Wanted one of these from the instant first encountered & pounced on a chance to have one with original matched box. Which has seen combat in the trenches but intact enough for my meager needs.
Chopper rotor and wheels are a tad loose but the thing is what, 62 years old? Hope I look as good.
Reminds me of a Sikorsky H-34 but compressed.
Only realized when examining the pix that there does seem to be lettering on the tail. Will effort a decypherment.
One rotor blade folds over to aid in storage.
If memory serves the metal is a tin/antimony mix and safe when in solid form. But kids shouldn't handle and is best kept on a display setting in touch-me-not conditions. My toys stay boxed up until its time to make pix then go right back in. Nobody will be licking the metal or filing off bits to inhale.
Right front wheel bears evidence of a hard landing or two.
Here compared with a very similar looking take on a Piasecki HUP packaged by an entity using the name "Bag of Best Toy" and often mistakenly described by online vendors as a Linemar.
Red plastic chopper an unknown, but retains the title of the smallest toy helicopter in my stash.
Not quite the same front end ...
:D
Now we know how much they sold for at retail.
Matchbox striker tab? Old man Marx was having one on at Lesney UK's expense maybe.
I have a thing about archaic obsolete outdated helicopters. They are instantly futuristic looking. Anything made before the Bell UH-1 Huey pretty much, and the blue job in this formidable lot of Japanese made dime store metal aircraft caught my eye. I'm always looking for small vehicle forms for my little box paintings and at the price being offered gave these a whirl.
Since obtaining my stash I've seen more of them offered up but zero data on who may have made them or when. My initial conclusion was early/mid 1960s "Linemar Wannabes" fashioned after the Linemar Elegant Miniatures toy range of ultra tiny diecast vehicles. Now I'm not so sure, and in fact think it's equally likely that the miniature painted Japan diecast or metal toy idiom existed all along & the Linemar series just perfected the delivery. Those were made for toy shops, these were made for airport gift shops, pharmacy toy racks or newspaper kiosks and likely sold for half as much, serving as an inexpensive throw away toy you'd get your kid to help him keep quiet during a long flight.
Some video:
The W is also found in a diamond on the hull of the helicopter and I can only think it's a symbol for a Japanese manufacturer.
Not my collection, interesting for how the colors on the card inking are reversed from the ones in my stash and the W logo is gone. Clever marketing idea for the packaging - It could contain anything.
Linemar "Space Missile" with its more specific packaging.
No idea what the aircraft might be and I kind of like the gull wing. Very Japanese looking.
DC-6?
F-88 Shooting Star?
F-105 Thunderchief?
Looks like a MIG. Could also be a Delta Dagger painted to look like a MIG, and the only other one of the group I'm super hot to open. First I want to learn more about them.
Had to open the helicopter, or heleocopter as we pronounce them here in Syracuse (itself pronounced Saracuse)
Zero stamping information. Wheels for aesthetic purposes only, does not roll and I won't be trying to. The metal is likely an antimony/tin alloy, and while not dangerous in this solid form children should not handle such toys. They shouldn't have handled them in 1960 either, though antimony smelting is apparently a traditional pop culture idiom in Japan.
The Piasecki HUP "Retriever", service helicopter introduced in 1949 and serving in various roles for the US Navy until 1964. That alone tells us the toy pieces were made earlier, at a time when the HUP would have been known to be in service. Elements of the design would later be picked up by Piasecki's H-21 Shawnee and the restructured company's Boeing-Vertol CH-47 Chinook.
Same distinctively bulging canopy.
Comparison with a CH-47 toy form and the different shaping to the rear rotor housing is apparent.
