News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.162

The latest issue (number 162); sees me getting worse on the timings again, as the next one is due any day now, but here it is - just in time . . .

Articles

* The opening article has Colin Penn show-and-telling on a purchase of a Britains Zoo eagle conversion.

* Staying with Britains, there's a brilliant editorial on Summer County premiums with contributions from Jonathan Stevens and Barney Brown.

* Certain err . . . coincidental images in Timpo publicity material/packaging are examined by Steve Pugh.

* Erwin Sell looks at 1980's copies of Crescent and Cherilea medieval foot and mounted, re-done as Romans.

* Best article this month (even: ever?) is Andreas Dittmann's Koziol bazooka-man . . . cowboy! Yes - you read that right, and with two other make's similarly cannon-equipped cowboys and a lovely Indian wall plaque arrow-firer. . . stuff you otherwise probably never see; brilliant.

* Tom Stark looks at the hobby as it relates to 'counter price' vs value and such like.

* H.G. Wells is brought to life by a lovely diorama from the hand of Joseph W. Svec III, depicting events in Woking, Surry all those future-past years ago.

* The third pose-example of a Lone Star Musketeer turns up (that's three poses and about ten figures that we know about now), as I say every time: it's only a matter of time before a whole box turns-up!

'What The !&*$?' has four question marks this quarter;

·         An early-looking (French?) mounted knight in armour from Jack Shalatain

·         A seated AFV crewman/motor cyclist/tractor driver/passenger type of military appearance from Joe Bellis . . . Penny Farthing rider?!!

·         Barney Brown's large scale cowboys and Indians are still looking for a positive ID

·         A moustached French actress/circus lady in her underwear whipping a mike . . . all very Parisian!

* Les Collier looks at a set of figures from Toltoys which I found fascinating as I thought they were French and possibly premiums.

* Tom Stark returns for a second contribution, looking at Publius new sets and new retail arrangements.

Regular Features

'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' has a follow-up on the unknown figures from the previous 'NEWS...', being Nordplast, news on C&T auctions, a new French show and news on Papo moving into 54mm.

'Book Review' this issue is very busy with reviews of four new titles

1.      Sixty Years of Airfix

2.      The A-Z of Timpo

3.      Farming in Miniature Vol. 1

4.      Farming in Miniature Vol. 2

'Readers Letters' this time is a four page fest, including mentions for:

·         Management change at the Chicago Toy Soldier Show (Janice and Rodger Garfield)

·         Books on Guards (Claude R, Hart)

·         Herald/Zang (Dan Morgan)

·         Marx (B. Nielson, JC. Martin and K Sprecher)

·         Engineer Basevich (Peter Cole)

·         Kellogg's (Kent Sprecher)

·         Dull Men of Great Britain (Tim Barker)

·         Ideal 'Justice League' and Wilton 'Batman' figures (Paul Stadinger)

'What's New' (as part of 'letters' this issue) mention releases from:

• Nagant - Anarchists (Mathias/Stads)
• Mars - Ex-Oritet Taliban, Russians in Afghanistan and Vietcong (Mathias Berthoux)
• Big Bad Toy Store - MOFO's (Mathias Berthoux)

Plus all the usual small-ads and a four page 'Plastic Advertiser' insert.

Covers are: on the front, lovely French moveable-arm figures from Miniajouets courtesy of Andy Partridge (nice, but not as nice as Andreas's figures!), with a further War of the Worlds shot on the back cover.

Remember also; for subscription details or re-up, contributions or queries, Plastic Warrior is now on-line here:

Website

Facebook

Blogger

eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

And they are on Paypal.

A is for Aurora, Allied & Axis Armour, Amphibious Assault on Anzio and Anti-Aircraft AFV

Today's topic was the subject of the first ever post on this Blog (dated now!), and while a few people would have seen it while scrolling, when it was still on the first few pages, the last time I looked it still only had 26 targeted hits! As we clear the million hits and approach the 1,500th post there will be occasions when we revisit something that was pretty-well covered the first time, and this is one of those occasions...

