Shite in Miniature II

[egg]

Anyone want this? Fiver posted for this king size...

SOLD

[bunglebus]

Is that Binz complete? I'd love to have it if so

[egg]

50 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Is that Binz complete? I'd love to have it if so

Well think so, the stretcher is from a slightly later model, but is the same design.

[flat4alfa]

Arghhhhhh......!!!! 

more duplication appears from Postie

 

[sierraman]

That yellow hot rod is Majorette? I had one years ago I think. 

[sierraman]

Hang on it’s Diecast Tat Friday?

[Split_Pin]

Finally got a model of an Austin Maxi after waiting since the late 1980s for an affordable one. Oxford also make them in the 2 colours I wanted to reflect 2 I remember best from my childhood. I could choose either Damask Red which models OHS 65V which a nearby neighbour of my parents used as a 'van' in the late 1980s (replaced in 1990 with a yellow Bedford HA) or green which models KSP 824P which languished in a driveway next to my Auntie's house, suspension deflated and abandoned for most of the 1980s. I chose the former this time around.

Very nice it is too and accurate enough to take me back to those days!

[NorfolkNWeigh]

31 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Hang on it’s Diecast Tat Friday?

I bloody hope so! Normally I'm rushed off my feet al day Friday and only see ' what I could've won' long after Belfast market man has gone home to count his filthy lucre.

Today MrsN is using my car to go to Rotherham, whilst her turbo is rebuilt, I could ( should ?) have rented her a car , but I fancied a day off- one reason being diecast-tat Friday! ( Don't tell her that)

[sierraman]

Rotherham. The poor woman!

[Datsuncog]

Well kids, looks like one of those days.

Having made a conscious decision to get in to the market early (with my big plastic box this time), I ended up trapped on the train over the Middlepath St viaduct for an hour, due to signalling problems a quarter of a mile along the line at Belfast Lanyon Place.

That was not fun. Visions of other tat-hunters making off with diecast bargains galore tormented me like the fiery-tipped prongs of Beelzebub's rusty trident during the interminable wait, and frustrated calls to Translink customer services about what the ever-living fuck was actually going on went unanswered.

Their web-based customer contact form also managed to lose my screed of stream-of-consciousness venom, involving LOTS OF CAPS, as their Recaptcha function managed to break the page. Seems like their online services are nearly as good as their signalling services. Although, on reflection, it might have been for the best.

Over an hour later than expected, the airless CAF 4000 Class finally drew into the platform at Lanyon...

I was the first one off, then belted up the stairs - pausing only to scowl at the (blameless) barrier staff and snatch a 'Delay Repay' form from the customer services desk - before pounding down East Bridge Street as only an overweight lad with a desperate thirst for diecast tat could...

Bursting through the doors, and almost flattening a couple of charming old dears out to pick up a wee wheaten loaf and a nice bit of pork fillet, I found...

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

HE'S NOT BLOODY HERE TODAY.

 

Yup, it seems the proprietor of Nostalgic Collectables has taken the day off. His usual pitch boasted only the overflow from the adjoining fishing tat stall.

(Somewhere, there's probably someone on a fishing forum running their own Friday Tat event, it's just occurred to me.)

So that was an anti-climax, rather.

I can only offer my most heartfelt apologies, particularly to those who are now beginning to structure their free time around my market jaunts...

 

But I did take a turn round some of the other stalls, by way of trying to make something of the wasted effort and mental strain.

Round the area I've come to think of as 'Giffer Alley', were these...

Priced between £8 and £15, taking this pic rewarded me with the customary chorus of "Them's Dinkys, them's rare, them's not for the kids now..." yes, there are indeed Hornby Dublo in there among the Lesneys, but whether they're worth the asking price given their sympathetic* restorations involving Humbrol Olive Drab and felt-tips, I'll leave up to your judgement...

 

Another stall, rather prosaically called 'Alan's Collectibles', boasted these...

Ah, Corgi Cameos... great.

