Shite in Miniature II

[sutty2006]

I’ve been in the loft tonight and brought my matchbox blue car box down. more of that to come. 
 

but for now, I have this majorette flasher. It’s old, and the batteries have probably gone flat. Can anyone identify the batteries so I can renew them ?

 

 

[junkyarddog]

You can get those batteries in packs in discount/pound shops,generally on a card with several other sizes.

You'll need to cut the plastic lug that retains them,unfortunately There's no other way to get them out.

The circuit boards are very fragile, so the chance of it actually working are slim.

Worth a try though.

[bunglebus]

^ sounds very similar to repairing the McDonald's happy meal Hot Wheels. Hearing aid spec batteries and have to be carefully cut out. Worth a go though

[sutty2006]

Thanks. I might have a wonder round home bargains tomorrow.

 

but for now. BEHOLD! 
 

 

what an awesome thing. 
 

 

 

this may get pic heavy.  
 

first up is a Plymouth fury police car. Matchbox. Very worn out. I think this was one of my favourites as the suspension is buggered. 
 

I may have tried to touch up the white with tipex or humbrol enamel. 
 

 

next up a majorette golf with opening boot

this next one is a later addition, maybe 10/15 years ago? Corgi, but terrible really. 
 

the bonnet is openable but you have to hold it, or it shuts. doesn’t even tell you what it is. 
 

 
 

next is a lovely majorette jag. Lovely suspension action and opening doors. 

 

lovely indeed. 

[sutty2006]

Next up, matchbox BMW e30 “cabriolet”, looks like a baur convertible to me. 
 

 

 

a mk1 golf this time. Majorette again. 

 

 

more basic though

 

Nice Mercedes from matchbox. Dad was round this evening for tea and picked it out the box. “This was the first one we bought for you”. Welled up a little. 

 

slightly damaged but well used and loved. 

unsure what this is, but it’s a good one. Think it came as a set with a doctor pepper flat bed truck. 

 

 

pair of Ford sierras. On the left, matchbox xr4x4. On the right, hotwheels 4 door base. The matchbox is by far the better one. 

 

 

and another majorette. Landrover defender. Loved this when I was young. Think I got it from north wales while on holiday with Nan n grandad. 
 

[bunglebus]

28 minutes ago, sutty2006 said:

this next one is a later addition, maybe 10/15 years ago? Corgi, but terrible really. 

the bonnet is openable but you have to hold it, or it shuts. doesn’t even tell you what it is. 

They were sold as James Bond/007 tie ins. I've got a few (but not that one), quite nicely done really

15 minutes ago, sutty2006 said:

a mk1 golf this time. Majorette again. 

more basic though

Maisto that one - also sold as an MC Toys

[sutty2006]

4 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

They were sold as James Bond/007 tie ins. I've got a few (but not that one), quite nicely done really

Maisto that one - also sold as an MC Toys

That rings a bell. The James Bond thing anyway. I think I remember buying it in a James Bond box. It’s all coming flooding back. 
 

and yes. The closer I look at that golf I can see it, maisto. My eyes are poor tonight. And I’m sober. Which is disappointing. 

[Split_Pin]

Hey @sutty2006 that's a lovely collection. It looks just like mine once was. I'm 43, judging by those cars you can't be far either side of that?

[sutty2006]

1 minute ago, Split_Pin said:

Hey @sutty2006 that's a lovely collection. It looks just like mine once was. I'm 43, judging by those cars you can't be far either side of that?

I’m 34. I will do the bottom row sometime soon. Plus there’s even more of them in a larger box in the loft, but that would take days to sort out. 🤣

[155V6]

40 minutes ago, sutty2006 said:

Next up, matchbox BMW e30 “cabriolet”, looks like a baur convertible to me. 
 

 

 

a mk1 golf this time. Majorette again. 