I only have the three cards, I'm assuming there was at least a fourth, for the Patton, maybe (but unlikely) a fifth - with a jeep; or two? Clearly copies of Roco-minitanks, they are each attached singly to the same card, which is overprinted with the content's title.

The Anzio Beach kit, filled - in the American style - with lots of 'stuff' to make it more of a 'play set', reused the Pz.Kpfw.IV chassis for a Whirlwind self-propelled flack-platform, but the tracks and wheels were really buggered-about with, and no hidden carpet-wheels were provided.

Comparison between the treatments of the underside, I can only conclude that a second vehicle was copied with little or no recourse to the first design . . . and that's assuming the better one came first, maybe it was a latter improved addition. As far as I know the Flakpanzer never got a carded issue, and the Mark Four never got included in either of the two kit/sets which carried the other vehicles; Anzio Beach and Rat Patrol.

The Panther however, came carded AND in both kit-sets, with one at Anzio and two more trying to prevent a pair of 'Rat Patrol'  jeeps from conquering North Africa or; a bunch of tea-time entertainment, Hollywood forgettable's forgotten's take credit for the exploits of the LRDG (Long Range Dessert Group) and SAS!

Again the carded vehicle has hidden wheels while the kit version has none, but here - the Panther - is of better quality overall than the Wirbelwind, but still of poorer finish than the carded example.

Part counts of the kit vehicles are simple; indeed the jeep has more parts than any of the tracked vehicles and even the landing craft! The carded versions getting the additional two hidden wheel/axle combo's.

Again we see a drop-off of quality with the kit version, the two locating slots and the tabs that connect with them being particularly obvious, much rougher and needing cleaning to work properly, apart from the Pz.IV as noted above, all the others seem to be copies of the originals, that is: the carded copies of Roco were then copied for the kits...maybe someone had scrapped the moulds in a moment of madness, however as also touched on above: it may be that the carded ones were letter, cleaner re-designs?

When HO worlds collide!

The Aurora road-tanker in the US slot-racing scale of 1:64th HO, refuels the tank copied from a European 1:90th'ish railway HO which through the late sixties/1970's would be formalised at 1:87th, while an Airfix 'tankie' in a nominal 1:76th HO/OO looks on, he's actually toward the OO/1:72nd end of that particular HO scaling!

Yet they all look OK together . . . the AFV a bit small, but . . . who cares? A few more figures spread about would pull everything together a bit better.

The Patton which I assume had a carded version, these are the two colours of the Anzio Beach sets (the Germans always in grey), and neither have carpet-wheels. Rather anachronistic for Anzio, it was nevertheless the star of many 1960's/'70's war movies (sometimes on both sides . . . the Germans always in grey!), courtesy of the Spanish, Greek, Turkish or Portuguese armies!

Below them the equally anachronistic M38 (?) jeeps, which I suspect didn't get a carded version. Interestingly, the rather tatty Rat Patrol one at the back is a different moulding from the two Anzio variants, with tabs on the otherwise finer windscreen, so again; to get it on the Rat Patrol frame/runner ('sprue') it was re-cut.

The final vehicle from the two kit-sets; A landing craft, which would look more at home on an African river-crossing (sans pom-pom!) than a WWII beach assault landing, but it's a useful asset to war-gamers none the less!

Aurora - rather cheekily - actually included the copy of the Airfix 1st version US Marine's rubber boat in their vehicle total for the Anzio kit, but I'm proceeding on the assumption  you know what that looks like! If you don't: it's on the Airfix Blog.

T is for Two - Early Plastic Vehicles

These are both militarised versions of civil toy vehicles, in the case of the lanny: more obvious than the sports car which may have been intended to be a stab at 'British Racing Green'?

This has the wheels of the little Tri-Ang Minic trucks we looked at a long time ago, but is scaled larger than them; here in a nice 'army' green, it's a basic short-wheelbase, Mark-One Land-Rover with pick-up body as used by farmers from day one, before the army adopted them and clamped a spare-wheel to the bonnet. Equipped with a standard Minic push-and-go motor, it's not terribly accurate, but the headlights and grill say: Mk.I!

