Not long after I first started collecting gliders I found a complete set of 12 for sale on E-bay. They had all of the characteristics that I was looking for, which are that the front side of the packages has the propeller logo and the reverse side of the packages says "Made in Taiwan". The seller was asking a reasonable price, so I bought them. My major motivation for buying this set was that it contained the Lockheed P-38 Lightning glider which is quite difficult to find. Shown below is a picture of the front side of all of the packages and the reverse side of one of them.
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| A very nice looking set (especially the Lightning) |
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| "Made in Taiwan", shown as clear as day |
I quickly realized that there was something wrong, as you will soon see.
The rarest of gliders....the gliders are official Taiwan release, but it was purposely done as they were completing the new templates for the Power Prop Gliders that I grew up with and currently have...
ReplyDeleteWow. I thought these were counterfeits for sure! The art on the packages is a little different than the WW2 Power Prop Flying Gliders (I should do a comparison later). The packages were taped shut instead of being glued shut. The packages also seem to be made of a paper that is softer and less able to be crumpled than the actual WW2 Power Prop Flying Gliders. I totally thought I got ripped off when I bought these.
DeleteThey aren't counterfeits, they may look it at first, its possible the previous owner that got rid of them had opened them in the beginning, later selling them, little did he know that he was getting rid of some very old and valuable gliders...
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you are an expert about these things because I totally thought they were garbage. I'll definitely hang on to them now!
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