Shite in Miniature II

[Spottedlaurel]

As of this week I have voluntarily dropped to a 4-day working week. Getting old and tired. Not sure this will happen every Friday, but ended up 'celebrating' this by trawling around something like 10 charity shops in two different towns. The result of which was:

One Majorette Thunderbird, for £1.

Hopefully will be able to make more progress on the kits over a 3-day weekend.

[Remspoor]

10 hours ago, sierraman said:

No I’m not a tree surgeon I’ve just owned a pair in the past

How much did you sell those surgeons for in the end?😉

[Datsuncog]

6 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

It's a wholesaler catalogue from 1962 - from an outfit known as Sandle's, in London:

Seems that Sandle Brothers Ltd were primarily a stationery firm, who also seem to have sold toys and fancy goods - or at least, they did for their Christmas catalogues.

Some good pics of their store when it was in Spitalfields here:

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/07/26/sandle-brothers-manufacturing-stationers-i/

There are a lot of pens and letterwriting sets offered in the catalogue, right enough.

Substantial premises!

Seems they'd outgrown these by 1962, so clearly it was a big outfit.

[MiniMinorMk3]

18 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Of course the really special stuff was in the window display 

 

 

 

17 hours ago, sierraman said:

£400 for the Mustang and he’s written 1972 on the box? It’s like charging £60 for a bag of salad then wiping your nob on it in front of the customer first. 

You can get a much better one at Vectis in 10 days time.

 

That shop show pretty much why the UK is crap for collectors of model cars. Where are the IXO models? What about the Minichamps? Not even any Vanguards, just crappy tat issued a million times before TV stuff and a bunch of Oxfords for railwayists.

[MiniMinorMk3]

10 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

But I also picked this up...

It's a wholesaler catalogue from 1962 - from an outfit known as Sandle's, in London:

 

 

Thanks for posting the catalogue.

Plenty of margin for retailers to be competitive with each other.

[ambassador84]

New mix of Matchbox Moving Parts I've had to source from overseas as Sainsbury's appear to have dropped the line despite selling well and no new stocks appearing at The Entertainer at the moment.

[ambassador84]

2025 Case D which like so much of my new Matchbox purchases these days I have to source them online. Most of the new recolours from this batch do of course cross over to Case E which is now appearing at The Entertainer though oddly not the EV School Bus, VW ID.4 or the Chevrolet C10.

[ambassador84]

Due the rabid competition in trying to find new releases of Hot Wheels it's exceptionally rare now I'm ever first to an untouched case. The staff at my nearest two The Entertainer stores tell me they get in several boxes on a delivery and often can have 10 adult collectors ready and waiting! 

I was thus surprised to be first to a case of the brand new 2025 Matchbox E Case, an assortment I never dare to imagine would appear here as so many MBX retailers are stuck on older batches. 

[andrew e]

Earlier in the week I happened to be yards away from the once great Hamleys in London. It’s seemingly just a big toy shop, not the too the ceiling every brand colossus I remember as kid, but hey that’s rose tinted glades for you! Anyway these prices might amuse 😳 

 

[andrew e]

However how great is this shelf!

Scenes like this were just before my time (being born as these boxes vanished) but isn’t this great!

[ambassador84]

36 minutes ago, andrew e said:

Earlier in the week I happened to be yards away from the once great Hamleys in London. It’s seemingly just a big toy shop, not the too the ceiling every brand colossus I remember as kid, but hey that’s rose tinted glades for you! Anyway these prices might amuse 😳 

 

Who buys Hot Wheels at £4 each! 

[MiniMinorMk3]

23 minutes ago, ambassador84 said:

Who buys Hot Wheels at £4 each! 

London rates in'it.

I used to go in Hamleys when I worked in that there London back in the 1980s and 1990s. The used to do Minichamps, Brums, Quartzos, Vitesse etc etc. However the prices were always just a little bit more than what Beatties or St. Martins Lance Accessories were asking.

1 hour ago, andrew e said:

However how great is this shelf!

Scenes like this were just before my time (being born as these boxes vanished) but isn’t this great!

I don't remember seeing Corgi Toys displayed like that. They were always in cabinets or rotating displays and you asked for one and teh shop keeper would go to the stock room and bring one out.

Juniors were hung on a thing like a coat stand

[bunglebus]

Sole new Hot Wheels find today in Sainsbury's 

But I did get another Model A and a couple of other doubles for my mate, and a white Majorette Volvo I wasn't expecting 

[bunglebus]

A few bits awaited my arrival home. Got this off Facebook, quite why Matchbox decided to produce a mango police car I'm not sure 

69. Fnar

Majorette XM

These two came with the Matchbox Plymouth, Mira Sierra is best described as approximate 

Plastic doored Guisval is pretty nice though

The XM above came with this. I take it no-one has any exceptions to me robbing the doors off this for my early square headlight version?

[ambassador84]

40 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

London rates in'it.

I used to go in Hamleys when I worked in that there London back in the 1980s and 1990s. The used to do Minichamps, Brums, Quartzos, Vitesse etc etc. However the prices were always just a little bit more than what Beatties or St. Martins Lance Accessories were asking.

I don't remember seeing Corgi Toys displayed like that. They were always in cabinets or rotating displays and you asked for one and teh shop keeper would go to the stock room and bring one out.