I suspect this is more accurate to the real thing, but not being a fan of two-seat sports-coupes, I can only guess at Morgan? Jaguar? Riley? It's made in the USA who weren't known for this type of car (were they?), so I'm guessing it's a European 'type' anyway, although the squidged 'm', fort or hat shape logo (Maserati? No . . . trident!) on the bonnet doesn't seem to be a clue?

Also interesting - given its likely age - is that it's a soft polyethylene, the Irwin mini-planes being made of a more phenolic or styrene type plastic?

A scaleing-shot with Spencer Smith's figures, the Tri-Ang lanny is not too bad, a tad big for the 30'mils, but - as you can see - the Irwin 'staff car' is better suited to 50mm and could pass for a 54mm officer's steed...if any government would issue such cars! And you should never use the bonnet as a look-out!

911 is for Call the Emergency Services!

If you live the other side of the pond that is . . . I remember thinking as a kid that they must be saying '911' in the movies and TV dramas because they aren't allowed to use the 'actual' 999!

Brain sent these a while ago, well it seems like a while ago as it's been a busy time recently, but they arrived a month ago this Friday! Of interest is that they are the basis of the smaller ones we looked at here a couple of years ago ['can't find the link...obviously haven't tagged it properly!].

Six Jaru police in blue and six other emergency personnel, mostly firemen (or firefighters!) in a mix of red and white, but with the same three poses in each colour. Did other sets have those two reversed?

I asked Brian for a shot of the pack for my records this week, but it was good enough to use on the Blog! Also comparisons with the cheepo-copies I found, the police being the inside pair, the fire crew the outside pair. You can see the clones are a bit smaller, and the teeny pistol's ancestor is revealed to be another teeny-pistol! It's like he's pointing his finger . . . "Halt! Or I poke you in the eye perp!"

The lower shot is a comparison with the Fishel figures; they're modelled on a later (more modern) era, with 'Fritz' helmets, something equating to a Heckler-Koch MP-something-or-other and body armour, also they are a better sized 54mm. The upper shot is another comparison between the Jaru in the middle and the clone to the right with a painted vinyl original to the left, which may be modern, or may date from the 1980's and could be via Jaru (they've been around long enough), or some other rack-toy jobber?

T is for Two - Cherilea Rarities

Clearing Picasa with this post!

This is rather exquisite, photographed the other day on Adrian's stall, well outside my budget! Obviously designed by the same guy who did the UN troops, but he seems to have improved his sculpting slightly, and they work better for not having all the panoply of combat soldiers draped over them!

It's a bit impractical, I assume it's designed to float, but without the weight-system of Timpo and Britains, combined with their flat-bottoms; it's unable to stand-up on the carpet. I didn't try to assemble the loose figure as at this age it's best not to try, unless you've paid for the item first!

This has been in Picasa since March 2013, so well over-due for its fifteen minutes! The 1st version British Infantry swoppet-type, with plug-on boots, a separate bayonet and integrally-moulded sniper's rifle, I bought some 2nd version bits the other day, and it's the best way to collect these, a hand-full of bits at a time and mix and match until you can make-up a few complete ones.

M is for Magnetic Monsters on Magazines

It's been quite a while since we visited Dr. Who Adventures Magazine, but I spotted these on Wednesday, so time for a return visit clearly, and more Doctor Whatisname stuff for the collection!

Given that the cost of the mag. is the same whatever is on the cover, this is better than some of the generic shite they give away with a DW sticker on it! A set of four semi-flat (or relief), PVC/hybrid styrene- rubber, paint-your-own, fridge magnets.

The figures; approximately 30mm. Since out last visits to the publication it's gone to bi-weekly, then monthly, then it just petered-out. For several months I didn't see it anywhere, and then about six-months later I noticed it again, had a shufti and noticed it was issue 5! It had re-started; as if it had never gone away, or - given the numbering - as if it had never previously existed!