 

 

more basic though

 

Nice Mercedes from matchbox. Dad was round this evening for tea and picked it out the box. “This was the first one we bought for you”. Welled up a little. 

 

slightly damaged but well used and loved. 

unsure what this is, but it’s a good one. Think it came as a set with a doctor pepper flat bed truck. 

 

 

pair of Ford sierras. On the left, matchbox xr4x4. On the right, hotwheels 4 door base. The matchbox is by far the better one. 

 

 

and another majorette. Landrover defender. Loved this when I was young. Think I got it from north wales while on holiday with Nan n grandad. 
 

HotWheels Sierra is the Corgi casting & a nice one to have 😎.Doctor Pepper AMX came with these

[RoadworkUK]

1 hour ago, sutty2006 said:

 

Hey that's interesting. Matchbox made an XR4i with XR4x4 printed on the side for some reason.  How strange.

[sutty2006]

23 minutes ago, 155V6 said:

HotWheels Sierra is the Corgi casting & a nice one to have 😎.Doctor Pepper AMX came with these

Fairly certain I’ve got those two somewhere in the big box… 

[sierraman]

18 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Hey that's interesting. Matchbox made an XR4i with XR4x4 printed on the side for some reason.  How strange.

On the continent they did do an XR4x4 in a three door but it didn’t have the split rear window. 

[bunglebus]

I know Datsuncog has already shown us his(!), but I've been itching to get my hands on the Corgi Club East African Safari Beetle, and compare it to my original 

It's a lovely replica, I would agree It's slightly redder than my original but it doesn't have 50 years of wear tear and fading. I would also say the interior is more of a caramel compared to the brown in the old one. Still, 11/10 for Corgi on this one.

Also boxed, but a bit different is this Politoys Citroen Mehari

Both of which have cheered me up after a paint disaster this evening

 

I wasn't 100% sold on the colour, it should be more of a mint green so back to the drawing board...

[bunglebus]

A couple of new 10 packs I spotted today - I'll be getting the one with the cream 356 but I'll try and find a better mix of cars, and pay less than the £12 Asda wanted 

I've been all over the place for work recently and checked out various supermarkets along the way - most have a toy dept that's in a terrible state sadly

[Spottedlaurel]

Compared to what I can recall as a youngster (Matchbox 1-75 in a display cabinet, etc) modern toy displays are often rather sad. But you have reminded me that we're shopping at Asda tomorrow for a change, so must investigate what they have.

[Datsuncog]

39 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

I've been all over the place for work recently and checked out various supermarkets along the way - most have a toy dept that's in a terrible state sadly

As somebody who used to work in a toy/ model shop and made it a point of pride to keep everything neatly displayed on the shelves, the state of the toy aisle in Tesco/ Sainsbury's feel like a hefty boot in the nads - from a professional standpoint.

Nothing says "can't be arsed" like a dump bin on a shelf - the clue's in the name...

[Split_Pin]

When I was a kid in the early 1980s, all my cars came from either a newsagents, a general store, a toy shop or the toy department at John Lewis in Glasgow when we went to meet my granny. 

I remember especially the Matchbox wall cabinets (not a carousel on this occasion) and the Majorette carousels which felt like it contained about fifty thousand items! All proudly displayed which made me want a new toy car all the more. 

The common theme was that, for various reasons, there was pride in the premises. Whether it be cascaded from the top at John Lewis's or an independent proprietor making sure his or her customers were not put off.

Supermarkets and big toy stores don't have that same sense of pride.

[Metal Guru]

On 03/10/2022 at 18:14, RayMK said:

As mentioned above.  The photos. 

First one is my son in 1980 aged about 2.  The plastic double decker is on the floor of his prison cell play pen.  Unfortunately, the orange and red taxi lying on its side did not make it to present times. The second group of photos show the bus today in its repaired form.  The third group show the two Burago Citroens, one in its battered box, the other played with. The fourth group show the friction drive Mercedes clone, made in China, probably in the late 1980s or 90s. The fourth group show one I did not mention yesterday, a toy made in the USA which dates from 1997. It is not doing a Norev but the plastic is deteriorating.  My daughter's Matchbox taxi will have to wait because it is in a different place.

