Issued 1952-1958    Length 165mm

Faced with the closure in 1951 of F.W.Birch & Co., Morestone needed to find a new supplier of the popular stage coach when stocks of the old models sold out. It is not known who they found to manufacture the new Essem coach but the models were a completely new design which used plastic in a major way for the first time in a Morestone model.

The Series 2 Essem Stage Coaches were inovative in several ways. Unlike the Birch models, the coach was cast in one piece but without a roof. A rectangular tinplate roof was then added prior to painting. Underneath at the rear 'Made in England' was cast on later models but to start with there was no identification on the model.

Morestone used plastic extensively on this second Essem coach. The wheels, shaft, horses, driver and guard/rifleman were all made of it and undecorated except for the coloured jackets on the figures and skin-tone trim on their faces. The jackets were primarily yellow but for the 'Hawkeye' issue they were either orange or lime-green. The driver was held in place by a peg which fitted into a hole on the driver's seat.

Morestone used black plastic for the majority of the fittings but some horses and figures were made of dark-brown plastic. The colours appear to have been interchangeable and brown was probably not tied to a particular variation.

Unlike the first Essem coach, this second version was mostly painted red although two later versions added orange with the appearance of special issues for 'Davy Crockett' in 1956 and 'Hawkeye' in 1957. These both had TV promotional boxes, and alongside them Morestone also issued 'Davy Crockett' and 'Hawkeye' Covered Wagons.

The 'Hawkeye - Last of the Mohicans' coach appeared in both red and orange colours, and the figures of the driver and rifleman were usually orange with the red coach or green with the orange one.

The Series 2 Essem Stage Coaches were initially sold in blue printed boxes similar in style to the earlier yellow ones but slightly longer. On the two faces, 'Kansas to Texas Stage Coach' was printed alongside a drawing of a speeding coach, and on the sides 'Complete with Two Horses and Driver' was printed. The end-flaps carried the 'Essem Series' name.

On the brightly pictorial special boxes for 'Davy Crockett' and 'Hawkeye', the illustrations seem to show a yellow coach for Davy Crockett and an orange coach for Hawkeye but it is not thought that the yellow one was produced. For these boxes the 'Essem' name was dropped and 'Morestone Series' or 'A Morestone Product' were included on the end-flaps.  

The red & black Series 2 coach and the blue box are not too hard to find although the black plastic parts are sometimes brittle or broken and the figures of the driver and rifleman frequently missing. The orange coach is scarce, and the figures are all very scarce, especially the orange and green ones.