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Shite in Miniature II


Split_Pin

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I think when man reaches 30 he regresses back into being about 8 years old and starts getting excited about model cars again once you’ve reached that point you start trawling the car boots like a man possessed, clutching your testicles with excitement at finding a Volvo Cable truck or a Japanese Issue Mitsubishi Galant. 

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« И привет с игр Красной площади ! «

« Первым событием дня является перетягивание каната ! «

 

[ TR: " And hello from the Red Square games ! "

"The first event of the day is the TUG OF WAR ! " ]

 

image.png.4d7bc92a4206c13e88cb492270f6b257.png

 

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There is something evocative about those low-spec Juniors of the period. They are no better than anything from further afield at the time; it could be to do with the fact that they were made in Great* Britain*.

US Vans, Leyland Terriers, those weird XJS with no interiors and so on. I never gelled with Super GTs, even the MK1 Capri, but somehow the Corgi equivalents were ok.

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It was always the other way around for me.  I had the Terrier and Chevrolet van but hated their lightness (plastic base) and naff wheels with the thin raised part in the centres.  The plastic/tinny sound they made when rolled along made me discard for a Superfast with the metal bases and Superfast wheels, any time.  I can hear the Terrier even today, and I also can see it tipping itself over again as well.  The Matchbox cars always felt heavier and nicer to hold, and roll.

Perhaps it was because I was a boy in the seventies when Matchbox said Made in England on their metal bases - and I had grown out of toys by the time any Macau (or wherever) overseas production started?

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I agree, I've got some Corgis but have always felt they're one step removed from the cheap Chinese stuff. The older metal base ones are better but Matchbox has always been higher quality, even the Super GT series with plastic bases feel nicer although the black windows are naff.

Were Corgi much different price wise? I only really bought Matchbox as a kid, and the occasional Hot Wheels if I could find them

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I did get Corgi but only if the Matchbox wasn’t there for whatever reason. Thinking back the corgis would maybe have been 20p or whatever cheaper. The Corgi tracks that came out in the early 90’s were fantastic though. 

Nothing at the time could touch Siku or Majorette for quality though. But then the Siku would have been twice the price of the Matchbox. Majorette if I remember right were sold for years in Morrisons so I’m assuming that’s where mine came from. 

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On ‎1‎/‎19‎/‎2020 at 8:01 AM, Split_Pin said:

Nice one again DC! I'd be interested in the Narcoral Fiat depending on price.

So, a reply came just before lunchtime from the vendor, plus a few more pics:

742086447_ToTScreengrabFiat.png.666a4ae77f96a263539d1034910fc870.png

1012694530_NacoralFiat5001.thumb.jpg.573f6515d4657bf46712234954574e31.jpg

855859129_NacoralFiat5002.thumb.jpg.4b33aa7ba858021037a6e6505ef5b8e2.jpg

1369954753_NacoralFiat5003.thumb.jpg.bb6899de56e395f0aec3787edcd0600a.jpg

1263432553_NacoralFiat5004.thumb.jpg.6e0238c09d3732215440359fd5349ed9.jpg

1264468580_NacoralFiat5005.thumb.jpg.c41ec71f99f243a6f60f408f6d4845df.jpg

A quick online auction site search suggests that's not overly exorbitant, given the pretty good condition.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=Nacoral+Fiat+500&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=Nacoral+Fiat+500&_sacat=220

What think you??

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1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

So, a reply came just before lunchtime from the vendor, plus a few more pics:

742086447_ToTScreengrabFiat.png.666a4ae77f96a263539d1034910fc870.png

1012694530_NacoralFiat5001.thumb.jpg.573f6515d4657bf46712234954574e31.jpg

855859129_NacoralFiat5002.thumb.jpg.4b33aa7ba858021037a6e6505ef5b8e2.jpg

1369954753_NacoralFiat5003.thumb.jpg.bb6899de56e395f0aec3787edcd0600a.jpg

1263432553_NacoralFiat5004.thumb.jpg.6e0238c09d3732215440359fd5349ed9.jpg

1264468580_NacoralFiat5005.thumb.jpg.c41ec71f99f243a6f60f408f6d4845df.jpg

A quick online auction site search suggests that's not overly exorbitant, given the pretty good condition.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=Nacoral+Fiat+500&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=Nacoral+Fiat+500&_sacat=220

What think you??