I'd rather lost interest as it had stopped putting useful stuff on the cover (although I picked-up enough for a mate), and the new-shape Daleks never got a re-issue, even though the old Fatleks kept getting outings, including a gold issue before last Christmas. Then when it did have a new-shape on it a couple of months ago, it was with a load of other 'real' crap; so I left it!

We've heard my view on this sort of marketing before - with this mag, with the Horrible Histories and with the Star War Command stuff, and it's so annoying to see young flibbertigibbets with their degrees in publishing, digital-marketing, history of art &etc . . . not exploiting a good idea properly...and it's not a question of me applying my old-school sensibilities to something I don't understand, it's clear they don't give the ideas time to grow, they don't market them properly, they give-up at the first sign of 'bottom-line' damage, they drop-back to lowest common denominator novelty face-masks without 'building brand' . . . frustrating . . . I tell's yer!

The magnets were A) not strong enough to hold the figures on a vertical surface and B) had suffered some catastrophic reaction to either the glue or the figures, resulting in them all coming loose and sitting in a chemical puddle, which may well have had a degree of toxicity! I gave them all a good clean with a spirit-based cleaner and chucked the magnets - those funny little rubber chads with magnetic dust mixed it. But it hardly helps sales when the cheapie-novelty is unworkable and sticky, straight out of the box!

There was no Advent calendar for 2015, this is the 2014 one; the contents were the same as the previous years, just new artwork with a cut-out 'Battle Scene' on the back and the same tray-insert.

L is for Lounging Lizards or Lizard's Lounge

I feel a bit of a theme developing, there was the bronze one awhile aback which was itself triggered by a nice rubber one on another Blog (Jan's?), the pack of 12 the other day, and now these sent in by Brain Berke yesterday.

Current rack-toys from across the pond, they come in two sizes of which these are the smaller set. Two poses, three of each but given six separate colour-ways.

The larger ones come four to a pack, and they are four different sculpts, and like the mini-ones the other day seem to be well detailed and anatomically correct, although the paint-jobs are, I suspect, a bit, err, over-zealous?

Brian found a second set with four more colour variations. I know nothing about MTC, except to assume the TC is 'Toy Company' and that's it's a modern US jobber, rather than either of the MTC's I was confused by the other day...or is it?!

Have you any Lizards, old or new to share with us?

M is for Marx Miniature Mash-up

Both a lovely thing and a bit of a shitter! A 'lovely thing' because it contains very fine polystyrene animals which have - mercifully - not been damaged, yet 'a bit of a shitter' as it's clearly designed (as if the word even pertains here!) to exploit a TV franchise, by grabbing whatever is to hand and shoving it in an existing format box, with no thought other than to make a few bucks!

The box follows the format of the late window boxes; we've looked at here before now - several times. Quite dramatic artwork with the zebra-stripes, it is guaranteed to catch the eye and generate pester-power for a purchase! 'DAKTARI' writ large only increases the desire to 'own a bit' of the child's current favorite TV series.

But hold on! No people, no vehicles, no recognisable characters; human or animal . . . just a bunch of European-looking deer and some giraffes, all from the Noah's Ark sets. Also; a quick investigation of the contents reveal that they are not the soft [unbreakable] plastic usually associated with these window-boxes, but rather the very frangible polystyrene of the earlier Miniature Masterpiece Ark sets.

Of interest though is the attempt to add interest to the contents with pop-up, card cut-outs of the grass-clumps. Although the two largest ones at the back have been ignored by 'staple-machine person' back at the factory! I should add that the three types of palm and the 'tropical' plants are soft ethylene however.

The missing: 'r'

The deer! Least said soonest mended forgotten! If any of these walked the plains of Africa, it was a Hollywood Africa, probably filmed in Yugoslavia!

Made by the Taiwanese arm of a US company, shipped to and packed in Hong Kong for onward transit to the British arm's marketing men to 'tie-in' with a TV series set in Africa.
I still think you'd be bloody disappointed when you got this home and broke half the animals getting them off the cardboard they've been grimly glued-to with something looking like Evostick . . . rubberised, brown snot!

