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Cranko
Donald Cranko was born in Durban, South Africa in 1898. He was a marine engineer and set up a small engineering and manufacturing business in 1946 on Joll Road, Havelock North, North Island, New Zealand. He made a range of steam toys and traded under the name of Movie Models.
The best guide for dates seems to be that the model numbers follow how they were introduced into the range. The Steam Roller is No3 so it's a fair guess it was early in the range.
Interestingly No4 seems to be missing from later adverts but this was probably a loco that was taken out of the range when a more advanced loco was added in later years. There are a couple of different versions of the Steam Roller and I don't have any idea about which is the oldest.
Trade laws in New Zealand protected the home market after WW2 and this allowed Cranko's business to grow without too much competition. But, the NZ laws were changed in the mid 1950's and the flood of foreign imports (Mamod) destroyed the home produced models.
Donald Cranko ceased trading in 1957 and moved away to a farm and orchard. Funnily enough the story doesn't quite finish there. In 1957 when Cranko stopped making steam toys and took up orcharding he still took special orders.
Their have been a couple of attempts to get the name Cranko running again. The Disabled Servicemen's League bought the remaining spares from him and continued limited production until 1967. In 1970 Graham Craw who bought the remaining stock and tooling made a 'bush logging tram' with steam loco with the loco being supplied by David Auld.
Cranko 1946 to 1957
Auld 1966 to late 1980's