Thomas The Tank Train Pull Back Toy First Releases Before The Final Design "Rare"

The first pic above shows the older version of the Thomas Tank Engine pull back. It's a bad picture but it will have to do. The face in the picture on the first pic is indeed "light grey" as it is in the second pic. Also, if you notice the paint on the eyebrows is worn off in the first pic and so is the lipstick appearance. The lipstick appearance is not lipstick but only the darkened area in the mouth that gives the appearance of lipstick.

The Thomas The Tank Engine in the first pic doesn't have the front round windows and vent on the cab (can't be seen in this picture) which means it is the very first version in the only pull back series. The second and third versions were developed over several months until it looked like the Thomas The Train in the third pic. My Thomas is the second pic with two with the cab windows, shutter. 

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All are stamped, "1985" but the first series were released in 1984. The first pull backs released in 1984 with the 1985 stamping had the large eye pupil's, what looks like lip stick and no flare out on the smoke stack. During my research I found an actual picture of the 1984 version new in the box with the larger eye pupil's, lipstick and no flare out on the smoke stack.

The third series set released in 1985 had smaller eye pupil's, no lip stick or darkened mouth and the smoke stack flare out. These large scale pull backs were only released in 1985 then discontinued. Pull backs were not again produced until 1993 and only produced in a much smaller 3" scale. 

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