The carbon-footprint of this item is frightening enough given what we know now, but the intent to rip-off is more worrying, and points to reasons other than oil-crisis' and Eastern competition for the demise of some Western companies; they were taking the piss out of their customers!

F is for Fat-Flat French Fellows from Figurines Historiques

And so to the London Toy Soldier Show, which I wasn't planning on attending, and haven't been to for years, certainly not since the move to the new venue at the Business Design Centre in Islington. I can well recommend the trip to anyone who's umming and arrhing, it's a light airy venue, with plenty of space and wide aisles.

I had my eye on these all day, but wasn't supposed to be buying much (budget not stretching to three shows in a month - I also did Sandown last weekend), so - at the end of the show - I asked the vendor; an old mate, if he could do me his best price, and he quoted a fair-one, so the deal was done.

I had taken a few looks at them/rummaged through them during the show and having not seen any obvious duplicates knew they would be worth a punt, but was pleasantly surprised - when I'd got them home and sorted them into chronological order - to find what seemed to be four full sets of 12 semi-flats or 'Demi-rond'.

Being the Mokarex re-issues by/as Figurines Historiques for Historex/Historex Agents, less the 3 Napoleonic sets which may not have seen a FH re-release (Historex having their own extensive range of fully-round 'multipose' 54mm Napoleonics), and the other set of French Personalities, which - ironically - I have bagged, in storage! The missing figures being;

• Bayard
• Conde
• Connetable de Bourbon
• Duguesclin
• Hoche
• Jeanne d'Arc
• La Tour d'Auvergne
• Mal de Saxe
• Marceau
• Roland
• Turenne
• Vercingetorix

However; let's look at what I've got here . . .

• Gaulois 300 (Gaul)
• Franc 400 (Frank)
• [King] Clovis 465-511
• [King] Clotaire 1 558-563
• Merovingien 600 (Merovingian)
• [King] Charlemagne [The Great] 768-814
• Carolingien 800 (Carolingian)
• Capetien 1000 (Norman)
• Chevalier Croise (Knight Crusader 1100'ish?)
• S• Louis 1226-1270 (St. Louis)
• [King] Louis XI 1461-1483
• [King] Francois I..1515-1547

As these figures are from more than one set of original Mokarex premiums and/or separate runners (as Figurines Historiques) I stress the above is not a set, but rather figures from up to three sets, arranged chronologically by date/s given.

The Figurines Historiques runners do all have 12 figures, arranged as branches of a 'tree' format; six each side, and were sold bagged with a header card. They are in the same pure-white, slightly soapy or soft polystyrene as the rest of the Historex range, holding detail well, and easy to clean-up, glue and or paint, however . . . compared to the silver, gold, bronze or gunmetal of the Mokarex originals: a bugger to photograph!

• Archer 1520 1520 (date repeated, no bow, so; man-at-arms?)
• Cent-Suisse de le Garde 1558 (Landsknecht type)
• Lansquenet 1562 (Conquistador type)*
• [King] Charles IX 1560-1574
• [King] Henri III 1574-1589
• [King] Henri IV 1589-1610
• Piquier [of the period of] Louis XIII (Piquet/Night Watch?)
• Mousquetaire 1627 (Musketeer)
• Garde Cal Richelieu 1628 (Cardinal Richelieu's Bodyguard)
• [King] Louis XIV 1643-1715
• Fusillier [of the period of] Louis XIV 1667 (Fusilier)
• Carabinier 1692

*Where the term 'Landsknecht' comes from?

Mokarex (another French 'x') were a coffee brand in France (and predominantly French-speaking Belgium) based in Paris, and issued all these along with fully-round solids and hollow plastic figures as premiums in their coffee, and I mean 'in' their coffee, I believe you had to break the seal and pour the coffee carefully into another jar, or dig-about with a spoon, to find your 'prize'.

