Shite in Miniature II

[MiniMinorMk3]

Stripey the Magic Mini with Candy Andy and friends.

[WillCarter]

23 minutes ago, andrew e said:

Do the skier’s come with it?

They do indeed. Hasegawa seemed to do a few Ski Editions, all with the same figures but cool nonetheless.

[AndyW201]

Well, having had half an hour or so to spare, I got Sharpie happy on one of the Matchbox Mercs.

Nowhere near the standard of the Bunglebus Kustoms version, but blacking out the lower sections made a big difference.

Being a 123, the bumper end caps should be blacked out, but I didn't really want to add any more black to it. So I just extended the rubber trim on the front bumper around the corners and added one to the rear bumper.

Some silver on the door handles and mirrors break up the black.

Some amber on the indicators and a bit of detailing on the grille.

This is why most of my diecast cars stay unmodified but it was a bit of fun! 🤣

[bunglebus]

I wasn't brave enough to try adding the black to the freshly chromed bumpers on mine!

[AndyW201]

8 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

I wasn't brave enough to try adding the black to the freshly chromed bumpers on mine!

Neither would I have been if I'd chromed them!

[500tops]

Picked up the majority of these in Dartmouth Sainsbury's on Friday evening. A few more in Morrisons yesterday and two in B&M this afternoon. 🙄😂

[danthecapriman]

Does anyone know what the deal is with old Matchbox? I’ve recently discovered you can get Bulgarian ones as well as the normal England ones. They look the same other than the writing on the base but seem to have different colours available that the England versions didn’t. 
Were they made under license in Bulgaria or something similar like that? 
Are there other countries that made them?

Ive never seen them before.
 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Quote

Matchbox models made in Bulgaria

Mikro'67

Mikro'67 (МИКРО'67) is a Bulgarian manufacturer of diecast models for Matchbox, Gama, Schuco and others. Their factory is in Razgrad.

In 1983 they started making first five Superfast and w few Superking models for Matchbox using imported wheels. Up until 1989 they made seventeen Superfast and sever Superking models. The deal with Matchbox allowed them to only sell models on the Bulgarian market. No export was permitted.

In 1991 they started a "second wave" of Superfast models but after a few years Matchbox broke the contract because many of the models were exported from Bulgaria. However Matchbox was unable to get back some of the dies. All Mikro'67 models made from Matchbox dies after the split are considered unauthentic by Matchbox.

If you click on the link below you can see some of the Bulgarian variations,

SEARCH RESULTS (vectis.co.uk)

Matchbox were also made in Brazil

Christian Falkensteiner's Matchbox Inbrima Index (cfalkensteiner.com)

 

Also you can get Japanese market Matchbox in Japanese style boxes with specific J prefix numbering

 

[MiniMinorMk3]

3 Minis

Top Playart from Hong Kong

Next Mebetoys from Italy

And finally Pilen from Spain

[sierraman]

2 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Does anyone know what the deal is with old Matchbox? I’ve recently discovered you can get Bulgarian ones as well as the normal England ones. They look the same other than the writing on the base but seem to have different colours available that the England versions didn’t. 
Were they made under license in Bulgaria or something similar like that? 
Are there other countries that made them?

Ive never seen them before.
 

Hungary made them as well, they’re pretty slapdash though. They haven’t made them since maybe 2004-5 ish but you can pick them up on eBay etc as new old stock.

[quicksilver]

2 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Does anyone know what the deal is with old Matchbox? I’ve recently discovered you can get Bulgarian ones as well as the normal England ones. They look the same other than the writing on the base but seem to have different colours available that the England versions didn’t. 
Were they made under license in Bulgaria or something similar like that? 
Are there other countries that made them?

Ive never seen them before.
 

Seems there was a deal starting in the 80s to ship old unused tooling to Bulgaria for local sale. Initially this had to be returned after a year so the Bulgarians would make as much use of it as possible in that time and churn out umpteen different variations using whatever paint they had. Later shipments ended up being kept indefinitely so a load of 1970s/80s Matchbox carried on being made in Bulgaria well into the 2000s. There are supposedly so many colour variants nobody has ever attempted to compile a definitive list of them!

[sierraman]

http://www.mikro67.com/en/products.php

Looks as if they’re still trying to flog the matchbox copies. Wonder if they’d do a commission of Autoshite branded brown Cortina? 

[bunglebus]

Spot the error 

[Split_Pin]

I can't see it?

[Split_Pin]

I have a beige Bulgarian Cortina in what looks to be Tyco - era packaging. The doors are sealed shut but other than that it's identical to the original. I think its great.

[MiniMinorMk3]

24 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Spot the error 

Car is wrong way round in packet

[bunglebus]

Correct - first error of this type I've found.

