About Where This Came From: First, this came from a 1970-1990’s Tonka designer executives home. He passed some time ago, this collection includes MANY product samples, packaging prototypes, etc. I will likely miss some and classify them as just basic stock. Some may have generic price tags as he was going to sell them shortly before his death. So this at worst is a standard product, could be something more. If questions ask, I got around 1,000 items in this collection. Comes as shown.
What is an Engineering Pilot: Pre-production samples are generally called final engineering pilots. They are cast in final plastic color and they are usually painted to specifications, if they are not they would be painted by hand in the model shop. They will definitely have the copyrights added. They are very close to the final toy in appearance. Their purpose is to show what the finished toy looks like. This one is also a clearly marked sample. I have another closer less developed as well.