Toy lead aircraft : Master Frank W Cocks, Kalgoorlie

Solid cast lead aircraft with fixed undercarriage, roundels and machine guns cast into the upper wings, painted in green and black disruptive camouflage. Most of the paint has been rubbed off through play.

Solid-cast toy aircraft, possibly meant to depict a fighter plane, in painted camouflage finish. The toy displays plenty of evidence of play, with all the paint worn off fuselage between wing & tail (where a child would hold the plane), while the cast wheels have been worn flat.

This toy plane was given to Frank Cocks, born 1932 and an only child, by his parents at their home at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, in either 1941 or 1942 as a birthday present. It was purchased at Kalgoorlie's then local toy shop, 'Hicks', which Frank recalls also stocked many basic austerity-influenced locally made toys during the war, such as wooden pop guns other crudely cast lead planes and ships, and locally made games in lieu of imported items. Cocks was deeply upset when the war ended as he thought his chance to fly a plane had come to an end as well.