He also had these at 50p each or three for a quid, and looking at it now maybe I should have nabbed something:

Mod Rod in blue is indeed a repaint, not a rare variant. The black Zakspeed Capri seems to be a pirated casting, but a bit smaller from the Corgi version it looks to be based on. AMX Pro-Stocker in Dr Pepper colours (modified from the 70s Superfast version) was just that bit too scruffy to allow me to part with 33p; ditto the bonnetless '57 Chevy and the Corgi R5 Turbo. Plus, I was still feeling huffy from Market Blokey not being there.

 

Another stall had these...

Since the chipped Corgi FX4 was priced at a tenner, I shudder to think what the asking price was for the Dinky 241 Silver Jubilee Taxi, still boxed (albeit quite crude looking - sad what Dinky had become by 1977).

 

The fella on the charity shop stall has come to recognise me, and advised that he'd found "a whole big box of cars" in the shed, but had forgotten to bring them today. So he only had the same general tat as last week, and nothing that tickled my pickle.

Still, maybe next week though?

 

There is a 'proper' diecast stall of great antiquity and heritage at St Georges (well, sort of - he mainly sells greetings cards and puzzle books, and always has done) - which, incidentally, was also the same place I foolishly swapped a bag of mint boxed 1980s Mettoy Corgis for a Corgi Classics truck when I was about 14.

He sells mainly Vanguards and Oxford these days, along with crates of exactly the same Lledo Days Gone he was hawking back in 1990, so to cheer myself up a bit (and in breathtaking synchronicity with Split_Pin upthread) I bought myself a Damask Red Austin Maxi...

...and he also gave me a not-quite-yet out of date catalogue, which I was ridiculously pleased to note is about the same size as my 70s and 80s Matchbox/Corgi catalogues...

So, there we go. A day of disappointments, I'm afraid, but ain't that just the way of it?

What do we say?

Til next week!

[flat4alfa]

[egg]

Gr8 write-up of the disappointment!

Have a couple of pics of this helicopter that I received from Vulg today as minor compensation...

[Split_Pin]

Your record of the events of every Friday lunch time are what we are waiting for, no disappointment here.

Nice one on the Maxi and the Oxford Catalogue, I have never seen the latter. That said I can just search quicksilver's posts on this thread as he seems to have every casting covered!

I am really impressed with the purchases I have made from the Oxford 1/76 range. Thus far I only have 5, the Maxi, a Mini Clubman, an Austin 1300, a Bedford TK horse transporter (which is my wife's) and a modernish Ford Transit however I'm definitely going to collect more. At under £10 delivered and with space at a premium it makes sense. They have released a few castings which I haven't seen any other maker attempt either, like an Allegro Estate, Viva HB and their 1/43 Firenza.

I also have a few 'Lledo Trackside' items, I think one or both of my Minor vans and a 4-door are made my them together with a Ford Zodiac MK1 towing a horse trailer (I'm minding this one for my wife too).

[sierraman]

Oh fuck sticks! ?

[Datsuncog]

Heh, cheers guys - I really do need to be a little more Zen about these things...

The wee MB Sea Sprite chopper is very nice - as with fantasy models, I used to get a bit cross when the only models left on the Matchbox pegs seemed to be helicopters, or boats, or diggers, or other things that Weren't Real Cars. But now I'm trying to see them for what they were, on their own terms, and they're really quite lovely little toys. Other than a bit of chewing to the rotors, that one looks in decent nick for something that's now getting on for 40 years old.

The Oxford 1/76 range attracts me too - I don't have very many, but they seem to go out of their way to produce unusual versions of cars that simply don't exist anywhere else, such as the Allegro estate and the 1/43 Firenza (which I also have). The level of detailing is great, even though the proportions can sometimes look slightly off (the recent TR7 convertible being a case in point). I'd quite like a S1 Range Rover and the Leyland Sherpa minibus too.

I started off buying their fifties and sixties stuff like the Sunbeam Rapier, Cortina Mk2, Zephyr Mk3, Cresta PA Friary estate, Land Rover SII, and Humber Super Snipe estate, but was very pleased when they moved into the seventies (Mk3 Cortina, Leyland Princess, Allegro estate, Volvo 245).

