M is for Mail Away - Kellogg's Jungle Safari

Another one with a bit of a story behind it, I first became aware of this as a mail-away credited to Canadian Kellogg's, I think - from the images I downloaded at the time - it was an evilBay lot, from the time when the images had long tedious numbers, I knew it was from 1964 and that it looked a bit cool, but probably relatively unattainable!

Then in a mixed lot a while ago I got a paler yellow tiger with a long split down the side and no mechanism, but it gave me hope that it must have been issued here too?

And at Sandown the other day, I picked this up! It's been totally de-labeled so no clues in what I believe is otherwise the original mailing carton, it's missing three 'bullets' and their accompanying section of runner but is otherwise complete.

You get an alligator/crocodile (they don't explain the difference and indeed, conflate the two on the instruction sheet) and hippopotamus rhinoceros - well . . .  it looks more like a hippo'! Alongside which are the three 'big' cats; lion, tiger and leopard.

The hunter (can you imagine what the Daily Wail would have to say if this turned-up in a cereal pack today!) has a standard press-in, click-lock, spring-loaded firing mechanism and I suspect was the only piece pre-assembled upon delivery by the Postie?

Each animal (if you hadn't already worked it out, but the blurb has to come from somewhere!) has a rubber-band powered 'mouse-trap' trigger which when hit by a bullet throws the unfortunate 'trophy' up in the air!

Interestingly, it looks as if the crocogator-allidile was considered for posing facing the other way, with a vestigial trigger-hole on the other side of its face?

And the Canadian set I saw back in 2013 had a different colour-set, but not opposite to mine, so they must have been on one tool, run in both colours, taken off the runners and paired-up before despatch, however, whatever the mix, each animal seems meant to have the opposite colour trigger.

The set comes with instructions that double as a play-mat and are half the size of a duvet cover (dimmer members of the PSTSM should be advised that's an attempt at humour, not an accurate description), which having been folded to the size of a mint-in-pack paper serviette; has instructions to the end-user suggesting they iron it out flat again!

I don't know which cereal brand Kellogg's attached this to, but good-old Cornflakes are the obvious first base? And the Canadian set had a more substantial mailing-box of double-skinned, corrugated-card; rather than the heavy manila of mine. Also it (the Canadian one) seems to have been mailed from/by a Rattle O.K. (or D.K.?) on behalf of Kellogg's Premiums, London, Ontario (now closed).

Scoring is as random as the Lone Star shooting-set we've seen recently!

150 is for Comic Book Flat Civil War Soldiers

These have been Blogged elsewhere, so really just a box-ticker, I've said before, that "It will all appear here eventually", and from time to time that means covering stuff covered elsewhere, today it's some 'comic book flats'.

Lesser items; The guy second from the right in the middle row is - I think - supposed to be blowing a bugle, but all mine (on both sides of the fratricide) are moulded in such a way as to be open to interpretation, and it seems that taking a drink off a southern 'Belle' (actually a nurse) is preferable to swallowing a wasp or poking himself in the eye with a Remington, the other obvious explanations for what he looks like he may be doing instead of blowing a bugle!

You get a whole bunch of charging chaps, some of whom tend to have miss-moulded bayonets, there are quite a few cavalry and well and a second sword armed soldier; an officer to the NCO or dismounted cavalryman of the previous view.

Meanwhile you can send no less than three USS Monitor-class 'iron-clads' into maritime action against the same number of CSS Merrimac's! They should be  CSS Virginia's - the original built on the USS Merrimack (with a 'k'), comics huh? Like the Daily Mail but with better pictures!

The opposition come in an electric blue polymer and apart from the three different vessels are the same mouldings in the same numbers.

USA          ●           CSA

   Monitor Ships x3 - 3x Merrimac Ships

Gatling Guns x3 - 3x Gatling Guns

Coast Mortars x3 - 3x Coast Mortars

Scouts (binoculars) x3 - 3x Scouts (binoculars)

Officers (Stetson) x3 - 3x Officers (Stetson)

Sergeants (kepi) x3 - 3x Sergeants (kepi)

Hospital Wagons x3 - 3x Hospital Wagons

Hospital Nurses x3 - 3x Hospital Nurses

Buglers x3 - 3x Buglers

Cannons x9 - 9x Cannons

Sharpshooters (kneeling firing) x9 - 9x Sharpshooters (kneeling firing)

Infantrymen (advancing) x15 - 15x Infantrymen (advancing)

Cavalry x15 - 15x Cavalry