OK - clearly someone has to educate you guys about the New Zealand brand Fun Ho! (always with the exclamation mark) as no-one else has commented about the history of the company.Fox wrote:Here is a new-Zealand model.
As you can see, it's smaller than a Matchbox. Of course it's fun and it's HO. It means 1/87 scale.
1. First let me refer you to my web site where there is a page on the history of the Fun Ho! brand
2. Then let me refer you to the Fun Ho! Website for additional information
3. Fun Ho! does not mean they are fun of HO scale - I have pointed this out several times over the years on various forums to correct the assumption that the HO is a scale designation - actually the intention was for the brand name to be an exclamation "Fun Ho!" as in the "Wagons Ho!" used in many cowboy films.
Fun Ho! (or rather Underwood Engineering) produced many toys in Aluminium and Mazac - the Aluminium toys were of a much larger size than that shown above and to this day they are still being dug out of refuse tips and gardens and restored as the only part that disintegrates is the iron/steel axle - many have seen out three or four generations of a family as they are virtually indestructible! Some of the largest toys were designed for use in playgrounds and sand pits and they can reach over 24 inches in length.
The smaller Mazac models were produced much later (see web sites) but they were also exported to the USA and Australia, which is why they are found in numbers in both those countries. The later versions with blue windows were specially produced in limited numbers for re-release through (as far as I'm aware) only two bookshops, one in NZ and one in Australia. Following Barry Young's establishment of the Museum he re-issued the small scale models as a fund raising exercise - the initial runs of the models were assembled from left over parts, newly cast parts (as he had acquired all the original tolling and machinery for the Museum) and left-over packaging. Today re-issues are still available through the Museum (produced on the original equipment from the original dies) but these are readily recognised as they have a much heavier coating of paint than the originals (in the case of the Miniature range anyway) and generally come without packaging.
Today's lesson endeth....
Ian