I bought a couple of job lots of these little green army men trucks on fleaBay because they looked familiar, and I thought they could have been Giant of Hong Kong, and just because I liked them...
...and then questions started to arise. They looked smaller than Giant but I had a feeling I'd seen them before. Then I went through some of my old photos and there it was - a picture of little ol' me with a birthday cake, on which it appeared was decorated with some of these vehicles!
...and then questions started to arise. They looked smaller than Giant but I had a feeling I'd seen them before. Then I went through some of my old photos and there it was - a picture of little ol' me with a birthday cake, on which it appeared was decorated with some of these vehicles!
There are two distinct variations. One variation has metal axles with plastic wheels while the other has one-piece plastic wheelsets. In addition, the metal axle version had fancier mounts which allowed the load to swivel and tilt. The cheaper version had one-piece loads which only swiveled.
And the trucks are smaller than Giant. Giant's toys were approx1/72 scale while these were closer to HO scale at 1/87 (2" long).
Okay, let's make one thing clear because it downright pisses me off especially when trying to search for toys in fleabittenBay
1/72 scale is not HO scale.
HO scale is 1/87 thereby much smaller!!!!
It's simple all you have to do is pick up a package of Preiser or Merten HO scale figures sold for HO scale trains. THEN pick up a package of Airfix 1/72 scale military figures.
See a difference? Of course you do - 1/72 is LARGER!
Well, then you get into this whole HO vs OO scale thing (which is very popular in the UK) and the waters really start getting murky, BUT HO and OO are closer to each other than 1/72 is to HO
okay, enough ranting and raving - too long in lockdown I guess.
To make a long story longer I asked for help from Hugh over at the 'Small Scale World' blog (see sidebar to the right) who identified these as Kleeware!
Start with this link and hit 'Older Posts' for additional info
Thanx Hugh!!
Enjoy! Opa Fritz
Pleasure to help a fellow collector Ed. Strictly yours are the Kleeware copies rather than Kleeware themselves - but the better-quality ones - and they (tools) were probably/possibly lent to Pyro (there was a lot of Pyro stuff in Kleeware's inventory), from whence Marx copied them in a larger-scale flatter form, which I believe is where the NFIC copies come from (rather than the Dinky original)? Readers might click of the 1-Ton humber tag to get all I've done on them, but it's by no means comprehensive!
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Thanx so much Hugh! I know so little (read: 'absolutely nothing') about so many of the toys in my collection it's always good to have a source or sources that are knowledgeable!!
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