S is for Sawyer's Bespin Cloud-car . . . Not!

Twin fuselage craft go back at least as far as the weirder output and ideas of the German aircraft maker Blohm und Voss and others, of the Nazi era, and any real resemblance to the international-orange cloud cars serving the floating city's of the planet Bespin, in a galaxy far-far-away and long-long ago, is purely coincidental, not least because this probably predates both the Movie, and possibly the birth of its Director!

Sawyer's of Viewmaster fame are believed to be behind this superb piece of pulp sci-fi' made solid, in a chunk of polystyrene (or even a Bakelite material?) with four lenses, sorry - engines and pilot/gunner's windows! Because, when it's not being a spaceship, it's a pair of not very effective, novelty binoculars!

 

The decoration revealing its twin-use directive are simple 'panel lines', raised on the surface, above we have what I think is the top, with two cockpits laid-out at the fat (front?) end, and a hint of tailplanes raised at the thin ends. Four cannon holes or ray-gun/laser-ports are lined-up along the leading edge of the connecting airplane/wing.

So, it's a ground attack/support fighter-bomber, in the tradition of the Mosquito, Lightning, Black Widow or Beaufort! The underside (or what I consider the underside) has similar surface detailing for folded landing wheels, bomb-bay doors and tail-wheel cabinets, along with the call sign/identifier PF-939 (for Plastic Fighter?).

 

The lenses have been wedged-in under pressure, to get stuck-fast against more raised lines of polymer, and I'm thinking, if I use a rubber mat and wooden dowel, I may be able to get them all out to clean the interior, and polish the lenses, but that's for another day!

 

Two holes in the outer winglets are for a neck-cord/strap, but the cord that came with it wasn't long-enough to go over a five-year-old's head, so even if it was original it got removed as a rather stained and dirty remnant, beyond the stores required, going forward!

 

At 40/45mm it's a single or twin-seater?

But at smaller scales it could have a crew of six or more, and looks like a serious piece of intergalactic war-kit, with a busy maintenance schedule, when back on Terra Firma! I phuqing love this stuff!

I wonder if George Lucas had one?

K is for Kleeware's Komic Kop Kar!

Continuing with yesterday's 'oh that's what they are' meme, these were shot on Adrian's stand at the recent PW show and actually produced "Oh! That's where they're from / what they are" calls of recognition; all day.

Anyone who collects a bit of everything;, anyone who collects early-looking stuff; anyone who collects police, emergency service or civilian themes; anyone who's spend more than an hour going through rummage trays, bins or tubs in the last 20 or 30 years - has either got one or two of these or seen a few! Mine's the standing red one!

Now, given the amount of mould-sharing (and piracy) that went on back in the day, especially with Kleeware, and the fact that some US police forces had helmets like ours for a while (I seem to remember from the old B&W silent comedies of my youth - they were repeats all right! I'm not that old!), I wonder - given that they also have sheriffs/deputies stars - if the original might be an American thing?

The Kleeware Crazy Cop Car. The box is similar to that unknown-maker, clockwork, firing machine-gun nest we looked at a while ago, but that's where the similarities end. Where that was made of bright lightweight polystyrene, this is a much heavy, colder polymer, with more subdued colours; still a styrol I think, but it could be a late, stable, phenolic resin, or - from the damage on the foot-slots of mine - a high quality Bakelite?

The wheels are fitted to cam-equipped axles which jump the seats up and down causing the policemen to bob about as the vehicle moves. Additional fun can be had by piling them up using the various slots/grooves and protrusions on both the figures and the car.

A few shots of the box sides gives a further idea of how they stack and join-together. If you have them, you can get them out of the 'unknown' zone and label them-up! Cheers Adrian.

F is for Friegur...whatever that means!

Back to the show-and-tell round a mate's house the other month and another real rarity, tying-in nicely with the WHW stuff we looked at the other day. Dating from slightly earlier than the 'war-relief' tokens, this was issued in the early nineteen-thirties with a subsequent referb' around 1939 leading to more open warfare between German and French-looking units on the box-lid artwork.

This is the early version with a less controversial/confrontational box-art. The playing-pieces are made by ISO Press in a Bakelite type material called Taumalit and a quick Google search reveals that both names appeared on various Art Deco and Bauhaus style home wares and novelties at that time.

The first word is problematic; and while my German is not as good as it once was, it's still capable of comprehension yet 'Friegur' stumped me, so I turned to Paul over at Pauls Bods, and he went to such lengths to try and provide an answer I'll let his own words tell the story...

Hi Hugh;

Friegur....an actual translation in German...nothing...it could be friesisch but I´ve not found it in any of my 1800´s dictionaries...only here in Icelandic;

-maöur famous man; -rerk feat, exploit. fra'gilegur a. glorious, laudable. frægja (i) vt. make famous. friegur a. famous, renowned. fræki-legur a. valiant-looking,

But that´s all there is.

I can´t find anything on the guy (E.Strey) and the publishers who brought the game out...only that it first appeared in 1934, in Leipzig and is worth a fortune...

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/4614157

On the description of the auction site it is written Friegur`...but whether that means it´s been shortened from another word...? Any additions or combinations just lead back to 'hairdresser' in German!

The only other possible thing it could be is a combination of two words...basically taking the pee....Frei - (but the last two letters are the wrong way around) 'Free' in German and Guerre...French for 'War' and against the occupation of Germany's industrial areas after WWI. Maybe it was an in Joke of the time?

I´ll ask further.

Funny thing is...all the letters are there to create Figure. ;-D

Thanks Paul, I'd noticed the 'figure' thing as well! The rest is easy; "...Das Kampsspiel um Festung und Fahne" means '...The Wargame of Fortress and Flag. The maker is also described differently in the auction sample, being given as Strey/ Verlag L. Barth not Denkmeier & Fischer as in this set? (Now solved - see comments, thanks to Brian Carrick and Andreas Dittman).

Two shots of the 'German' army lying in their tray and set-up for the camera. They are in a neutral khaki colour (oxide red in the link Paul provides) but have the 'Fritz' helmet which was not used by many other nations at the time, Franco's forces in Spain and the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek in China being the more notable users along with one or two South American nations.

While the trench mortar and tank have more than slight shades of WWI about them and the field gun is pretty generic for the 1930's, there is no mistaking the lines of the Messerschmitt Bf.109!

Various shots of the board, rules booklet and a close-up of the base mark on a figure, the piece of text lost to the flash reflection is not important but for your records reads; DRGM No.

It is interesting to note that while the game has had patents applied for in Denmark, the US and Italy (all quite to the right at the time, sorry Americans, but while your President was 'on our side' your congress and a large proportion of the population weren't as we saw in this post; Composition, not that we didn't have our own extremists at the time!!) and Poland (who they were intending to invade!) the game doesn't seem to have been registered in (or exported to?) France or Great Britain?

The 'French' army have a close approximation of the 'Adrien' helmet which was quite widely used around Europe and further afield at the time and are in another neutral colour of a dark chocolate brown, I don't know if these colours were changed for the later 'aggressive' version of the game as I haven't seen one.

The lines of the Messerschmitt are much clearer in this shot despite the lack of a cockpit! I also love the way the lozenge-tank seems to have been given an H.G. Wells'ian or 'Maginot-line' turret on the roof to replace the side sponsons!