A quick look at one of the rarer items in
the Giant ouvre, but it is finadable and the odd one turns up on evilBay from
time to time, often with a silly price-tag but some will pay, mine came from
the James Chase collection's sale at SAS
Auctions in Newbury (2006?) and its unit price was almost zero . . . phew!
Although I was lucky, a thief went over the
lots during viewing and took a few pieces (EKO
paratroopers and a very rude 'Stag' novelty of a Hula girl), despite being
reported at the time; it was several years before SAS finally got rid of him! The
Paratroopers turned-up a few weeks later - via his weasel 'fence' hawking the
ill-gotten gains from a Tesco's bag -
at the evening toy fair in Odiham, but I'm still looking for the Hula
girl!
The parts; you get four small-diameter wheel/axle
combinations, rather following the pattern of the earlier (1958) Airfix railway platform baggage/mail trucks,
which clip into the gun-carriage, four shells (removed on mine) attached at the
hook end (left, above) and an unmarked gun-barrel which also clips onto the marked
carriage.
One author waxed lyrical about the jigget
on his gun, but he had it upside-down, the dragons (etched/moulded down each side of the
barrel) feet point toward the ground, and the jigget is a crude elevation stop.
It's actually toothed to suggest staged
elevation, but doesn't actually connect with the side-edge of the box below the
trunions, which it would need to for that to work! However - at a certain point
in the arc of depression - it does stop the gun pointing at the carpet, by
butting against the side-face of the box!
The barrel contains a spring and piston,
finger-pull firing-rod, with which you fire the cannon-balls about until you lose
them all! The previously mentioned stop mechanism of the jigget/'elevation/depression
ratchet' leaves the barrel firing at, err . . . Giant Mongol or Knight figure-height . . . splat!
A paler-gold one on Worthpoint,
illustrating the position of the cannon-balls on a mint one. I face my barrel
the other way, so the longer 'deck' can take a couple of crew, standing on it.
===============================================================
But is it Giant?
Yeah . . . it's marked, init!
