Shite in Miniature II

[Jon]

16 hours ago, bramz7 said:

More newcomers:

Solido stuff of this era seems criminally undervalued considering how well built it feels and the proportions are second to none. 

That can sometimes be the case over in NZ, too. Bagged a couple of boxed Solido Renaults for a nudge over a fiver each, delivered:

 

Slightly annoyingly, the R4 van has a missing part of the front bumper though it was boxed with its good side showing, so I don't think the seller was pulling a fast one with me or anything.

 

I like these era of wheels much better than the later single piece efforts they came with. Nice to have an opening rear door but a slight shame they couldn't have made the top section open, too!

 

I also got a nice lurid yellow poire to go with my later kermit effort - although I think the colour has been a bit drained in this image, as they're both a lot brighter in the metal. But see what I mean about the later single piece wheels versus the earlier ones?! Notice also that the later casting 14 has a chin spoiler, rather like I've seen on images of late 14s, presumably to try and shift them. I suppose whatever marketing ploy works on the real thing might've worked on its scale brethren!

[Datsuncog]

19 hours ago, bunglebus said:

On another note, probably been mentioned before but anyone know about Zee Toys/Zylmex?

Spent hours trying to ID a "Matchbox" only to eventually realise it was one of these. The wheels are virtually identical to Matchbox Superfast/HW blackwalls, and their later wheels are also just like Matchbox. Seems they weren't too worried about copyright either going by the "Silhouette" (Hot Wheels) and Zakspeed Capri (Corgi)

Don't know a lot about them - I had a secondhand Chevrolet Nova which I think was made by Zylmex, which had been sloppily painted with blue paint (including all the glazing, which I attempted to remove by scraping at it using the pin from a badge).

I've also seen a couple of incomplete commercials and damaged racing cars in the market tat boxes wearing the Zylmex name.

But yeah, it seems they were heavily 'inspired' by some other manufacturer's products...

[Datsuncog]

16 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Finished the T-bird tonight and it turned out to just be one of those kits.  Glue issues, paint reactions, parts misbehaving... I guess it just wasn't to be.  You can't win them all so I accepted there was a point where I just needed to stick together what would stick together and make it good enough to live at the back of the shelf.  The colour scheme is striking enough - and I am really happy with the scheme and colours, just not the execution of them - that it's amazing just how much you can overlook on this one.

There's enough good to the car as a whole that I reckon it's a great candidate for an abandoned show car sort of thing further down the line once I've robbed a few bits off it for other projects.  I'll let it evolve naturally as time goes on.  I'd certainly like to do this kit again in this colour scheme from scratch rather than from a gluebomb so I don't consider it a total loss.

Considering what you started with, that looks like a win... and I'll be interested to see how this progresses as a study in faded glamour, as so many show cars seem to end up. Good work!

[bunglebus]

Had this job lot arrive today - I paid an almost embarrassingly small amount of money for these, I was mainly after the AMX and the generic Camaro type car, but they're all lovely. I had the camper as a kid too.

As a side note, I see the Adventure 2000 stuff in green quite a lot, and I used to have the missile carrier one that always seems to have a bit broken off one of the missile launcher covers - but a bit of Googling reveals they came out again in blue - seen any?

 

[flat4alfa]

2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

 

Oooh...  I see your Denver Fire Brigade mid-engined fantasy and raise you a Laing Craining mid-engined fantasy, raising a Lesney Aston Martin DB2 no less.

If you can be parted with it, it has a space next to it ready

[flat4alfa]

Anyone have a larger scale DB2 in any condition? I've seen the Scalex, but that's worth more than my hedge fund 

Also pondering of there ever was a Hong Kong knock off effort of the AM Lagonda. Only models I can find are 1:43 and hand built £100

[egg]

These unboxed Autobianchi's are being sold off cheap £4 for a 1:24 model...postage seems to be £2.95. Leo models? No idea about quality, but can't really go wrong at this price.

https://www.jobstoys.com/collections/1-24-scale/products/autobianchi-bianchina-trasformabile-1958-w

Also in red

https://www.jobstoys.com/collections/1-24-scale/products/autobianchi-bianchina-trasformabile-1959

[Noel Tidybeard]

ohnoes i might* have just accidentaly* boughted both red & white

[flat4alfa]

oops

2 off white

1 off red

coming* to a roffle near you

[bunglebus]

10 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

Oooh...  I see your Denver Fire Brigade mid-engined fantasy and raise you a Laing Craining mid-engined fantasy, raising a Lesney Aston Martin DB2 no less.

If you can be parted with it, it has a space next to it ready

Sure, I'm not into fire engines anyway - and I had that crane as a kid ?

[Datsuncog]

20 hours ago, bunglebus said:

As a side note, I see the Adventure 2000 stuff in green quite a lot, and I used to have the missile carrier one that always seems to have a bit broken off one of the missile launcher covers - but a bit of Googling reveals they came out again in blue - seen any?

As far as I can tell (flicking through my old catalogues), the Adventure 2000 range first appeared in 1977, and was last listed in the 1981/82 catalogue.

The initial 1977 offering comprised just the 'Raider Command' and 'Flight Hunter', and they were joined in 1978 by the 'Crusader' and 'Rocket Striker' (the one with the perma-bust missile carrier, BB?).