Here's the BMW 2002 I bought last year:

The model shop over in Smithfield has a colossal stock of these going back quite a few years, so if anyone's looking anything in particular, I'll happily have a look on your behalf. At around the £5 mark, they're great value - and pleasingly compact to display.

 

Still, maybe the lack of new tat will give me a chance to reflect more about some of my recent purchases?

I opened the Nostalgia Box the other night... will post up a few pics of my original toys along with some of the slightly less wrecked examples I've recently found.

[flat4alfa]

The postie delivered some Friday recompense 

 

[bunglebus]

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

 

Mod Rod in blue is indeed a repaint, not a rare variant. The black Zakspeed Capri seems to be a pirated casting, but a bit smaller from the Corgi version it looks to be based on.

If he has them next week, could I nab the mod rod and crapi please?

[egg]

Another new arrival, Morestone to go with the Rover. Might re-paint. That's because I've already made the slightly snapped base worse (snapped between the cab and the rear) which might explain why it's a bit wonky. Anyway, it's ok for £2.50.

 

[Datsuncog]

Sooo… way back in May last year I had a bit of a diecast clearout, partly because the Terrible Gooner Twins both died and left me with no transport, and partly because I badly needed to refocus a collection that had long since got out of control.

Once again, I'm very grateful to those shiters who dug deep and enabled me to exchange my assorted tiny tat for cold hard cash - enabling me to rebuild my somewhat shattered finances, and hopefully gain themselves some diecast jewels with a little bit of humour on the side. And also to those who participated in the DaveNumbers Memorial Diecast Tat Roffle, raising £135 for the overall AS donation fund.

The process of paring down the collection kind of boiled down to the Marie Kondo 'spark joy' philosophy - holding each model and trying to work out exactly how I felt about it (yeah, that took a while).

Some I felt very little for - they were so-so charity shop finds I'd almost immediately thrown in a box; eBay job lot surplus; new Hot Wheels I'd bought in work with staff discount while bored, to roll them up and down the Halfords parts desk.

Others were more complex - models I'd damaged and poorly repaired; models I'd rashly exchanged for something I should really have kept; cars that for one reason or another held a negative memory. Weird stuff, but about 90% I was very sure of what I wanted to do with them.

So you've seen what went... and maybe it's time to consider what remained, and why.

 

And it probably starts with this one:

My automotive core: MB55, the 1981 release of the Matchbox Superfast Ford Cortina MkIV.

I think I can remember choosing this car myself, from the display case in McCulloughs in Bangor. I couldn't have been older than three, maybe only two - it's a very dim memory (and yes, I appreciate it could be entirely false but it's one I cherish nonetheless).

I loved this car. I don't know why, but there was just something about it. The deep metallic red paint was similar to the real life Ford Jupiter Red which looked so good on them. The numberplate was correct for the year - RSH88T (although seemingly fictitious). It went pretty much everywhere with me - hence the state of it.

I pretty much always had a diecast car in my pocket as a child - and beyond - and although that car varied from day to day, it was more likely to be this one than any other.

Not only has it lost much of its paint, but if you compare it to the example picked up from last week's tat stall adventure, you can see that it's kinda changed shape too.

I don't know when exactly it lost its A-pillars, but the windscreen only fell to bits in the last few years, to my great upset.

The shape change is probably because I tend to carry it like this, often reaching into my pocket to give it a quick squeeze for reassurance:

And, over the years I've carried it - through 11+ exams, GCSEs, A-Levels, graduation; through funerals and, most recently, at my wedding - it's actually moulded itself into the shape of my hand.

I've shaped it, maybe as much as it's shaped me.

 

The Cortina was my dream car, so it's probably no coincidence that one of my earliest automotive lusts was a knackered MkIV Cortina in Jupiter Red, dumped down the side of a rough-looking house in John Street Lane in Newtownards. It was appalling rusty - yet I spent several years, from about 1991 to 1994, convincing myself that this car was eminently restorable...

Until one day, it was gone. Just like that. I have no photographs of my first true love. Goodnight, UKS249T.

It's also probably no coincidence that my first car was also a Cortina, albeit a MkV (there were no longer any MkIVs on the road locally by 1997)...

