Shite in Miniature II

[eddyramrod]

I have one of these I've owned from new (I think it came with the Elan set) so you can imagine, it's suffered somewhat.  In the last year or two I've stripped it and resprayed it beige to make a copy of this, from the 1967 version of Casino Royale.  I need to build the launcher on the back now...

I also still have one, much hand-painted, with the "canvas" tilt top.  At present it's red and white.

ETA: @Datsuncog, if I can find the winch or anything else belonging to it, would you like me to send them over?  No promises, I have no idea where they might be.

[500tops]

Pulled a few out of a HUGE box at the local Red Cross shop. I should've been working so didn't have the time to have a proper rummage, sadly...

[sierraman]

Never seen the orange boss mustang!

[Datsuncog]

Think the orange Boss Mustang's quite a rare promo version...

Great haul!

EDIT: nope, not a promo - but a US-only release, made for 1982 only.

Not worth megabucks, but fairly uncommon over here anyway!

[RoadworkUK]

A massive box like that is the reason that I very rarely pass a charity shop without peering inside. Thus far my pickings have been slim indeed.

[sierraman]

I have almost never found any diecast in a charity shop?

[Datsuncog]

5 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

ETA: @Datsuncog, if I can find the winch or anything else belonging to it, would you like me to send them over?  No promises, I have no idea where they might be.

Cheers Eddy - don't go tearing the garage apart looking for it, but if the surplus winch and hook from your modded example ever turns up, I'd certainly be interested!

[eddyramrod]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

I have almost never found any diecast in a charity shop?

They do tend to be on the rare side, certainly; but there's one charity shop in Barrow that I always check because a few years ago I scored properly in there.  A Dinky Holden sedan in fair condition and not one but two 1950s Dinky lorries!  One Foden, one Guy, both flatbeds, and in almost matching liveries, blue cab/orange flat.  Both also in fair condition.  Total expenditure: two whole English pounds!  I won't be "restoring" any of them.

[bunglebus]

16 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Four months later, just before Christmas, the VW breakdown truck became available as a standalone model (#490), though seems to have originally been painted in a yellow colour without any stickers - possibly using up some unused painted shells from the previous #431 Pickup? 

Interesting idea but I don't think this was the case - as you say, the tailgate was removed from the casting to fit the winch, so they can't have used old ones. They're a different yellow too. 

I think I have all the versions of this casting other than the green military one

Even if I did cheat slightly with that last one

There are also endless re-release versions, this one's someone else's custom that I ended up with

[Datsuncog]

1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

Interesting idea but I don't think this was the case - as you say, the tailgate was removed from the casting to fit the winch, so they can't have used old ones. They're a different yellow too. 

Ah right, I see - I thought the Great Book Of Corgi said that the yellow pick-up had a flip-down tailgate, so it would have been a matter of leaving it off and riveting on the towing winch in its place. Obviously if it's a solid casting all round, then that's a no - and either it was a mistake in the book, or I read it wrong.

Lovely selection of Corgi Type 2s, anyway!

[Jon]

Arrived back 'home' yesterday. Eerily familiar but totally different at the same time.

Snuck a quick peak in the storage cupboard where my childhood stash of die-casts are.

No time to rummage though and sort today but things are looking promising....

 

[Jon]

Arrived back 'home' yesterday. Eerily familiar but totally different at the same time.

Snuck a quick peak in the storage cupboard where my childhood stash of die-casts are.

No time to rummage though and sort today but things are looking promising....

 

[Jon]

Twice the promise, it seems!

[bunglebus]

41 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

I thought the Great Book Of Corgi said that the yellow pick-up had a flip-down tailgate, so it would have been a matter of leaving it off and riveting on the towing winch in its place. Obviously if it's a solid casting all round, then that's a no - and either it was a mistake in the book, or I read it wrong.