Looks like the model in your job-lot is the front half of the Raider Command -  in pretty good nick.

A 'Command Force' gift set also appeared, consisting of a Rocket Striker packaged along with three uniquely coloured versions of existing Matchbox Superfast vehicles - the Planet Scout, Cosmobile and Hovercraft. Unfortunately, the smaller vehicles were a bit out of scale alongside the plastic figures in the set...

No new models were added in 1979, but for the 1980/81 catalogue, Lesney decided to jazz things up a bit:

er

Exactly the same range, but now in a different colour.

Adventure 2000 seems to have put in its final appearance in the 1981/82 catalogue, before being dropped for the 1982/83 model year (by which time Lesney were in serious financial diffs).

 

I've never encountered any from the later blue range personally, though I did have a fairly complete early Flight Hunter (snared from a jumble sale), which was re-homed last year.

Lesney might have been lucky with this range - I believe it was developed as a bit of a rip-off of the Gerry Anderson 'Space 1999' TV show, from which Dinky made models of the Eagle Transporter and Freighter, alongside other Anderson-licenced fantasy flying vehicles from the Thunderbirds and UFO series.

When launched in 1977, Lesney could have had no idea that Star Wars was about to make a huge cultural impact by the end of the year. An initial shortage of toy merchandise from the George Lucas film meant that anything related to some kind of armed conflict in space would be snapped up.

Even so, it's hard to know whether they were perceived as such by customers - from the packaging, they look more like futuristic military vehicles, in line with the other Superkings fantasy range models  (like the above crane and fire engine).

But as Kenner-Parker ramped up production of official Star Wars toys - and with the long delay between cinematic releases creating a cool-down in demand - it's possible that sales tailed off and Lesney couldn't justify making them past 1981.

Still, as a relatively small range it might make quite a neat little collection, if decent examples of each could be found?

[sierraman]

The pea green Cosmobile and Planet Scout are quite scarce. I think at this point in time Lesney we’re trying anything and everything, they marketed everything from miniature pub signs to rip off action man gear. 

[Amishtat]

Moar boot sale finds. I really didn't intend buying anything, but I might* have been idly looking for some unbuilt AMT and Monogram kits which I dithered over last week. To no avail, although it was quieter today so maybe he hasn't sold them. Anyway, here's my small haul, definitely not guiltily and hastily photographed on the seat of a Sprinter van. Was in two minds over the Corgi Range Rover but it's complete bar a spotlight and it was a quid. The Speed Kings Mercedes was too nice to put back but scandalously twice the price. The silver on the bumpers seems to have worn through to a blue base colour in places but it's presentable enough. 

[barrett]

What Mercedes is that supposed to be, then? Looks like a proper dog's dinner

[flat4alfa]

SLC, the long wheel base one that looks odd in real life so not far off after all

[flat4alfa]

I can has Rovers for land 

Both approximate 1:32

Green one is all plastic by the legendary Lucky Toys of Hong Kong. White safari one by Britains and a proper die-cast. Oddly, the Lucky is more valuable...

 

[Sudsprint]

I thought about restoring /painting them - but somehow that would destroy their charm. 

[bunglebus]

18 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

As far as I can tell (flicking through my old catalogues), the Adventure 2000 range first appeared in 1977, and was last listed in the 1981/82 catalogue.

 

Yep I had that, the K2002 you show in detail and the hovercraft - never realised it was part of that set before. They seem to be the most common ones, never seen the others to my knowledge. Always assumed They had a TV tie in of some sort (and I should actually study my Matchbox catalogues!).

The K2004 is the one that always seems to be broken yes.

That K2003 is a bit mad! Guessing the K2001 would have been quite pricy as a large two vehicle set.

[bunglebus]

No blue ones on eBay but....

 

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

If the full size SLC looked more like that, maybe it would have been more popular. It has the look of the later( and far better selling) SEC  about it.

[egg]

Here's a Britain's wrecker, a quid plus postage if you want for the parts?

 

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

No blue ones on eBay but....

 

 

Looks like a preproduction to me.

[flat4alfa]

4 hours ago, egg said:

Here's a Britain's wrecker, a quid plus postage if you want for the parts?

yes yes and thrice yes please

[egg]

48 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

yes yes and thrice yes please

OK, I'll PM you.

@flat4alfa - well I would, but it says I can't - mailbox full?

[sheffcortinacentre]

I've still got a mint K2001

[flat4alfa]

7 hours ago, egg said:

OK, I'll PM you.

@flat4alfa - well I would, but it says I can't - mailbox full?

oh!  Have i got lots of abusive mail to shift through? excellent !

will be in touch 

[Datsuncog]

^^^ Sorry - probably my fault for sending you over-large pics of random attic Scalextric shiz!

[flat4alfa]

Sorry all. NOTE TO SELF: If you are going to run multiple rofflings over a couple of months, at least bin off the correspondencing historicals...

[sierraman]

Hang on it’s Diecast Tat Friday isn’t it?

[egg]

So with the Hairy Hustler I got last week with a loose base, it seems that the rear rivet was too small from the factory. Using a 1.5mm drill bit, I drilled it out and glued in a fake rivet. Anyone want it for a quid + postage? Post will be £3, so perhaps better if I can find something else to add. Or pass on at FoTU.