In fairness, XOI was probably no less rotten than UKS - just that someone had thought to slap black Hammerite over the rusty bits. Cunning.

 

Although in later years I bought another Cortina that was slightly less advanced as an automotive colander, the red-hot desire had worn off a bit.

I really liked NJW605X, especially when it wasn't conking out every twenty metres or so, but ten years had passed since XOI and in a way it felt like trying to get back with an ex. 

 

I also have the Vanguards Mk IV which looks very like UKS, in the right shade and with the black vinyl roof and everything, and that's a fitting tribute in a way.

(library pic)

But the little Superfast representation has remained. It'll never be restored: it is what it is.

One day I'll splurge out on a mint and boxed example, and display it alongside 'my' version - and maybe, in a way, that's what a lot of this tat hunting has been for.

I've recently managed to gather some slightly better examples of some of my childhood toys, and putting them together side by side to compare does give me a surprising amount of pleasure.

So yeah. There's probably some more tiny tat autobiography to come, I'm afraid...

[Datsuncog]

42 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

If he has them next week, could I nab the mod rod and crapi please?

You can surely! Will make a note of those, thanks!

[bunglebus]

I know I said I'd reign it in a bit - but items I purchased prior to that promise continue to arrive;

 

First up, some oddballs that arrived in a job lot - HW release of RC from Cars

 

20190927_110925 by RS, on Flickr

 

Corgi Starbug

 

20190927_110709 by RS, on Flickr

 

Johnny Lightening school bus from The Simpsons

 

20190927_110645 by RS, on Flickr

 

 Matchbox Mr Bean Mini

 

20190927_110623 by RS, on Flickr

 

Tomica Lady Penelope Rolls Royce

 

20190927_110604 by RS, on Flickr

 

HW Simpsons car - premium version with Real Riders

 

20190927_110529 by RS, on Flickr

 

Again premium version of Herbie

 

20190927_110504 by RS, on Flickr

 

Anyone into Batmobiles? Various HW, Tomica etc here if anyone wants them

 

20190927_110855 by RS, on Flickr

 

HW blackwall Mustang

 

20190927_110147 by RS, on Flickr

 

Police car with the revolving damage area

 

20190927_110117 by RS, on Flickr

 

Jeep

 

20190927_105833 by RS, on Flickr

 

Pontiac J2000

 

20190927_105811 by RS, on Flickr

 

No caption required

 

20190927_105720 by RS, on Flickr

 

These are really cool, coloured chrome HW...

 

20190927_105221 by RS, on Flickr

20190927_105157 by RS, on Flickr

20190927_105137 by RS, on Flickr

20190927_105302 by RS, on Flickr

 

But look how diddy they are!

 

20190927_105335 by RS, on Flickr

20190927_105325 by RS, on Flickr

20190927_105242 by RS, on Flickr

 

[bunglebus]

18 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

 

 

 

Feeling you on the Cortina - my dad had a Jupiter red 2.0S when I was growing up, strangely never had the Matchbox until I was a bit older. One of the best castings they did though.

[quicksilver]

5 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Your record of the events of every Friday lunch time are what we are waiting for, no disappointment here.

Nice one on the Maxi and the Oxford Catalogue, I have never seen the latter. That said I can just search quicksilver's posts on this thread as he seems to have every casting covered!

I am really impressed with the purchases I have made from the Oxford 1/76 range. Thus far I only have 5, the Maxi, a Mini Clubman, an Austin 1300, a Bedford TK horse transporter (which is my wife's) and a modernish Ford Transit however I'm definitely going to collect more. At under £10 delivered and with space at a premium it makes sense. They have released a few castings which I haven't seen any other maker attempt either, like an Allegro Estate, Viva HB and their 1/43 Firenza.

I also have a few 'Lledo Trackside' items, I think one or both of my Minor vans and a 4-door are made my them together with a Ford Zodiac MK1 towing a horse trailer (I'm minding this one for my wife too).

