I came by these fighters last Christmas, they have been at home since 1992, although they are much older. I though this might be a curious toy to show in my blog, something different.The manufacturer of this toys is not a toymaker, but a publishing house based in Hondarribia (Spanish: Fuenterrabía), in the Basque Country. This publisher is mostly known for its comic books for adults, but they have also released adventure and children comics. Their most surprising release for me was the Spanish edition of Robotech/Macross, in 1985.
In the early to mid 80s the company also released a series of 6 fighters in a very light material that could actually glide. They are priced 100 pesetas, which at that time was a lot of money. This could be the reason because the planes didn’t sell that well. The rest of the production was probably sold off at a very low price, to a third company or person. I got mine years later (as said before) in 1992, inside of a “surprise bag”, that included old comic books, stickers, and small plastic toys, among other things. The price of the bag was 100 pesetas as well, 10 years later. I never saw them anywhere else, or knew anybody who owned or had owned them.
The models are old fighters from the 30s to the 50s:
Nr. 1 SAETA HA-200 (Spain 1955)
Nr. 2 DEWOITINE D.520 (France 1938)
Nr. 4 MESSERSCHMITT BF 109 (Germany, 1936)
Nr. 5 CURTIS „HELLDIVER“ (U.S.A. 1940)
Nr. 6 SUPERMARINE „SEAFIRE“ (England 1937)
Nr. 3 is missing, I don’t know which plane could it be…
Specially noteworthy are the beautiful stickers that decorate each plane, all of them different, as well as the different form of the wings and the plane.
Also interesting is that nr.1 in the collection is a Spanish fighter, the “Saeta HA-200”, probably one of the very few Spanish fighters made by CASA.
Hope you liked this entry!
FACTS AND FIGURES:
- Names: SAETA HA-200, DEWOITINE D.520, MESSERSCHMITT BF 109, CURTIS „HELLDIVER“, SUPERMARINE „SEAFIRE“
- Toy Line: AVIONES DE COMBATE
- Year: Around 1983
- Company: EDITORIAL IRU (Spain)
I used to love these as a kid, sometimes they were balsa, sometimes only painted on one side!
ReplyDeleteI hope No.3 was/is a Hurricane!
Hugh
I was thinking number 3 could be a japanese "Zero"... since there's already an british jet. As a kid I used to paint flags on paper planes to make competitions. The choice of the models could have a similar aim.
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment!