News, Views Etc . . . Additional Image and Press Relese

I've added the Kleeware catalogue image to the Ideal/Kleeware 'Big Bertha' post from a while back, it does have the tilt visible, which rounds off that post nicely!

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News from Barney Brown at Herald Toys & Models, who has added new stock, given the speed the swoppets cleared-out the other day, you need to get a shift-on!

". . . this week we have for sale the Glasgow collection of Wild West figures, including a number of Charbens and Crescent 'Movables' (with our sister eBay Shop having for auction a substantial quantity of Timpo Swoppet-type figures and wagons from the same collection). We also have many more discounted items within our SALE items with many further reductions, so Get Them While They're HOT!"

ITC is for the Ideal Toy Company but . . .

. . . ICT is for the Ideal Cannon Truck! Except these are Kleeware!

Lucky score on evilBay the other day, and off a friend so all the sweeter to get some cash to a mate! They needed a bit of hot-water treatment and while I was at it they all got a scrub as they were made of that plastic late Bergen soldiers are made of and were filthy with leachate as if they had been weathered with oxide-orange powder and then oiled!

Now quite the parade but only a half-company, they nevertheless tick a box in the collection and one here I guess! Imported by Kleeware from Ideal (there's nothing between them bar the packaging - I was bidding on the searchlight truck recently, but not seriously - too big!) and presented as targets in a shooting game . . . Chris Smith reminded me they were in Plastic Warrior a while ago, so it really is only box-ticking on this one!

The middle one has a permanent headache, due to having had his helmet split through with a big axe . . . or something! And the jacket is more Nazi tank-commander than cannon-fodder?

Kline's store catalogue from 1968 USA has the whole caboodle for five dollars, which - back in the day - was less than two quid, a lot less! Full company is six figures, six cannon-balls, a huge 'Big Bertha' cannon and the truck which is used for other toys with body-changes or trailers, the canopy hasn't been included in the shot, I think the PW one had it present?

"I'll 'av yer'rover yer' top'evy wazzock!" 

Obviously one-sided relief flats with a reinforcing bar at right-angles to the figures, and around 120mm, manufactured in the previously mentioned soft polyethylene.

Added 14-12-21 - The same set in its British catalogue guise, to all extents and purposes the same set as the US one, but with the canvas-tilt visible, which wasn't included in the Kline's image. As there is nothing to tell when these turn-up on evilBay, it would appear to be shipped product rather than mould-share, which would have been expensive for one party or both, depending on how they agreed to share the tariff bill! Also with the Kleeware catalogue ten-years older than Kline's, one wonders in which direction that traffic was?