Slightly O/T Identify these aircraft

Sep 07, 2007 10 Replies

I found a very old box of odds and ends while cleaning out my stash. There were 2 small diecast aircraft made by Cragstan of Hong Kong. One is a Blue F104 with a silver tail and the other is a F111 Swingwing (and the wings do swing). It's all white. I have no idea when or where I bought these, but it was surely many years ago. Anyone know anything about these?



i know they are a part of my cosmology but not wht or where.

Do they run on larger than scale wheels? If so, I'm thinking they were out in the late '70s. I remember them being sold on blister cards at Kmart and other places.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

The wheels look pretty much to scale and they actually retract. They look like something that was probably sold in a blister pack rather than some "Franklin Mint" type diecast.

I think I found the F-111:

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Pat

F-111:

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Thats the F-111 (mine is in much better shape). I still don't know much about them?

Well, at least now you know it's from 1968...I'm surprised it didn't have a copyright date molded into it somewhere. After seeing the photo of it, I remember seeing this series of toys as a kid.

Pat

And I didn't. That's definitely not the one I recall.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

One set of aircraft toys I had as a kid were real replicas; they were very nicely detailed (recessed panel lines even) and prepainted aircraft that came fully assembled and camoflaged and marked correctly. These were very small in size, running from two to three inches long. I can remember having at least a Bf-109, Spitfire, Zero, Corsair, and Mirage IV. They all had retracting landing gear, transparent canopies, and were made out of Styrene with Polyethylene landing gear molded in black. They would date from the mid 1960's...does that ring a bell with anyone?

Pat

Are you referring to the Bachmann Mini-Planes series?There was about 57 in the series ranging from 1:90 up to 1:655 scale. Each one came in a clear top box that had a desciption on the bottom of each aircraft. I have the entirs collection in my basement, from an estate sale.

That's the babies all right. In fact, here's the Mirage IV I used to have:

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Pat

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