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Hi - new to the forum, first time poster: My brother has a model crane (see attached photos) which is not in the greatest shape, but which for some reason he absolutely adores. He has it out displayed in his living room. He has asked my help in identifying it, and though the tread bearing base looks very much like my Matchbox Ruston Bucyrus crane, I cannot find anything that matches this model in the Matchbox catalogs so meticulously detailed on this site.

Any help identifying this crane from the cadre of knowledgeable that frequent this forum would be greatly appreciated.

Normally people here identify items like this almost instantly, so it’s strange that this has been here for a week without answers. I think it says “made in Hong Kong” on one of the pictures, but I’m not sure if that helps much. There may be other words on the base if you look closely. Sorry!

I'll ask my brother to come up with some better pictures of the base, and any lettering. If someone can confirm that this is NOT a matchbox, that would be a good start in any case.

As DrJeep mentioned, HONG KONG appears to be on the underside of the Yellow main component, so have a look there and see if a better picture can be made of that area, there may be a name on the other side of the swivel point.

If it were Matchbox it would certainly show that name somewhere on the model. If it just has MADE IN HONG KONG but no other brand name or a logo, it will have been made for someone else to sell through a wholesale or distribution outlet.

MC TOYS, WT TINTOY, YATMING and PLAYART have all made models of this nature for marketing by other companies and looking at what can be seen in the pictures, it looks very much like a PLAYART type of product to me.

Ghosthunter.