Juniors were hung on a thing like a coat stand

It must be the Yorkshire in me but I can't imagine who thinks £4 for a Hot Wheels is good value no matter where in the World you've visited from. Bah humbug! 😅

[bunglebus]

Corgi Thames is all done

Hang on, that's it before I started. I felt I should try and do a slightly better job of what it was the previous customiser tried to achieve. I'll let you be the judge

Quite pleased with the rear lights on this in particular, as the back was pretty ugly to start with (those doors are still terrible looking things to be honest). Yellow sock material interior and as much detailing as I dared do finish it off.  You can't really tell but the grille, badges etc are all painted, as well as the three separate shades on the body. Those wheels are possibly my favourite bit though, edging it into custom territory. I left the window blinds out as they hid the interior too much.

I think Corgi took a few liberties with this one anyway as I can't find a real one with the same windows, and it should have separate quarter bumpers on the back.

[sierraman]

10 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

As of this week I have voluntarily dropped to a 4-day working week. Getting old and tired. Not sure this will happen every Friday, but ended up 'celebrating' this by trawling around something like 10 charity shops in two different towns. The result of which was:

One Majorette Thunderbird, for £1.

Hopefully will be able to make more progress on the kits over a 3-day weekend.

Good choice on dropping some hours, you can’t put a price on having less stress in your life. 

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, ambassador84 said:

It must be the Yorkshire in me but I can't imagine who thinks £4 for a Hot Wheels is good value no matter where in the World you've visited from. Bah humbug! 😅

Not just me that’s a tight fucker then!! 😂😂😂

[sierraman]

2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

A few bits awaited my arrival home. Got this off Facebook, quite why Matchbox decided to produce a mango police car I'm not sure 

69. Fnar

Majorette XM

These two came with the Matchbox Plymouth, Mira Sierra is best described as approximate 

Plastic doored Guisval is pretty nice though

The XM above came with this. I take it no-one has any exceptions to me robbing the doors off this for my early square headlight version?

I don’t know why but I really like those Plymouths in that colour. 

[FakeConcern]

3 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Corgi Thames is all done

Hang on, that's it before I started. I felt I should try and do a slightly better job of what it was the previous customiser tried to achieve. I'll let you be the judge

Quite pleased with the rear lights on this in particular, as the back was pretty ugly to start with (those doors are still terrible looking things to be honest). Yellow sock material interior and as much detailing as I dared do finish it off.  You can't really tell but the grille, badges etc are all painted, as well as the three separate shades on the body. Those wheels are possibly my favourite bit though, edging it into custom territory. I left the window blinds out as they hid the interior too much.

I think Corgi took a few liberties with this one anyway as I can't find a real one with the same windows, and it should have separate quarter bumpers on the back.

That looks superb!

Having seen your custom I did have a quick look on Google and found one with windows like the Corgi version

[Split_Pin]

Anyone ever noticed the tiny 'Gran Fury' scroll on the front wings?

[flat4alfa]

19 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Wait... what...  that's an early 1970s Aurora AFX HO slot car in there

Please grab if seen next time please thanks (but don't make trip specially, obvs) as in good condition that would be around 50 quid if it was one of the lighting circuit examples.  Tyres are available, as are pickups

It's a model of the 1970 Ferrari 512 M, typically bundled in track sets with a blue Porsche 917 ....which might also be in that box perhaps

[ambassador84]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

Not just me that’s a tight fucker then!! 😂😂😂

I can peel oranges in my pocket! 😅

[sierraman]

12 minutes ago, ambassador84 said:

I can peel oranges in my pocket! 😅

A pound hit me on the back of the head when I dropped it at the bar last week. 😂

[sierraman]

12 minutes ago, ambassador84 said:

I can peel oranges in my pocket! 😅

A pound hit me on the back of the head when I dropped it at the bar last week. 😂

[bunglebus]

41 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Anyone ever noticed the tiny 'Gran Fury' scroll on the front wings?

I hadn't, but Matchbox often seemed to include nice details like that

The COMMUTER script on the lower rear quarters on both the Speed Kings and smaller version is lovely too

Missing front door handles was a bit weird though

[sierraman]

I’ve been reading the ‘First Forty Years’ Matchbox book past few days. Fascinating as it’s all first hand accounts from people why changes were made. 

[bunglebus]

A couple of other bits I found in random corners of the internet

Majorette bay window looks pretty good

But it has a crusty bum

Siku LT that came with it is decent though

Finally a Polistil 2CV that didn't make it into the yellow tin snail line up I did recently

 

[sierraman]

Siku tended to be very inconsistent as far as their interpretation was concerned. Some the Jaguar XJ6 and the LT were superb but others like an Escort or a Kadett were not terribly convincing at all. But what they lacked in reality they made in quality! 

[Mrcento]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

Siku tended to be very inconsistent as far as their interpretation was concerned. Some the Jaguar XJ6 and the LT were superb but others like an Escort or a Kadett were not terribly convincing at all. But what they lacked in reality they made in quality! 

I have a couple of Siku trucks somewhere and i'm sure at least 1 car, (Can't remember what 2 of them are, but 1 is definitely a Mercedes bin lorry, as pictured iirc), my biggest memory of them was the sheer weight of the things, undoubtedly the thickest metal of any of the die cast models. Even at 1:55 scale, they were heavier than something like a Burago 1:18