| Benbros "TV Series" and "Mighty Midgets" 9-12 |
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Number 9 was the Dennis Fire Escape which was always painted red, It had a red baseplate and silver trim to the grille, headlights, hosereels and to the hose connectors on the sides, Early issues had unpainted metal wheels and later ones had black plastic wheels, There were two types of ladder, The early unpainted die cast issue had open rungs and yellow wheels whereas the later one could have open rungs or closed rungs and it had smaller escape wheels, This second type ladder is always painted bronze. Value approximately £25-35 |
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Number 10 was the Crawler Bulldozer which is usually painted orange all over including the rollers and it had silver trim to the grille, air filter and engine, It was fitted with a yellow die cast dozer blade which could be raised by pulling back on a lever mounted on the side, It had good quality green rubber tracks which unlike the ones found on Lesney Crawlers dont seem to perish at all. Surprisingly the rollers were painted before they were fitted to the crawler Value £25-£35 |
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Number 11 was the Crawler Tractor with Hayrake which used the same casting as the number 10 bulldozer but without the dozer blade. It is usually found in yellow or orange but other colours may exist, It had silver trim to the grille, air filter and engine, Not having a dozer blade fitted allowed it to be fully assembled before painting. It came with a diecast hayrake which was usually painted pale yellow. This model is often confused with the 8a Lesney Crawler which was also available in yellow and orange, value approximately £30-£40 |
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Number 12 was the Army Scout Car which was actually a very accurate model of the Daimler Dingo. The model was cast in two halves which were riveted together and the join around the middle is very hard to see so full marks to the toolmaker. It was painted military green as are the metal wheels and axles. The earlier issues had a brown painted driver fitted which is often missing (see pictures!), later issues had a military green diver which was cast in. Value approximately £25-£35 |
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