Unseen Rogue Trader Space Ork Weapon Platform: Bryan Ansell collection

Here's a curious little item that I unearthed in Bryan's collection: a weapon platform for Rogue Trader era Space Orks:

The gunner and weapon are standard issue from the Ork War Buggy of the period. It's the platform that is unreleased. Here is a view from the top-down:

You can see the hole for the weapon mounting on the left, and two indents where the gunner's feet sit on the right.

Here is a view of the underside:

Are those three discs on the perimeter some sort of anti-grav devices that allow the platform to hover? Have you ever come across rules or descriptions for this in one of the old Rogue Trader rulebooks?

So it may not be much to look at, but this particular collector thinks it's a lovely little piece of kit.

The Nuln Spearman and the Guard Captain came and went

So did you spot them? Yes indeed it is true - the Nuln Spearman and the Guard Captain appeared on ebay - very briefly - before the auctions were pulled. Want some proof? Here you go:

If you have no idea what the fuss is about then these two figures define the very term "rare." Citadel Giant? Chicken Dragon? Chances are you'll see ten of those before you see another Nuln Spearman or Guard captain. In all my years of collecting I have never seen another example of these - not even (yet) in the collections of Bryan Ansell or Tim Pollard.

What makes these two figures so enigmatic and desirable is that they did actually make it into adverts and flyers back in the 80's, but for some reason never made it into general release. They have reached mythical status for that very reason. But it now seems as if at least one of each of them escaped into the world at large. Here they are in an advert in White Dwarf 90 (numbers 5 and 11):

So there we have it, these particular hens' teeth do indeed exist.

On another note, what do people feel about pulled auctions/private offers? Personally I don't have too much of a problem with it, and I confess I've done it myself in the past. Judging by the number of requests I get to pull my own auctions, it seems as if there are a lot of people out there who don't mind it either! 99% of the time I turn down requests I get to pull auctions. Once in a while though, I do get an offer which even I can't refuse!

Tim Pollard's pinhead Yakuza

Found this interesting character in Tim Pollard's collection:

The body was produced with a number of head variants, for both GW's TSR range and their Oriental Heroes ranges. But thus pinhead version never made it into release. I asked Tim if he was aware of a back-story; he thought that it was an idea to:

"allow extra (full-sized) heads to be sculpted over it. No idea if that was a wind-up though, I have a feeling it was and that it was just a joke in itself..."

So, anyone have any other theories why this fellow might have been sculpted? Was there a pinhead yakuza in some comic book or something back in the '80s?