Wow!!! How far the hobby has come in 30 years. My wife has been after me for years to organize my crap. Raise your hand if yours hasn't. Well, I found this. This was the first kit I ever entered in a contest. Growing up in the Dallas area I always loved seeing the model displays every year. My mom finally pushed me into doing something. She is the one who got me started building when I was about 6. She had an n-scale train (that I still have most of the stuff for). Blue ribbon on the first go...that spoiled me. Took a long time to earn another.
The kit is the non-existent Minicraft offering. The back of the ribbon states 09/14/1987. Ugly tranny housing, no volute springs, etc, etc. It has about 10 years accumulation of dust. I used a lot of Verlinden stuff on it. That was about to only game in town then. I also used some Cal-Scale brass for the tool racks and the .50 cal that is gone. Those are 90 mm rounds in the turret-nobody had 76mm/3-inch back then. It also had at one time the white metal Verlinden tanker figure standing looking thru binos.