The sellers claims this is from 1942, which would make it a pretty early model. The shovel on the passenger side is interesting.
“You are looking at what could possibly be THE FIRST MODEL KIT EVER PRODUCED (1942), as this one was the precursor to plastic kits…it is the “WEST-CRAFT- U.S. ARMY JEEP”, made by WEST-CRAFT MFG. CO. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, kit # A-1 IN 1/2″ SCALE. Please look carefully at the pics to see the excellent condition it is in…the only issue is a small tear on the end flap of the box, so, IF YOU ARE A ViNtAgE MODEL KIT COLLECTOR/BUILDER then BE SURE NOT TO PASS UP THE OPPORTUNITY TO OWN THIS COOL PIECE @ THIS AUCTION’S END!!!”
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WEST-CRAFT became involved with Al-Toy jeeps later in the 40’s. I’m sitting beside four Al-Toy model Jeeps that have WEST-CRAFT on their wheels. They evidentially bought the single seat mold from Al-Toy and stamped mold numbers on the bottom 1 thru 4. I even have one with no mold number and no “Willys” on the windshield. The spelling and hyphen are exactly like this logo. Hope we can learn something about this company. I have several balsa model Jeeps, but don’t think I’m a C Note player.
That is a good POINT 🙂 I need to correct that in several posts. I will see what history I can dig up on them.