| Lesney Jumbo the walking Elephant |
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1950 saw the introduction of the Lesney Jumbo the walking Elephant, This one was unique as it was mostly made from tinplate and was fitted with a clockwork motor which would power the legs & make Jumbo walk. Before the war J Kohnstam of Moko was importing Jumbos from Blomer & Schuler in Germany, It was he that suggested Lesney could make a similar toy which would help Lesney because their zinc stocks were under threat of being reserved for military use because of the Korean war, Because Jumbo was mostly tinplate he would not be affected by the embargo on zinc, Jumbo did have die cast zinc legs but in the event of a zinc embargo they could easily be switched to tinplate. Lesneys Jumbo body was made in two halves which concealed the clockwork motor, he had four diecast legs and a grey wool tail, Lesney were never happy making Jumbo as they were excellent diecasters and copying a tinplate Jumbo was not really their thing, The Lesney Jumbo was packaged in two different boxes, one was in blue and yellow and made no mention of Moko where the second box in red black had an identical design but included "Moko" in large letters along the top. Jumbo is quite a hard one to find but it does not seem to have the same attraction to collectors as the die cast toys do although it still fetches a hefty price when one does come up for sale. It was deleted in 1951. |
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collectable toy specialists. |
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collectable toy specialists. |
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collectable toy specialists. |
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collectable toy specialists. |
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