Being the earlier figures I assume these were designed by Leroux, with the later solids being of Leliépvre's hand? While the 1976 Figurines Historiques revival - from which these figures date - seems to have been exclusive to Historex, JG Garratt reports that Nathan Polk (of Polk's Hobby Store) stated he and the Brethiot family (owners of Mokarex) were responsible for getting the project to fruition.

• [King] Louis XV1715-1774
• Garde Francaise 1724 (French Guard)
• Infanterie [of the period of] Louis XV 1745 (Infantryman)
• Grenadier 1771 [of the period of] Louis XV 1745
• Fantassin 1792
• Infanterie [of the period of] Louis XVI (Infantryman)
• Colonel De Hussard 1804 (Colonel of Hussars)
• Grenadier 1804
• Tambour Major 1804 (Drum Major)
• [Emperor] Napoleon I.. 1804-1815
• Chevau-Leger 1810 (Heavy Cavalry)
• Cuirassier 1810

I would imagine that these are actually less common than the Mokarex originals, as despite the customer base of Historex back in the day (and Polk's), there were - like cereal premiums - millions of the metallic-plastic ancestors issued.

One thing I have noticed about this type of polystyrene is that it tends to yellow if left in direct (or bright/long-term indirect) sunlight (the Airfix 'Multipose' and 54mm collector's kits suffer the same problem), so to find them mostly so clean-white is another bonus . . . however, if they are painted, that's not a problem . . .

• 6085 - D'artagnan 1611-1675
• 6086 - Athos
• 6087 - Porthos
• 6088 - Aramis
• 6089 - Maitre Bonacieux
• 6090 - Madame [Constance] Bonacieux
• 6091 - Planchet
• 6092 - Anne d'Autriche 1601-1666
• 6093 - [Earl of] Buckingham 1592-1628
• 6094 - [King] Louis XIII
• 6095 - [Cardinal] Richelieu 1585-1642
• 6096 - Milady

. . . the seller threw these in as well. They were only 11, but by some stroke of luck, I had picked-up the missing 12th pose (Mrs. Bonacieux ) three weeks ago at Plastic Warrior, from another seller! Painted by the same artist and numbered consecutively on the base, I don't know the significance of the numbering, which I have reproduced above; it could be a Mokarex catalogue thing, a Figurines Historiques thing or the painter's record-keeping thing?

Such a coincidence suggests, and it's only a suggestion, that these might be painted by William J. Carman (due to other offerings from both sellers and a recent re-auction of a portion of the Carman Collection), who was a fan of flats, when he wasn't designing solids! Whatever the truth, they are painted to a professional level, in an expressive, fluid style and I won't be dipping them in cleaner, overnight, ever!

If they aren't Carman's work, and you know who is responsible, please let me know as I'd like to credit the artist. D'artagnan looks as if he's been knocked over by his own caption!

"Right gang . . . circulate; you two watch over His Royal Holy Majestyness;

We'll both keep an eye on that slippery turd-bastard; the Cardinal"

 

A lot of Mokarex's output was based on figures in famous paintings, and one feels some of these might have been taken from a court view?

The discolouration I talked about above, also, a comparison between a spare figure and the new, painted one shows how, despite the figures being already quite well-detailed, the artist has added hints of so much more.

 

Below shows a few base variations, the one in the middle has the base typical of the Mokarex originals with a sort of orange-segment indent, to the left is an apparent attempt to remove the indent, resulting in a raised hump which makes the figure rock slightly, a few of the Figurines Historiques figures suffer from this, while the miss-placed base-block of the third example suggests a certain degree of changeability in the mould-cavities, which would only add to the confusion with trying to tie-down 'set' contents.

And we've hit one-million and 65 hits!

I is for Indian . . . with the Horn

I got the Horn . . . fnarr-fanarr - as Finbar Saunders would be bound to say at this point, another sub-collection seems to be forming, by accident as these things do!

I'm guessing there must be a Cowboy version somewhere, with a cowboy card, but I keep finding Indians . . . Indians from the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong!