Thanks for enquiring on my half Tim, I really appreciate it.

It's no doubt well priced, but a wee bit out of my budget at the moment.

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No bother, I appreciate we're talking antique shop prices rather than tat stall prices here!

Hopefully he'll pull some more bits and bobs out from his shed before long, so I'll keep popping back as and when I can to see what's new.

I'm also wondering if he'd be interested in any of my dead stock from the 2018 clearout potentially for swapsies...

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Bought these for 99p each off eBay but local to me. Guy says he has a lot of MB/HW to sell so will send me pics if I want to buy. If it comes together I'll put them up on here and send them on for cost + postage

 

49419901966_59e654b659_k.jpg20200121_161427 by RS, on Flickr

49419894821_ef31a3e05d_4k.jpg20200121_161302 by RS, on Flickr

49419895516_665aa50a67_4k.jpg20200121_161307 by RS, on Flickr

 

Also found a 2014 H/W in Tesco. Strange

 

49420134642_59ad05eefc_k.jpg20200121_161638 by RS, on Flickr

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On ‎1‎/‎20‎/‎2020 at 9:11 PM, Split_Pin said:

There is something evocative about those low-spec Juniors of the period. They are no better than anything from further afield at the time; it could be to do with the fact that they were made in Great* Britain*.

US Vans, Leyland Terriers, those weird XJS with no interiors and so on. I never gelled with Super GTs, even the MK1 Capri, but somehow the Corgi equivalents were ok.

 

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2020 at 12:24 AM, flat4alfa said:

It was always the other way around for me.  I had the Terrier and Chevrolet van but hated their lightness (plastic base) and naff wheels with the thin raised part in the centres.  The plastic/tinny sound they made when rolled along made me discard for a Superfast with the metal bases and Superfast wheels, any time.  I can hear the Terrier even today, and I also can see it tipping itself over again as well.  The Matchbox cars always felt heavier and nicer to hold, and roll.

Perhaps it was because I was a boy in the seventies when Matchbox said Made in England on their metal bases - and I had grown out of toys by the time any Macau (or wherever) overseas production started?

 

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2020 at 2:52 AM, sierraman said:

The Corgis were definitely tinnier but at the same time probably cheaper. Funny as the 1/36 scale ones were pretty substantial beasts

 

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2020 at 7:26 AM, bunglebus said:

I agree, I've got some Corgis but have always felt they're one step removed from the cheap Chinese stuff. The older metal base ones are better but Matchbox has always been higher quality, even the Super GT series with plastic bases feel nicer although the black windows are naff.

 

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2020 at 8:01 AM, sierraman said:

Nothing at the time could touch Siku or Majorette for quality though. But then the Siku would have been twice the price of the Matchbox. Majorette if I remember right were sold for years in Morrisons so I’m assuming that’s where mine came from. 

 

Corgi Juniors always felt slightly downmarket to me too, compared to Matchbox and others; and I've already touched on my weird love/hate thing with the Jag XJS, Aston DB6 and 'US Van'.

They annoyed me a little because they felt flimsy and didn't perform as well on play tracks - yet Corgi also did models of cars I liked, such as Mk3 Escort, Rover SD1, Volvo 245 and Ford Transit Mk2 pickup.

I didn't tend to buy Corgi with my own money; Matchbox was my preference, with Hot Wheels when I could get them. I wasn't really a fan of the Super GT range as I just thought fantasy=rubbish, but I should have looked closer at the Capri, RS2000 and Lotus Europa... but Matchbox felt like my brand.

Models like the Rover 800 Sterling were just gorgeous; even thinking about the blister-packed Rover hanging on a peg in Woolworths gives me a Proustian rush.

MB2_Rover_Sterling.jpg.7559db2787b884c707f3cad029e2a160.jpg

MB2_Rover_Sterling_blister.jpg.c2f0ee59a4a8cbf74ea5ace9578db180.jpg

I was a bit too young to understand the whole England/Macau thing and Lesney's demise, but there just seemed to be so many Matchbox, and always new ones to find both old and new (and why Charlie Mack's Encyclopaedia of Matchbox Toys continues to give me such a kick).