There are hundreds of 1/76 scale castings in the Oxford range so what I have is only a small selection For their small size and price they're excellent little models. I too have a Damask Red Maxi, as well as a Tara Green one and another repainted in Carmine Red to represent my own car. The Damask one seems too bright though and closer to Carmine than Damask, which is a definite dark maroon.  Your wife's Zodiac would be from the Pocketbond Classix range (sadly seemingly now defunct) who also did some good stuff like various Triumph Heralds and Vitesses with opening bonnets. 

[barrett]

39 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

And, over the years I've carried it - through 11+ exams, GCSEs, A-Levels, graduation; through funerals and, most recently, at my wedding - it's actually moulded itself into the shape of my hand.

I've shaped it, maybe as much as it's shaped me.

aww, that's really sweet. What a nice thing to read in the dull wastelands of the internet on a Friday afternoon.

 

I'm with you on the 'sparking joy' thing, too. When I decided to divest myself of all my childhood models a while back, there were a few I couldn't part with for not reasons that can't really be quantified or put in to words. I just felt they should stay, and they did (in an old shoebox never to be looked at again)

[Noel Tidybeard]

5 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Your record of the events of every Friday lunch time are what we are waiting for, no disappointment here.

Nice one on the Maxi and the Oxford Catalogue, I have never seen the latter. That said I can just search quicksilver's posts on this thread as he seems to have every casting covered!

I am really impressed with the purchases I have made from the Oxford 1/76 range. Thus far I only have 5, the Maxi, a Mini Clubman, an Austin 1300, a Bedford TK horse transporter (which is my wife's) and a modernish Ford Transit however I'm definitely going to collect more. At under £10 delivered and with space at a premium it makes sense. They have released a few castings which I haven't seen any other maker attempt either, like an Allegro Estate, Viva HB and their 1/43 Firenza.

I also have a few 'Lledo Trackside' items, I think one or both of my Minor vans and a 4-door are made my them together with a Ford Zodiac MK1 towing a horse trailer (I'm minding this one for my wife too).

ahem, exhibit "A" milord

?

[Split_Pin]

56 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Sooo… way back in May last year I had a bit of a diecast clearout, partly because the Terrible Gooner Twins both died and left me with no transport, and partly because I badly needed to refocus a collection that had long since got out of control.

Once again, I'm very grateful to those shiters who dug deep and enabled me to exchange my assorted tiny tat for cold hard cash - enabling me to rebuild my somewhat shattered finances, and hopefully gain themselves some diecast jewels with a little bit of humour on the side. And also to those who participated in the DaveNumbers Memorial Diecast Tat Roffle, raising £135 for the overall AS donation fund.

The process of paring down the collection kind of boiled down to the Marie Kondo 'spark joy' philosophy - holding each model and trying to work out exactly how I felt about it (yeah, that took a while).

Some I felt very little for - they were so-so charity shop finds I'd almost immediately thrown in a box; eBay job lot surplus; new Hot Wheels I'd bought in work with staff discount while bored, to roll them up and down the Halfords parts desk.

Others were more complex - models I'd damaged and poorly repaired; models I'd rashly exchanged for something I should really have kept; cars that for one reason or another held a negative memory. Weird stuff, but about 90% I was very sure of what I wanted to do with them.

So you've seen what went... and maybe it's time to consider what remained, and why.

 

And it probably starts with this one:

My automotive core: MB55, the 1981 release of the Matchbox Superfast Ford Cortina MkIV.

I think I can remember choosing this car myself, from the display case in McCulloughs in Bangor. I couldn't have been older than three, maybe only two - it's a very dim memory (and yes, I appreciate it could be entirely false but it's one I cherish nonetheless).

I loved this car. I don't know why, but there was just something about it. The deep metallic red paint was similar to the real life Ford Jupiter Red which looked so good on them. The numberplate was correct for the year - RSH88T (although seemingly fictitious). It went pretty much everywhere with me - hence the state of it.

I pretty much always had a diecast car in my pocket as a child - and beyond - and although that car varied from day to day, it was more likely to be this one than any other.

Not only has it lost much of its paint, but if you compare it to the example picked up from last week's tat stall adventure, you can see that it's kinda changed shape too.