Found this Bburago Beetle in TK Maxx - quite an oddity being a roof chopped oval, but having the front quarter mounted "crotch cooler" vents only fitted to 51-52 split windows 

Got home to this very tidy Guisval Datsun - someone didn't plan the base text very well though

Lastly the Corgi Model Club not-a-Citroen DS landed

[bunglebus]

Talking of which, I stole this pic off their FB

[sheffcortinacentre]

11 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Does anyone know what the deal is with old Matchbox? I’ve recently discovered you can get Bulgarian ones as well as the normal England ones. They look the same other than the writing on the base but seem to have different colours available that the England versions didn’t. 
Were they made under license in Bulgaria or something similar like that? 
Are there other countries that made them?

Ive never seen them before.
 

I have around 3doz MK4 cortinas in various colours /liveries from there main difference is that front doors a cast as part of  body whereas UK version has opening ones.

[sierraman]

8 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

I have around 3doz MK4 cortinas in various colours /liveries from there main difference is that front doors a cast as part of  body whereas UK version has opening ones.

They did the doors cast shut in the U.K. towards the end of production, I’ve got one with day glo windows and cast shut doors. I think the rarest is a China production one in the early 90’s with flames on it. 

[RoadworkUK]

Sometimes you just have to give something a home, and that's how I came to rescue this Britains JCB Telehandler.

Spotted on a high shelf in a Brighton charity shop, it must have belonged to some giffer's collection. It's not perfect; it's lost part of the windscreen guard and the gems for its headlights, but everything works, and the paint and - amazingly - paper stickers are intact.

Three quid.

[andy18s]

Hungary you say?

[MiniMinorMk3]

Some more Pilen action.

Some more Mini colour/box variations

And a couple of Volvo 480s

 

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, RoadworkUK said:

Sometimes you just have to give something a home, and that's how I came to rescue this Britains JCB Telehandler.

Spotted on a high shelf in a Brighton charity shop, it must have belonged to some giffer's collection. It's not perfect; it's lost part of the windscreen guard and the gems for its headlights, but everything works, and the paint and - amazingly - paper stickers are intact.

Three quid.

I had that as a kid, mine sat in my window, those old Britains were really sensitive to UV degrading the plastics so mine literally fell apart! IIRC it would have come with different buckets, a pallet and some straw bales. 

[Split_Pin]

2 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Sometimes you just have to give something a home, and that's how I came to rescue this Britains JCB Telehandler.

Spotted on a high shelf in a Brighton charity shop, it must have belonged to some giffer's collection. It's not perfect; it's lost part of the windscreen guard and the gems for its headlights, but everything works, and the paint and - amazingly - paper stickers are intact.

Three quid.

Old Britain's stuff is just great isn't it? Perfectly scaled as I'm sure you'll agree.

Most of my items fell apart but the 'Leyland' (Iveco) milk tanker has survived in perfect condition, which I got from a local newsagent in 1986. The best thing about it are the realistic wheels and tyres. It's a great model.

[sierraman]

1 minute ago, Split_Pin said:

Old Britain's stuff is just great isn't it? Perfectly scaled as I'm sure you'll agree.

Most of my items fell apart but the 'Leyland' (Iveco) milk tanker has survived in perfect condition, which I got from a local newsagent in 1986. The best thing about it are the realistic wheels and tyres. It's a great model.

I had a few of those, a kid on our street had the big flat bed type one with a Maggy Deutz sticker on. The unpopular Autoway tackle commands some serious money. 

[Split_Pin]

@barrett I won that Pilen Chrysler you suggested, thanks man

[Split_Pin]

11 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I had a few of those, a kid on our street had the big flat bed type one with a Maggy Deutz sticker on. The unpopular Autoway tackle commands some serious money. 

I thumbed the catalogue for about 2 years before I got one! The roadworks range was the best as it was the most relevant to stuff I saw every day.

[sierraman]

47 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I thumbed the catalogue for about 2 years before I got one! The roadworks range was the best as it was the most relevant to stuff I saw every day.

The range they offered was epic, everything from a basic Ford tractor to twin rear wheeled and specific farm implements. They got a bit cheap though as they went into the mid 90’s, the Discovery model was awful. I’ve had loads of the Land Rovers over the years, the older ones you could take apart. I sold mine a few years ago, I had the Massey Combine which was quite fragile, you got the impression they were what quite wealthy kids of farmers would have had! I don’t know how we came by them because looking at the prices we wouldn’t have paid that for them. 

[junkyarddog]

Picked this up today.

A really good casting for a generic model.

Dimachinni Veloce 😂

Did a wheel swap,added some spotlights and some red tape across the rear panel.

Pleased with that.