Hey SF,
No, that ain’t me. I have heard of him though. Good fella!
The Tamiya kit, for me anyway, wasn’t so much hard to find, they show up on ebay fairly regular. What makes THAT kit bad is, it doesn’t go for less than around $800.00 and I’ve actually given up at the $1200.00 price. Rare, yes, but more importantly…EXPENSIVE. Now, believe this or not, there are actually TWO versions, as with most 1:25 Tamiya tank kits from that era. This is a late 60’s version. Back then, what Tamiya labeled as a “remote-controlled” kit, meant they had this hand-held control box wired to the tanks and allowed for forward and reverse on two seperate (most of the time) motors. Reverse on one and forward on the other and you’ve got a turn. The OTHER version of this kit simply contains a motor with NO remote. Turn on a switch under the tank and it would crawl forward till the batteries died or fell off a cliff or you grabbed it and turned back off. Normally, the remote version would be the expensive one, right? NOT in this case. That NON-remote motorised version is three times as rare as the remote version and REALLY goes for big dollars! The thing with this tank is, they are BOTH strictly ‘collectors’ kits. The tooling for this kit changed damatically on the very next issue of this tank and it has never been the same as that initial release since. The other 1:25 kit needed for any of these builds, the 1:25 Tamiya British Chieftain, has remained (practically) the same through all it’s re-issues over the years, so it’s not in the same ‘collectors’ boat. While the actual kit of the Chieftain HAS remained the same all these years, there IS a big difference in the one single release that just so happens to be the same one Mr. Bower ended up using, so it DOES make finding the actual exact kit originally used just a little tougher than most think. There are parts in the kit Mr. Bower used that have NEVER been in the Chieftain kit since. That’s a fact. Found out by accident myself.
That butter dish was tough. I’m not denying that. 10 years looking. The fact that it was a butter dish wasn’t even known by ANYONE doing Space:1999 until I found the dish a couple years ago now. It was always thought to have been “3M rubber stick-on appliance feet”, but no one knew which actual type. However, once I found the first one, I found another within a week. Once I had the first in hand, knowing the maker and a few other details, it makes finding them so much easier. I now know there were several different colors of this thing (on the base, I should say, as I own a green and an orange and have seen a blue and white) and there is an exact same type without the cubes. Just straight, slick acrylic sides on it. Same maker.
Kinda like the illusive “Cake Pillars” used all over Space:1999 hardware. I have NO PROBLEM finding these now once I bought an original box of four. The actual maker of these known now, they actually show up more than you think. Now, the mattress vents that are also used…different story. I had to rely on a friend in the UK to send me a few of these originals since they have ALWAYS been simply cut out of old UK mattresses even WAY back when Mr. Bower used them.
Both typing fingers hurt…LOL!
Rob.
