like) appearance. The image also illustrates the three known track colours.