The standard Majorette range on a spinner rack seemed to be mainly stocked by independent chemist's shops, for some reason. Some toy shops sold bigger 1/35 scale Majorettes and gift packs, but when I think of Majorette I always think of chemists. NI never had branches of Morrisons (other than for a few months in the mid 2000s, when they bought out Safeway but then quickly sold the NI stores on to Asda).

Siku were virtually unobtainable - I picked up a bay window VW Crew Cab, a Passat estate and an Audi 100 from a rummage box at an autojumble in the late 80s, and was transfixed - I'd never seen models like them before. I still have them (top right).

20191121_000507.thumb.jpg.3ddc167bc258dad7281590c598fccece.jpg

A few years later, Leisure World in Belfast started stocking some of the bigger Siku sets (and, crucially, little A6 range booklets so I could gawp at them all), and now and again an independent shop like McCulloughs would get in a box of standard issue vehicles - but they were always twice the price of Matchbox. I did, however, pick up a Mk3 VW Golf and a T4 Transporter from McCulloughs in the early 90s, and later a Mk4 Fiesta, Audi A6 and VW Beetle a few years later.

Weird stuff would also turn up from time to time, such as Edocar and Welly models (occasionally found in newsagents) and Novacar and Guisval (which popped up briefly in Toymaster stores in the early 90s) - but they never really captured my imagination in the same way (though the Edocar Trabant was a joy to my Jalopy magazine-lovin' 12 year old self). I also found some oddities while away on holiday, which made me very happy.

Most of the Corgi I had came from freebies and giveaways with cereal, petrol or Easter eggs, with the odd 'Bumper Pack' received as a gift, or some ropey second-hand ones picked up at jumble sales.

corgi-set5_med_hr_Bumper.thumb.jpg.b18a66ec9e4a4b8b202fe2abf8d0612d.jpg

I do dimly remember receiving a blister pack Corgi Vauxhall Nova in red, from Stewart Millar in Clandeboye Shopping Centre, not long after the real car was launched - so around 1983/84.

Corgi_Vauxhall_Nova_Blister.jpg.b03db11a96741254b98e3886f1819ea7.jpg

 Corgi_Vauxhall_Nova_Red.jpg.2b2f910e1c317a0fee151e2d8e75d428.jpg

Now, it did have a plastic base but also had an opening boot - and I can remember that it felt a bit special, somehow. I really liked it (and still have it, though it's pretty worn).

But the Juniors always felt highly variable in quality, and the fact that so many of them stayed in the range for years and years meant that I ended up with a lot of duplicates - I must have had about a dozen Mercedes 240Ds and Buick Regals in various colours - and that sorta diminished it, somehow.

I also ended up with a lot of duplicates from the BP promo range, and that also maybe cheapened the 'specialness' to a five-year-old.

Another toy shop, Rainbow, had a whole rack of Corgi Juniors in the early 90s, which never really sold - they only had about four different models, all of them sports cars in drab and unappealing colours like navy blue and dark maroon, including the Ferrari 348, BMW 8-series and Porsche 911 Carrera. They were left hanging up at the end of a shelf for years, reduced to 49p and getting dustier and dustier... stuff like this didn't help perceptions, I guess.

 

But I've been mulling this over for a few days, and I think the main difference is that Matchbox started off making 1/75ish scale toys and then later started making bigger versions, whereas Corgi started off with 1/43ish scale toys and later decided to grab a slice of Matchbox's market share by making smaller toys.

IMHO, Matchbox Superkings were never as well-built and detailed as the Corgi 1/35 range - except for the short-lived late 60s range involving the Dodge Charger, Mercury Cougar, Mercury Commuter and Lamborghini Miura, which were exquisite.

Equally, Corgi Juniors were never quite as finely detailed and finished as their Matchbox equivalent, and this became even more pronounced into the 1980s as Mettoy struggled with deteriorated tooling and the need for cost-cutting on their smallest and least profitable toys.

I reckon this is because each company's original focus was slightly different; Lesney were tremendous at putting unbelievable levels of detail into tiny models, but their 70s and 80s larger-scale output often (not always, though) seemed a bit half-arsed.

For example, the 1-75 range version of the Mk1 VW Golf has accurate badging and number plates and everything...

20191002_001920.thumb.jpg.44d3eceeb3a4157e552b72089ccab619.jpg

20191002_002307.thumb.jpg.8f22c9887910cc3f5c85221cbcc15851.jpg

...while the Superkings version is much more crude and far less detailed, despite being twice the size. It looks like it was made by a different company entirely.

