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Shite in Miniature II


Split_Pin

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10 minutes ago, ETCHY said:

Talking of Steeds Jag & the Dinky version is this of any interest ?

https://dinkytvspace.com/113-john-steeds-jaguar-xj12c/ 

This is the thread I found, it's not the easiest read but fascinating - to me anyway

 

https://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=125&id=10557&Itemid=0

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On 9/29/2020 at 8:32 PM, bunglebus said:

My problem is what wheels to use, got nothing the right size or style at the moment 

The 1977 Dinky Trade Catalogue shows the wheel style (pages 5/6) as used on Plymouth Stock Car and the racing cars 

Ok, not as large as the final release style, but might be an idea if you have dead Dinky racing cars about.  Style is similar to the later Corgi racing cars too, such as the Surtees, which are all over the place in tatty nick.  Perhaps two pair of the bigger rear wheels?

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On 9/29/2020 at 5:57 PM, flat4alfa said:

Dinky 1979 Trade Catalogue

 

cd79E_15.jpg

 

Wow, the infamous 'single decker coach' - first time I've seen a picture of it so the rumours are true! No wonder Dinky went down the pan if their product planners thought that crock of shit, an American transit bus in Liverpool Football Club livery masquerading as a coach, was a good idea. Now if they'd made a nice British coach like a Plaxton Supreme or Duple Dominant in OO scale to go with the Atlantean it might even have saved the company.

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1 hour ago, quicksilver said:

Wow, the infamous 'single decker coach' - first time I've seen a picture of it so the rumours are true! No wonder Dinky went down the pan if their product planners thought that crock of shit, an American transit bus in Liverpool Football Club livery masquerading as a coach, was a good idea. Now if they'd made a nice British coach like a Plaxton Supreme or Duple Dominant in OO scale to go with the Atlantean it might even have saved the company.

The illustration in the 1979 Dinky customer catalogue is even more risable, if that's possible - showing the coach being dwarfed by an overtaking Plymouth taxi.

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You have to feel sorry for whoever was tasked to do the catalogue photography - that mix of scales could never sit together well.

Mind you, Corgi had the same range crossover problem in their mid-late 70s catalogues too - but they tended to show the smaller scale stuff in a separate inset photograph, or at least use creative camera angles to make it less obvious...

I wonder if the transit bus/football coach was an off-the-peg effort using an existing casting from a Hong Kong company like Lintoy (who were making the Big Cat and SD1 models) or Universal (responsible for the 'pocket money' range)?

Out of interest, here's another Dinky trade ad I came across recently (possibly the last before the receivers went in?), showing all of the Universal-made toys along with the rebadged Solidos, the ill-fated Mk2 Granada, and those weird space vehicle things...

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Don't think any of these hit the shelves before the company went belly-up?

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3 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Dinky trade ad I came across recently (possibly the last before the receivers went in?), showing all of the Universal-made toys along with the rebadged Solidos, the ill-fated Mk2 Granada, and those weird space vehicle things...

1352758997_IMG_20201001_1103552.thumb.jpg.3575947d2acf5e5008006934b89a53b7.jpg

Don't think any of these hit the shelves before the company went belly-up?

That page is one of the four page leaflet produced for the British Toy and Hobby Fair, held at Earls Court in January 1980.  Binns Road factory closed its doors on November 30th 1979.

The rest of the pages are:

1502073425_DinkyToysToyFairleafletUK1980page2.thumb.jpg.fa311f0f65b1a7eb4cc06165de12405d.jpg

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2080304431_DinkyToysToyFairleafletUK1980back.thumb.jpg.36e732fe81b4191cb1fc88b5988b2f6c.jpg

Notice the change of trade name 'Airfix Dinky' and the Airfix London address.

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Some of the Starchasers survive, and not just the resin prototypes.  Apparently none reached the store shelves, but pre-production diecast samples complete with packaging did reach sales teams.

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I quite like this. This one is 811 Command Vehicle, which is yellow in the trade catalogue. Interesting cut-out/slot at the rear

 

The ambitious Firestar Cosmic Raider was also produced, in packaging too.  The sound/light effect electronics are missing though. 

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1 hour ago, andrew e said:

These Dinky badged ones did!

Yeah, sorry - didn't explain myself too well!

My understanding is that Airfix, the owners of Meccano and Dinky since buying them from Lines Bros in 1972, cut their losses on the Dinky range in November 1979, closing the Binns Rd factory in Liverpool despite a large shipment of toys already on their way over from Hong Kong.

By the time these toys landed, the company was effectively gone - along with the distribution network.  At that stage Dinky was effectively a 'zombie brand' (though Palitoy would later take over the name, and Universal would eventually acquire it by the late 80s). Airfix themselves were bought out by General Mills in 1982.

Most of the Dinky-branded toys made by Universal and Lintoy, as well as the Dinky branded Solidos, seem to have been sold on to wholesalers (probably at auction, and probably extremely vaguely worded as 'assorted toys' or something like that). 

These wholesalers then sold them on, by the case, to market traders and other independent shops - while larger stores that were used to ordering Dinky toys in specific quantities presumably wouldn't have been all that interested, especially given that the quality was pretty low.

I believe that some bigger models (like the Jaguar XJ12C) ended up being sold in plain bubblewrap bags rather than in proper branded boxes -  these probably represent models that were still rolling off the production line in the far east at the point Dinky went under, and then afterwards sold on cheaply to whoever would take them so Lintoy could recoup their manufacturing costs.

The model shop I worked in still carried a load of orange Dinky Volvo estates from this era, packed in plain buff cardboard boxes, well into the mid-90s. Wish I'd bought some now!

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54 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

That page is one of a four, from the leaflet produced for the British Toy and Hobby Fair, held at Earls Court in January 1980.  Binns Road factory closed its doors on November 30th, so almost a year had passed.

The rest of the pages are:

1502073425_DinkyToysToyFairleafletUK1980page2.thumb.jpg.fa311f0f65b1a7eb4cc06165de12405d.jpg

77751359_DinkyToysToyFairleafletUK1980page3.thumb.jpg.994dd9d4179f3d5ee0506a339527f3ea.jpg

2080304431_DinkyToysToyFairleafletUK1980back.thumb.jpg.36e732fe81b4191cb1fc88b5988b2f6c.jpg

Notice the change of trade name 'Airfix Dinky' and the Airfix London address.

That's good to see the rest of the leaflet - though I think they'd been printed up for the Jan 1980 trade show just before the shutdown in November '79 (so only a matter of weeks?)

The big Mike & Sue Richardson 'Great Book of Dinky' seems to imply that this was one of many promotional pieces that went in the bin because parent company Airfix couldn't see the last-gasp revamped Dinky-not-Dinky range as viable (and, to be fair, I can kinda understand that).

In fairness, no-one really seems to know the exact chronology of what happened!

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Very interesting on the Dinky 1980 front. I wonder if any pre-production Granada's survive as the Fire Chief one looks to be a proper model and not a resin mock up.

I have one of those orange Dinky Volvo 265s which up until now I always thought was a repaint of a previously blue model . The finish looks very amateur however there is indeed no trace of blue paint underneath the arches or in the shut lines.

 

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39 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Very interesting on the Dinky 1980 front. I wonder if any pre-production Granada's survive as the Fire Chief one looks to be a proper model and not a resin mock up.

Yes and look at the wheels - different to resin 'Professionals' resin Granada and same as fitted to Custom Stingray (non-catalogue)

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