What is a hubley tat nc 31 plane?

[mett]

Hay gang, I have tried to figure out what this is and whats its worth. But I'm drawing a blank.
1 is it a real hubley?
2 I see several type of tats and some different ones as nc 31.
3 whats it value, just a ballpark

Thanks as always

[soslipstream]

Tom,

GR can expound on this further. He has a bunch. The airplane was a one-off during the 1930's of an American Gyro AG-4 Crusader. A bunch of toy manufactureres made copies as it was very popular in the news. This includes Hubley. Its a phenomenon repeated with the Douglas DC-4E Mainliner one-off and the Bell Airacuda almost a one-off. All were novel full-scale airplanes reeking of Art Deco and Machine-Age panache but were many times just too early to be economically successful. The toy makers were the only successful sellers of these designs.

As for the letters and numbers, many companies added ficticious registration numbers and airline names to give the toy a bit of realism.The TAT was a forerunner of TWA if I am not mistaken.

Regards,
Tom

[mett]

I have been searching hubley (mainly planes) on ebay for years and I just never remember this one. I thought if cheap, it looks like a simple restore project. Except for parts maybe. No idea why it caught my eye. But I seem to be widening my view in items I watch.

I see now there are a few bids. I guess I;m not the only one with addictions lol

[grwebster]

The Hubley Crusader is a very nice and not often found toy. Only issued for a short time prewar.


Tootsietoy did one, prewar too, that is very similar to the Hubley. There are several variations, shown here in the back part of the tray


One Hubley to look out for and a rather rare one, is the prewar P-39. And once again Tootsietoy did one, too!
The Tootsie toy has the open cockpit and the USA P-39 on the tin wing.

[soslipstream]

GR-
Did you mean to say P-39 and not P-38? Your description and picture seem to reflect that.
Tom

[grwebster]

Thanks, I corrected the post, BTW the Tootsietoy tray has almost all of the rarest airplanes shown, but the DC-4 long range bomber and troop transport are not shown.