No opening parts sadly - less to get broken off though

[bunglebus]

New 5 pack in Entertainer. Other than the Datsun pickup not much to excite me so it stayed there 

Only thing worth having was this Treasure Hunt Mini out of a delivery of slightly older long cards they'd just got in

[sierraman]

Not perfect by any means but my take on if Matchbox did a Westfalia camper version. Couldn’t accurately cover the siren void so I made up an imaginary vent/air con/aerial type thing for the roof. 

[Datsuncog]

Lunchtime fun ahoy.

Yes, another automotive grab 'n' go - this time, a Majorette Toyota Yaris Mk1.

It's a fairly well proportioned thing, capturing the 3-dr lines very nicely.

I bought this one new from Tesco around 2006, I believe - they were selling off their Majorettes for 49p as they must have been discontinued stock. I bought two of them - one for a friend who ran an identical pre-facelift 3-dr at the time, and was mildly bemused when I gave it to him - and one to keep for myself.

It's nicely understated - for years, Majorette annoyed me by producing really interesting cars but insisting on painting them in really lairy colours, or with daft graphics all over them. Apart from the slightly squiffy rear lights overprinted in red, this remains resolutely factory, and appears all the better for it.

One thing I will say: I wish they hadn't bothered with the opening bonnet.

It's nice to give a toy car that extra bit of play value, but it's such a small separate casting that the shut line is very obvious, much more so because of the separate plastic headlights.

The engine is in fact quite detailed, though hard to see.

Underside is also well rendered in part - not sure what the big blank rectangular area's there for, but the bits between the wheels are decent.

I liked this for its ordinariness whenever I bought it, never suspecting that within a few years I'd come to know one very well indeed...

[sierraman]

I have the Yaris too but in red. Some really interesting castings from the early 2000 from Majorette. Not a massive fan now, they feel a bit cheap!

[500tops]

18 hours ago, sierraman said:

I have almost never found any diecast in a charity shop?

I managed to get back for a second look. Sadly the box has been heavily picked over, but I still managed to liberate a few stragglers which I'll upload in a bit...

[sierraman]

Looks glorious, I’d be in there head first. All the ones I have been in have been just full of dead people’s clothes and classical music CDs

[500tops]

I think the Tyre Fryer is my favourite out of this motley selection 

[sutty2006]

Todays purchase 

[sierraman]

13 minutes ago, 500tops said:

I think the Tyre Fryer is my favourite out of this motley selection 

One of the earliest cars I can remember having was a Cougar Villager. I had one of those rugs that had a Road on it. Remember playing with that and a Corgi Rover 3500 police car. 

[500tops]

48 minutes ago, sierraman said:

One of the earliest cars I can remember having was a Cougar Villager. I had one of those rugs that had a Road on it. Remember playing with that and a Corgi Rover 3500 police car. 

Yeah, the Mercury was a favourite of a very young 500tops. 😂 I didn't have a rug like most of kids my age.  My play mat was the side of am old wooden packing case that my old man painstakingly painted up in a similar vein to the rugs; Car parks, roundabouts, zebra crossings, double yellow lines et al. 

All done when he was working backshift in Devonport Dockyard during the Falkland's conflict! 

[bunglebus]

I suspect someone's mum has had a clear out and got rid of those cars, bet the owner will be gutted when they go hunting for them!

I would also have dived in and probably bought most of the contents, work be damned!

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

I suspect someone's mum has had a clear out and got rid of those cars, bet the owner will be gutted when they go hunting for them!

I would also have dived in and probably bought most of the contents, work be damned!

‘He’s far too old for playing with these Matchbox! I’ll drop them off at the Heart Foundation when I meet Ethel for a cup of tea...’

[Justwatching]

1965 Lincoln Continental in 1:64 by Greenlight.

Unfortunately, the rear sits lower than the front on this one. Unintentional gangster lean. 

