15 Fork lift truck

[nearlymint]

Recently added this fork lift with 5cr front wheels. Do have quite a few of these fork lifts now but this is the first I have had with these front wheels.
Does any one else have one of these. Jason

[johnboy]

Hi Jason, just plain old spiro's on mine. Are the unpainted hoists harder to find? One thing I did notice and that is the labels are not always cut the same and can be applied with the flying horse at the front or the back. I don't know if the labels were revised or just applied on the wrong sides.

[nearlymint]

Hi John, this is a later model from the K34 set I think with the long red forks and a cast in steering wheel. Unpainted forks are not that hard to find but there seems to be so many variants of this model.
I have one boxed and quite a few loose ones that are all different. green, black and unpainted bases, different front and rear wheels. Problem I have that if its different I just have to keep
it for reference in my collection.
Labels I am not sure as I have not gone into them to much yet. I know as you say they are different but I am not sure if this is an error or not.
Thanks for checking.
Jason

[familybucket43]

Never seen big 5 crown wheels on this forklift before,is it possible somebody has switched the wheels over? the end of the axle on your picture looks like its been altered!

[nearlymint]

Never seen big 5 crown wheels on this forklift before,is it possible somebody has switched the wheels over? the end of the axle on your picture looks like its been altered!

Never even crossed my mind, but I have checked and they look exactly the same as my others so I think nothing has been tampered with. Just the flash in the picture makes it look a bit odd but its all ok.
J

[mbox75]

Hi All
here my 5 crown Version.Cheers Mathias.

[ChFalkensteiner]

Like Mathias, I only have orange examples with 5 crown front wheels, and those are the wider type compared with Jason's red example.

Those orange ones came in the German regional Super Kings "Bizzl" issue in 1983, and they came without the black roof normally found on the orange versions. (The model would not have fitted in the box with the roof.) They came with silver-gray, charcoal and probably also black baseplates.

I have not seen a red one with 5 crown front wheels before.

[nearlymint]

Thankyou for the info, I do not have the orange version with 5 crown front wheels. Thats another one to add to the list
and one I shall look out for. This red one came in a recent job lot and I am confident it is genuine, so there should be more
out there somewhere. J

[ChFalkensteiner]

Hi Jason, just plain old spiro's on mine. Are the unpainted hoists harder to find? One thing I did notice and that is the labels are not always cut the same and can be applied with the flying horse at the front or the back. I don't know if the labels were revised or just applied on the wrong sides.

Regarding the labels, there are three "common" types which were used consecutively:

A - pegasus at rear faces forward
B - pegasus at front faces backward
C - pegasus at front faces forward

Type A is typically found on early examples with spiro & 5 spoke wheels (1973-1975). Type B is typically found on examples with dot dash wheels and lemon hoists (1976). Type C is typically found on examples with dot dash wheels and unpainted hoists (1977-1982).

This is just a general "rule of thumb"; as usual there were overlaps, particularly type B labels on spiro & 5 spoke examples are not uncommon. And since the labels are sided, incorrect combinations (two left side labels, two right side labels or left and right switched) can always be found too.

[Ewan]

Please excuse my total 'Superfast Ignorance' here

How would you rank the rarity of base colours on these? I only have one, I think it is an early model - Spiro front wheels, 5 slot rear wheels, grey forks, yellow hoist, label A and a green base.