K15 Merryweather Fire Engine

[charliep]

I think someone mentioned about collecting information about the variations found in the kingsize & superking series. Well, something like this thread will be a good start to document all the known variations (information provided by the collectors) and when possible provide pictures. Kingsize includes superkings, speedkings, battlekings, sea kings and regular wheel kings - basically the series designated with the letter K. It is possible but much effort and commitment is required. Then there are the prepros and color trials which is any one guess what was made and what survived. This is a work in progress as it seems more previously unknown prepros keep surfacing.

[nearlymint]

Some superb information on the K15, will have to dig them out now. Just added this one with a grey hydrosleeve.

K15

k15.jpg (73.78 KiB) Viewed 3325 times

J

[yellowfoden]

Some superb information on the K15, will have to dig them out now. Just added this one with a grey hydrosleeve.J

Thank you Dan for starting this thread and to Antonin for excellent detailed images. This sort of focus on the finer points makes it easy to see how the model developed. Thanks also to charliep for additional detail.

Jason, nice find with the grey hydrosleeve, the hydraulics look nice and bright too as they are usually dull finish.
When you dig out your models have a look at the changes they made to the tool box on left side through life of the model.

What draws my interest to Lesney models is the fine detail, especially on early castings of a model like the silver trim to bumper. Only on early versions.

If you look on the left side of this model you will also see the tool box changed size from the shorter decal version to the later longer label version. I believe this was done to accommodate long rectangular paper labels.

I find it interesting that by using a rectangular label instead of a stepped shape label they covered the nice casting detail of the handles. On the tool box to make the label sit flatter it would appear they have removed the handles. See antonin superking pics.
Perhaps if Antonin reads this he can confirm if handles have been removed.
They even removed the nice overlay hinges and replaced them with single lines.

Just like the 57 Landrover fire truck the K15 Merryweather can be found with the white on pink or yellow on red stepped labels fitted to tool box.

Bert

[A-Man-Called-Bwian]

I've picked up a couple of disastrously damaged ones of these because the brass like control tower thingys make really good petrol pumps.