[barrett]

Postie has finally caught up with deliveries. Strap in lads, this is a bit long. First off we have a real curiosity, Nacoral Inter-Cars No 6, the Lamborghini Marzal 

Nacoral was a Spanish company which made plastic 1:43s in the 1960s which were copies (official or not) of other makes. In about 1969/70 they introduced a range of diecasts which, again, were all re-casts from other makers. The Lamborghini Marzal was taken from the short-lived Belgian company Sablon, which made really lovely highly-detailed cars that suffered from a horrible chemical reaction where the rubber tyres 'melted' the plastic wheels, so even MIB examples today have metled wheels... Sadly Nacoral versions of Sablon cars also suffered from this ailment, hence the weird wheels here. This is barely bad compared to some.

Apart from the tyres, the finish is pretty crude overall. The paint is very thin. Detail is excellent, though, and the engine cover has a great double-jointed hinge mechanism

Not sure what engine that's supposed to be, but it doesn't look like a Lambo V12 to me

Base claims 'made in Belgium' which suggests that Sablon simply made a batch of Nacoral-branded cars for the Spanish market, which also explains why some Nacorals suffer from melty wheels and others (Spanish-built, presumably) don't. This model was re-numbered and re-released in different colours in 1971 and I wonder if those are Spanish-made? Whilst most of Nacoral's toys were copies of other European makers (they built about half the early 70s Mercury line-up for example) they did come up with a couple of 'unique' models including a great AMC AMX which I desperately want to find to display alongside my Pilen Javelin.

Moving on to somewhat more conventional stock, how about Politoys No 525, the Ferrari 250 GT Le Mans?

Like the Marzal, this is a car which inspired several miniature replicas from various makers, but this is by far the most impressive (if not the most accurate overall)

I think I'm right in saying this is the most complicated Politoys model ever made. There are an astonishing SEVEN opening parts and I reckon 24 seperate parts not including wheels, axles etc

Even the fuel fillers open! Absolutely lovely stuff. This model is ripe for things snapping off, so finding one so complete (apart from one headlamp lens - the headlamps are two parts with seperate lamp and lens!) is quite rare. I'm not particularly into competition cars or Ferraris but I had to add this to the non-collection.

Presumably undoing those screws would be a very bad idea indeed...

How to top that? What about some boxed 1970s Mercurys...

Yep, that's two brand-new, never before out of their boxes Fiat 128s. Well, one of them still hasn't come out of its box. I'm passing that on to somebody else and I'll let him have the 'pleasure'.

This is a pretty basic one with just opening doors, but benefits from jewelled headlamps at least.

It's a nice weighty thing and the shape is pretty much bob-on. I wouldn't normally seek out one of these, but I couldn't resist these new-old stock examples.

The lurid green thing is the Pininfarina Alfa Romeo 33/2 by Mercury which I think dates from 1970.

Lots of opening bits...

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, this has lost one of its delicate little doors which are hinged on the plastic window part. A real shame because otherwise it's barely touched, but then it's also why it was really cheap.

Base is plain but I like the 'Alfa Romeo' and 'Pininfarina' typefaces replicated exactly. Interestingly* this one was also offered by Nacoral so there's a slim possibility of a future compare and contrast, though I suspect it'll be an exact copy based on the Marzal.

The Alfa 33 is a funny thing - it was a pure racing car with a mid-mounted V8 engine which was built in various configurations. Alfa also built a very limited number of 'Stradale' road-going versions, a handful of which went to outside coachbuilders. The Bertone Carabo was a 33, and Pininfarina also did a roadster version. Which means, if I was a perverted die-cast collecting wrong'un I'd be able to do this:

But I'm not, so that's okay. Okay?

The

[Jon]

Wow, that Mercury 128 is a little Bobby Dazzler!

Seeing the Barrett collection is like seeing the scale model pages in C&SC. But with old stuff.

I've got a Solido Peugeot 104 with tyres and wheels that have reacted the same way. I wonder if there's a market for reproduction rims for Sablons and the like, or if the bubbled rimz are just accepted as the brutal reality of collecting them?

[sierraman]

I believe Polistil did a Fiat 128, I had one a few years ago, really nice model but like early Bburago had loads of fragile bits stuck to it which probably lasted no more than an afternoon in most hands.