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Hello Linus, can I add another tip. The 'King Size' Mercury 'Police' car has tyres made of a different material than the wheel rims and if you leave them on, there will be a sticky soft pliable gunge trying to escape from beneath the tyre at it's contact point with the rim. There has been quite a bit of discussion about this on the forum as to what is actually happening but for now the important thing to do is to remove the tyres if you can, but gently. The first sign of the tyre splitting is a warning to leave it as it is, unless you don't mind doing a repair to the tyre when it is off.

I do not currently know a cure for what happens to the rim and tyre combination, but it happans to a lot of vintage toys as shown on the model in my picture below. There are pictures on the forum of the other cars from the same 'King Size' range and their rim and tyre combination has gone the same.

GHOSTHUNTER.

Cragstan Kevin?

YYS4BOB wrote:Cragstan Kevin?

That particular pale Yellow model is a 'CRAGSTAN' but I have seen the problem on 'POLISTIL', 'NACORAL' and plastic toys from Hong Kong with matching wheel problems and where the remote control cable has been in contact with the model's body, leaving an ugly trough in the surface.

GHOSTHUNTER.

Here is the Dodge Charger with lovely gungy wheels...!
GHOSTHUNTER.

Thanks for that Ghosty! I'am always careful with these tyres. It is very hard getting (original) sparetyres from this type.
This problem seems to be caused by the hub (or in combination with the tyre):
These hubs (+tyres) were used on the Miura, Charger, Binz Ambulance, Cougar, and on the mercury police car.
On the Miura was a harder to find run with spoke hubs (I can add a picture if you want), which does not has the typical problem!

Thanks again

Linus

And here are more of my latest finds!

K-21-a Mercury Cougar



K-12-a Foden Heavy Breakdown Wreck Truck



K-15-b Merryweather Fire Engine



K-18-a Dodge Kew Fargo Articulated Horse Transporter



K-4-b GMC Tractor & Fruehauf Hopper Train



K-14-a Taylor Jumbo Crane yellow/red white wire



M6-a Pickfords 200 Ton Transporter


Early Lesney Bulldozer orange


32c Leyland petrol tanker Aral



K-3-a Caterpillar Bulldozer


Collectors Case



K-23 Low Loader with Bulldozer EMPTY BOX which I filled with my orange/yellow variation



K-30 Mercedes C.111 htf metallic blue/white



Thunder Jets


Spare Parts


All in all

Hi!
Very nice finds, Linus!
How rare is this blue variation of Mercedes C111? I have one also (not boxed and in played-condition),
but there are hardly any blue ones in Google-image search. Green is quite common I think and golden one
also.
Is there any good website about Super / Speed Kings of 70s?

Cheers
Matias

Hello Matias!
Excuse me for late responsing...
First of all, I can't tell you a good website for Superkings/Speedkings. I was searching for it a few times myself, but can't find anything. (Maybe some Forum members have an idea)

Lets talk about the Mercedes C111!
The blue Mercedes has to be a late run: the blue version is shown in a 1976 pocket catalouge, a metallic green version is shown in a 1975 pocket catalouge.
The blue one also has black plastic lamps, whereas earlier versions have lamps made of diecast, painted in orange. There was also a modification to the mechanism, which allows you to pull out the lamps:
earlier issues have a horizontal system, later issues have a vertical system. (see picture below)
There are also different glazings: clear, light orange, orange (and I think the gold C111 has purple windows)
In my opinion ckear windows are a bit harder to find than orange windows, but it may depends from where you live.
I can imagine, that there are many variations depending the assortment of colour, base-colour, glazing and "headlight-system".


I was searching for an answer wether the metallic blue or the gold one (with battery compartment ) is rarer, but I can't tell you.
From ebay and google I can tell you, that I have seen more gold ones than metallic blue ones, so thats MY PERSONAL order from "common" to "htf":

metallic green, gold-orange base, orange windows
metallic green, gold-orange base, clear windows
metallic blue, white base, clear/ light orange windows
gold version with battery system

Greetings,
Linus

And here are some more arrivals. Mainly from fleamarkeds + 1 toy fair!

And a Mustang. Condition....
But I really like the casting.

Greetings,
Linus