I don't know when exactly it lost its A-pillars, but the windscreen only fell to bits in the last few years, to my great upset.

The shape change is probably because I tend to carry it like this, often reaching into my pocket to give it a quick squeeze for reassurance:

And, over the years I've carried it - through 11+ exams, GCSEs, A-Levels, graduation; through funerals and, most recently, at my wedding - it's actually moulded itself into the shape of my hand.

I've shaped it, maybe as much as it's shaped me.

 

The Cortina was my dream car, so it's probably no coincidence that one of my earliest automotive lusts was a knackered MkIV Cortina in Jupiter Red, dumped down the side of a rough-looking house in John Street Lane in Newtownards. It was appalling rusty - yet I spent several years, from about 1991 to 1994, convincing myself that this car was eminently restorable...

Until one day, it was gone. Just like that. I have no photographs of my first true love. Goodnight, UKS249T.

It's also probably no coincidence that my first car was also a Cortina, albeit a MkV (there were no longer any MkIVs on the road locally by 1997)...

In fairness, XOI was probably no less rotten than UKS - just that someone had thought to slap black Hammerite over the rusty bits. Cunning.

 

Although in later years I bought another Cortina that was slightly less advanced as an automotive colander, the red-hot desire had worn off a bit.

I really liked NJW605X, especially when it wasn't conking out every twenty metres or so, but ten years had passed since XOI and in a way it felt like trying to get back with an ex. 

 

I also have the Vanguards Mk IV which looks very like UKS, in the right shade and with the black vinyl roof and everything, and that's a fitting tribute in a way.

(library pic)

But the little Superfast representation has remained. It'll never be restored: it is what it is.

One day I'll splurge out on a mint and boxed example, and display it alongside 'my' version - and maybe, in a way, that's what a lot of this tat hunting has been for.

I've recently managed to gather some slightly better examples of some of my childhood toys, and putting them together side by side to compare does give me a surprising amount of pleasure.

So yeah. There's probably some more tiny tat autobiography to come, I'm afraid...

Please do keep these coming, that's a wonderful story.

You may already know this but both your Superfast example and the one down the side of the house you remember have Scottish Borders registration marks.

Incidentally the Superfast Bedford TM Horsebox was RSH 16S and the Berliet Collectomatic was GSK 77T, both Borders Registrations.

I liked the Superfast cast numberplates as the font was correct (the Cortina badges are also perfect, something Majorette was also very good at) and they added an extra dimension to the model.

Strangely I remember a fair few other numbers:

AJW 53R Bedford TM car transporter

KCF 188W : Rover 3500

KCF 17W: Volvo F10 flatbed with animal care

LYX549F: Ford Zodiac MK4

No doubt I'll recall more in time.

[Split_Pin]

I love that Pontiac J2000, back when HW made proper US domestics.

[warch]

Some of my worryingly large collection of models of the iconic rusty, unreliable Brummie off roader. The two little(r) ones are by Wiking (100/10B, 1989-92) and are 1/87 scale, the bigger ones are Lesney No 12 (b) left, made from 1959 and Lesney No 12 (c) made from 1965. Whilst none of them are the last word in accuracy, they do have the correct narrow track in comparison to the body width, and the correct narrow wheels, (which went by the by in the 70s when  they started fitting huuge wide wheels to everything for more speediness). Most crucially they have an undeniable air of landroveriness about them.

Next time I will follow Split Pin's Datsuncog's lead (one of the most moving things I think I've ever read on an internet forum) and dig out a Matchbox toy from when I was a loudly dressed toddler in the 70s. BTW I used to carry a Britain's tractor driver around with me (sans tractor usually) when I was a kid, although I did take a Massey Ferguson 2680 with me when my mum took me to see Return of the Jedi.

[Spottedlaurel]

I took a small bit of pleasure this morning looking at my green Matchbox Cortina. It's paired-up with the No. 31 caravan as it used to be when I was young, they make a natural combination. More so than the older caravan they put it with in the Hitch 'n Haul twin pack.

[Split_Pin]

I have just extracted one of my MB Cortinas from the loft too!