20190719_125449.thumb.jpg.161ab8aee485990c01559e6061c9c43c.jpg

20190719_125526.thumb.jpg.12094311b2fb6a22041f4b9725ca208b.jpg

Corgi, on the other hand, focused on innovation and features in the 50s and 60s, and then settled into film and TV tie-ins during the later 60s and 70s where fidelity to the real-life screen car was important to secure contracts.

For their Juniors range though, it seemed more like they were trying to sell cars to kids who liked superheroes, rather than trying to sell superhero toys to kids who liked cars.

Corgi_Juniors_Superheroes_Range.thumb.jpg.0b857a2cfddef38d523f734e44835e09.jpg

With a few notable exceptions, Corgi's large 1/35 range was truly special, and around 1980 it was quite a bit ahead of Matchbox Superkings in terms of features and detail.

But here the small/large variation is reversed - on toys like the Fiat X1/9, Jaguar XJS, Mk 3 Escort, Ford Sierra, Range Rover and Rover SD1 , the smaller version was noticeably inferior in terms of proportions and detail.

I will say, however, that their Mk3 Transit appeared to be much better proportioned and detailed in its SWB Juniors format than in the LWB 1/35 format.

Even later on into the 80s, it was still noticeable:

20191130_224605.thumb.jpg.c8cc471bcd1b8c8e4ed39c35b1181b16.jpg

The large Volvo 760 is an absolute cracker, inside and out; whereas the casting of the smaller version seems nowhere near as crisp, and the extension of the glazing unit to form the headlights seems to detract rather than enhance the front end. 

Comparing Matchbox and Corgi Volvos of the same approximate scale also indicates that although Corgi managed to get the proportions and the detail mostly right (mebbe a bit wide), it looks like the paint's too thick or something - the lines just aren't quite as clean as the Matchbox, despite slightly shonky shut lines on the latter's doors.

The contrasting bumpers on the Matchbox - rather cleverly using a slot in the base to give the correctly coloured air dam while securing the body - provide some realism. Neither model has any tampo printing, just the paint.

20200122_090535.thumb.jpg.ce650c18096e9f491828e46d2ab6cb18.jpg

The Matchbox wheels are undoubtedly better, as well - even on this well worn tat box example. Cloverleafs are my least favourite Corgi Jrs wheel variant.

Matchbox opts for badging on the bootlid too - though I think here, Corgi's rear is more distinctively Volvo, somehow.

1657083032_20200122_090425(2).thumb.jpg.7b354b5d3fe92d8a153976f71e6e85b2.jpg

Also, in unscientific toybox testing, I reckon that large-scale Corgis wore much more robust paint. That big green Volvo spent twenty years in my toy box, yet is virtually mint - any Superkings bought around the same time were treated no differently, but soon suffered enormous paint loss.

So yeah... it's an odd one.

But I reckon Matchbox's heart never really lay in the bigger stuff, while Corgi never saw their true calling in making the smaller stuff.

And, even to us young enthusiasts, it showed.

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I didnt know that there was a numberplate variation on the smaller Golf, my yellow example wears a Lancashire mark 'JBV 149R'.

The latter application of UK numberplates in the correct font together with realistic badges was something which really attracted me to Superfasts of the late 1970s.

Corgi also did this to a greater or lesser effect on the 1/36 range Thumbs up for the badges on the 760, MK3 Escort, Sierra and Austin 'mini'Metro, boo to the MK3 Transit. Its a shame that they only showed anonymous looking 6 character number plates such as 'RMM100' on the Volvo and 'GMS625' on the MK3 Transit. At least the font was fairly accurate.

The most evocative for me though has to be the Corgi BP promo stuff as they were omnipresent in the late 1980s. All my friends and acquaintances had several, whether they were into cars or not. The same is partly true for late 1980s/early 1990s Matchboxes. Familiar then but now a solid part of my history.

The only place in Scotland that I ever found Sikus in the 1980s was Christie's in St Andrews. I got a MK3 Escort and a B3 Pass at, excitingly new at the time. They had a real Germanic quality feel to them I still have the Escort. Leisuretime in Falkirk started selling the brand in the early 1990s and I got a few of their fantastic trucks for Christmas over a number of years.

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