1 lari = $0.41 (1 Sept 2017)

Friday 1st September, I don’t have any work on today, so I decide to see if I can find any diecasts at a couple of my regular hunting grounds. First I go to Pepela, they have no new Hot Wheels and nothing else to interest me (well, they have a Bburago Ferrari five pack but an asking price of over 50 lari…). Then, I head to Vagzlis Basroba, Isaak shows me some DeAgostini Police 1/43 Models including a Volvo 264, a Renault 4 and a DAF 33 for 20 lari each tempting (especially the DAF). Then I visit the clothes market, where I find a toy stall and a Hot Wheels Range Rover and Majorette Pontiac Fiero (3 lari each).

I had wanted a Fiero for a while ever since I’d seen a real one at a Classic American Car Show in Worcester,UK over 10 years ago. I had hope some day to find the Matchbox model but the Majorette model is fine, “Made in France” with over large wheels like the Porsche Turbo and Lamborghini Countach of the same era.

The Range Rover was part of the Biff! Bam! Boom! series of 1997. In pearl pink with VROOM!” on Hood and Roof and “SCREEEECH” on the sides.

Then I ventured to the Secondhand Toy Store, the ladies asked me where I’d been, but seemed content with “Qobuleti”(a beach resort on the Black Sea). I never know what I will find there. I came away with a Yatming Kenworth Car Transporter, a Matchbox “Flash Force 2000” Corvette and a Husky Ford Transit Caravan.

The Kenworth Car transporter has a metal cab and plastic trailer, the tailgate of the trailer is metal. At 15 lari it was half the price of the Polstil Car Transporter, I bought a while back (car transporters). Transporters are good for displaying cars, this model can hold six Hot Wheels size cars although the first car on the lower deck is a little cramped.

The Husky Transit was a big surprise, made in Great Britain in the late sixties, I got it for the princely sum of just 2 lari, it is missing its rear door but otherwise is in good condition for a fifty year old toy.

Matchbox “Flash Force 2000” Corvette is a bit of a mystery it is made in Macau and looks to have some kind of mechanism on the base for an explosive cap, I shall have to do some further research. Seems they were part of a 1984 set of vehicles with added armaments in a Mad Max style. I derive a lot of pleasure researching the details of my finds.

The total cost of the five models was 30 lari (of which half was for the Kenworth Car Transporter). The models are made in a variety of places: France. Great Britain, Macau, China and Malaysia.