Russian Tinplate

[Bassettblowke]

I’ve had this for a while now and every now and again I wonder why I bought it, wrong Scale for a start and secondly there appears to be  bits missing which makes it doubly difficult to fix especially as I haven’t got a clue about the maker. I have pondered dismounting the crane body from the pier like plinth it sits on  and mounting it on a Hornby Series bogie flat. But first things first I thought I would test the knowledge of the forum and see if anyone can identify its origins.

the Triang transcontinental diesel is included in the picture to help gauge the scale

Edited March 12, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Bassettblowke]

Made in USSR would presumably mean it was made for export. Another  pic to show the innards, one control lever operates the lifting and lowering of the cranes jib the other lever has been disconnected, I can only think that this one used to rotate the crane however nothing remains of the mechanism to do this  that’s if it ever existed in the first place.

[Il Grifone]

These things from the USSR tend to be collectable, so I would leave well alone.  I have one of those things where vehicles go round in circles. I'd post a picture, but it's in England and I'm here in Sardinia. My flight back has been cancelled and I'm rebooked after Easter. I'll just have to put up with more Sardinian sun!    It isn't all that warm however.

 

This appears to be mixed scale. The crane looks to be around 0 scale, judging by the cabin door, whereas the dock it's mounted on is much smaller. The track gauge would be 5 feet presumably.

[Nearholmer]

If you've got the TCS 'Train Collector' magazine archive on CD (I do wish it would go on-line!), I vaguely recall an article about various of these USSR tin toys, the ones with at least a bit of railway in/about them, and another about products from DDR and/or Czechoslovakia, which I think might have used the same tooling.

 

Might contain clues, but makers are hard to trace, because a lot of small works were first privatised (I think small enterprises were semi-privately owned, or operated by tiny cooperatives, even in the USSR), then folded without trace the minute their markets were exposed to plastic toy imports.

 

The big 0-gauge Lionel-alike toy trains made for the children of the elite are quite well known here now, but they are in a different league; serious kit, made by a proper electrical engineering factory.

[sncf231e]

I thought it looked a bit like my Billerbahn (Germany) crane:

 

 

And then I noticed this Billerbahn item on ebay:

 

So it looks like the Russian did some copying.

Regards

Fred

 

For more cranes see my e-book: http://sncf231e.nl/crane-trucks/

 

[Bassettblowke]

It’s so close in appearance to the last one in Fred’s post that I think he’s hit the nail on the head and that this is a Russian copy. No doubt all part of a plot to bring the capitalist toy world to its knees. Seriously though I would love to see the innards to see what the other lever operates and how. The other thing that caught my eye was the unusual hook that they both share. I wonder if that hook had a dedicated piece of cargo otherwise it looks no earthly use whatsoever.

 

[Bassettblowke]

Taking a leaf out of Fred’s book I also did an eBay search and up popped this variation also with the odd shaped hook faithfully copied on the Soviet example.

[Bassettblowke]

And a Biller Bahn image search threw up this gem which shows the hook carrying a cradle.

[Nearholmer]

That double-pronged hook is entirely prototypical for very heavy lifting.

 

It avoids too many shackles or straps being on a single hook, which can cause them either to damage one another, to slip free, or damage the hook.

 

The Billerbahn link certainly hints at the sharing of tooling, or maybe designs for tooling, that I mentioned. Similar to Triang taking licenses on Lionel products and concepts, notably the famous Giraffe Car.

[roythebus]

Before the advent of mechanical handling most things would have been piled on nets or sheets and lifted by crane. See any pictures of London's docks to see how ships were unloaded.

[Nearholmer]

There’s a good picture here http://www.semgonline.com/vandw/breakdncrane_01.html?LMCL=gQahC0

 

showing a crane on a heavy lift, using shackles either side of a the two-prong hook from a big sheave-block (lots of sheaves and therefore mechanical advantage). 
 

Interestingly, the crane also has a single hook on a simpler block, at the end of the jib, for lighter lifts.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Nearholmer