Continuing with the 'theme de jour'...
These are nearly all marked '
Germany' or '
W.Germany' and are usually
Manurba (Manfred Urban). The two upper ones are Hong Kong copies, I've only ever seen the HK ones with black wheels, but
Manurba originals come with black or white. War-gamers and modellers only need to cut the horse off and add a new team. The Giraffe wagon is particularly sought after and harder to find. Other colours are white and dark blue, for some reason I absentmindedly duplicated the middle one?
This is a copy of the other type of 'W.Germany'/
Manurba wagon, I do have lots of these, mostly originals, but have lost the box (I saw it only the other day so it can't have gone far), the figures are actual '
Giant' figures, but neither the wagon or the packaging is, such is HK production! Most copies are of the one wagon, with the three pieces of luggage on the roof, although - again in the missing lot - they did produce copies of one or two others. The German ones run to about 12 variants including a Santa sleigh which is more sought after, my missing lot was the 'wagon display' at my old house, and it makes you wonder if you should only display duplicates, to ensure the collection is in one place and easy to find!
These are probably late production/post '
Giant'
Giant wagons, although I know if I unpacked them there would be faint traces of the '
G' and '
T' from
Giant on the white Frontier Coach sets horses, inside the flank, and a faint
Giant near the tail of the Blue card sets horses. Note also, that like the Guards I posted a while ago, one of the cards is overprinted with the
W.H.Cornilius '
Success' trade mark.
These could be
Giant or immediate post
Giant, the graphics shout
Giant, and the contents are right, and given that these were bought in the UK, and that New York is not in the UK, there's no reason to expect 'Giant' to appear on our issues, although sometimes they do!! Also without removing them from the pack you don't know what the marking is in the underside of the wagons...Doh!
Top row are Clive Knight for Tradition, middle row are all Stadden's while the British Lancer is a Willie by Suren, an Airfix German feels rather inadequate while providing a size comparison! [See also; The two Prussians in the following post.]
Sky Birds 'Boche', I thought there were three poses, but I only seem to have two, as it's a large sample from dozens of sources over the years, I must have imagined the third pose!! As if to confirm the false memory syndrome; I can't even decide if I'm imagining an advancing pose or a standing firing pose!!! Doh! Unless I've got some more somewhere else, I guess it's just the two, these go with Airfix, size wise but are chunkier and from a different - later - period of the war.
The good old - complete with all faults - Airfix tank, made-up as per the instructions, with a couple of the Galoob Micro machines in the foreground. Airfix have in the last few weeks announced two new versions of this kit, with 'new parts' added, the female will NEED new parts, whether they will add new parts to the male, is another matter, and I think both will still have the rear steering wheels included.
This is relatively recent Hong Kong/China production, based on (but not the same as...) the fictional WWI tank in the (2nd?) Indiana Jones movie. Loosely representing the Anglo-American Mk VIII 'International' of 1919, it's a very unusual and pretty unique design for a HK company to come up with, and it came with a similarly coloured/camouflaged modern USMC LVTP!! Both in a reasonably usable 1:76/72 scale...Bargain!