Comparison with the ones we looked at in the December novelty-fest, or actually I think it was a couple of weeks before the rest? The large one is a reed-blower rather than the simple whistles of the small ones.

Different pose, it is the wonder of how many are out there, that will drive this sub-collection, curiosity; the force behind collectors . . .

. . . if you had a family the size of the Von Trapps, you could build an orchestra . . . it would be an excruciatingly painful orchestra, but still, it takes all sorts to make a world!

12 is for Lizards

Twelve of them, there are, Lizards, in a pack, that's twelve lizards - for a pound!

You see; I kid you not; it's twelve lizards in a pack, which clearly states "Pack of 12 Lizards", in The Works now, for a pound, that's less than 10p each - per 12th lizard*. They're cheaper than bites of a Mars Bar!

Joking apart, these aren't the crummy rubber approximations of a Dimetrodon without the sail you used to get stuffed in a capsule 20 or 30 years ago, these are well sculpted, well detailed, well made animals with a decent (if formulaic) paint job. Numbered 1-12 (top left to bottom right) there's definitely twelve of them!

I don't know if they are realistic paint jobs, or imaginary species? They also have relatively blank bellies, AND (while not being an expert in these things) some of them look like geckos (reptiles) and salamanders (amphibians) which would mean it's actually "Pack of 12 Geckos, Lizards and Salamanders", but I do know if Britains were still making their animals, they couldn't compete with this stuff - which is why they aren't!

But you have to ask how long Schleich and Papo can keep charging 4, 5, 6.99 for individual animals smaller than these (their puppies, cats and poultry for instance), when you can get twelve for a pound, even the capsule puppies start to look dear at a pound each.

If you're an animal collector; look out for them now, probably in other packagings elsewhere in the world.

*8.3-recurring pence per Lizard (about 12¢)

I is for Is it a rabbit? Is it a train? No! It's 'Super Tank'!

"Ladies and Gentlemen! May I present for your delectation, for your appreciation, for your admiration, for your fascination . . .

. . . The one, The only, The Kelo 'Super Tank', this tank Ladies and Gentlemen comes with the very latest in gyro-movement, it boasts 7 road wheels on each side - ignore the publicity material; the artist's been sacked - and the all important three little ones. It comes with reversed, rear, mirror-inverted, near-horizontal, torsion bars, triple-laid, kinetic, shock-plast armour AND - Ladies and Gentlemen - an eccentric wheel! The Peeyow-peeyow gun is second to none and the hidden co-axial is well hidden! The Kelo 'Super Tank' will meet the needs of generalissimos, dictators, interplanetary Merciless Mingers, despots and alien battle-fleet commanders everywhere . . . cash, cheques or bankers drafts drawn on Panamanian accounts preferred, no kryptonite! Please form an orderly queue, my colleague Barry will take your orders, free key-ring of Bugs Bunny in a Super Tank with every 10 vehicles ordered, terms and conditions apply..."

[Thinks...] Blimey . . . I want one of those; they sound, err, super . . . oh? I've got one? YES!
Read it and weep, peeps! Any nonsense out of you and I'll be round your gaff to dispense my kind of justice with the Kelo Super Tank, that wot I jus' got, init!

Forerunner of the Kinder mechanism! This is a difficult one, as my favorite AFV has been - for the longest time - the Dibro space tank, now this has turned-up and it's got a working turret and everything . . . Hasta manyana Gibro, hello Kelo! They both beat the Panzer IV running-gear-equipped LP efforts, hands down!

Pictured with contemporary figures for the 1950's (Tiny Trojan khaki infantry, lower image) and the 1960's (post-Giant spacemen, upper shot), Kelo (or Ke-Lo) ((Keith Lowe of Dudley in the West Midlands) were a small company with big ideas who sunk with little trace, they were - by the end - owners of the intellectual and some actual property of A. Wells and former Bing collaborator's Brimtoy, (Wells-Brimtoy) and I'm hoping to get more details from the expert - Chris - in a while, I think we had a Kelo rocking horse when we were kids.

[New] Best Space Tank Ever!