COBI Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus - Limited Edition Set 3137

COBI's Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus Limited Edition is a 1:35 model built from 1,492 blocks, 30.5 cm long, with working tracks, a rotating turret, a movable barrel, opening hatches, removable covers giving access to the interior and a detailed engine. Four figures are included: a tank commander, two Volkssturm militiamen — one with a bicycle — and a figure of Ferdinand Porsche. Weapons include a Panzerfaust, a Panzerschreck, a Mauser Kar98k and a Mauser C96. A laser-engraved plate and a certificate signed by hand by COBI's chief executive complete the set.

The four figures are the whole story

Look at what is in this box together. The heaviest armoured vehicle ever built, 188 tonnes of it. The man who supervised the project. And two militiamen, one of them with a bicycle and a Panzerfaust.

The Volkssturm was raised in October 1944 from men too old or too young for the army — sixteen-year-olds and sixty-year-olds, in civilian clothes with an armband, given a few days of training and an anti-tank rocket. They were the last thing Germany had, and a bicycle was genuinely how many of them moved.

Those two things existed at the same moment. While Krupp was machining armour for a tank so heavy no bridge could carry it and no factory could produce it in quantity, the country was handing single-shot rockets to schoolboys.

The Maus never fought. Two hulls were built, one received a turret, and the Red Army captured the parts at Kummersdorf in April 1945. One complete vehicle was assembled from both and stands in the tank museum at Kubinka outside Moscow.

COBI has put the whole contradiction in one box without commenting on it.

What "Limited Edition" means

A numbered run: the engraved plate and the certificate carry the same individual number, the Porsche and Volkssturm figures appear in no other set, and the model uses colours specific to this edition. If you collect rather than build, the number and certificate are the part that carries the value — which is also why box condition matters more here than on an ordinary set.

In the COBI range

Set 3138 is the standard Maus with 1,353 pieces and two figures.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,492 · Figures: 4 · Scale: 1:35 · Numbered plate and signed certificate
Model dimensions: 30.5 × 12.5 × 11 cm (12.0 × 4.9 × 4.3 in)