My wife bought my son a model Routemaster on a trip to London. Unknown make , London on it had been printed as “LODON”. She also bought a black cab with it. I said “look , spelling mistake there too, it says TXI” . 
It was two years later she found out what a TX1 was.

[bunglebus]

Entertainer's delivery this week is this pair of giant boxes

Containing slightly smaller boxes 

Full of long cards loaded onto clip strips

Sadly nothing new

[Datsuncog]

Apologies for being a bit slack on the lunchtime laptop diecast profiles this week - mainly due to being too flat-out for a proper lunch break, but also because I'm still mildly obsessed with this magnificent bastard from last week:

Yup, the Kirk Mercedes Benz O.302 coach.

I don't even care that it's so big it partially blocks the screen; it's just marvellous. I'm not even that into buses or coaches, generally; but this is something else.

Weighs a fair bit too.

Some fairly basic Google searches indicate that, interestingly, Kirk and Tekno were not one and the same company - rather, in 1958 Danish toymaker Kirk bought out a manufacturer called H. Langes Legetøj, who held a contract to produce diecast and plastic components for Tekno, amongst others.

When Tekno then dissolved the partnership in 1969, Kirk went on to sell the same components they formerly supplied to Tekno as a retail kit, but with their own Kirk brand name now on the baseplate. It seems they had quite a range of models available, involving cars, trucks and buses. Some boxes were marked as Kirk, others as Model Products.

The Tekno-designed Kirk models were withdrawn in 1972, the same year that Tekno went into liquidation - so that's a fairly narrow window of production, and marks this one out as being at least fifty years old.

That's a new one for me.

[FakeConcern]

17 hours ago, bunglebus said:

I know Datsuncog has already shown us his(!), but I've been itching to get my hands on the Corgi Club East African Safari Beetle, and compare it to my original 

It's a lovely replica, I would agree It's slightly redder than my original but it doesn't have 50 years of wear tear and fading. I would also say the interior is more of a caramel compared to the brown in the old one. Still, 11/10 for Corgi on this one.

 

 

 

This just exactly why I hate this thread so much and try not to look at it.

When I was a kid, I wanted one of those so much and asked for it for Christmas, the local toy shop only had the German police car version and that's what I got. I never liked it (although I do still have it). Anyway I saved up my birthday money and pocket money hoping to buy the safari one they by now had in the shop window. Guess what? by the time I'd saved enough money, the shop had sold it and never had it in again. They did have another police one in the window though just to rub it in haha!

Anyway I'd still love one and thanks for showing us that replica with your original...

[bunglebus]

The German police car is also due to be reproduced, the first of the club models to re-use a casting. 

I do agree that the African version is better but they were never new for me, mine would have been a jumble sale find when I was a kid, along with the Spot-On I was so lucky to find, and keep all these years 

[RoadworkUK]

1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

Apologies for being a bit slack on the lunchtime laptop diecast profiles this week - mainly due to being too flat-out for a proper lunch break, but also because I'm still mildly obsessed with this magnificent bastard from last week:

It is entirely wonderful, inside and out. I reckon with some deft brushwork, it'd be every bit the equal of a recent EFE release for accuracy,  and would eclipse them for build quality.

1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

.... I'm not even that into buses or coaches, generally

Believe it or not, nor am I. I'm by no means into buses as a whole, but – as with trains – I seem to have a very robust attachment to the things that surrounded me while growing up. Things like that WA Plaxton you picked up for would have been everywhere when I was a teenager, and I have miniatures of a fair smattering of the school buses that took me to hell every weekday.

The 0302 appeals because I remember seeing one parked right next to an 0303 that was operated by the same firm, wearing the same livery, and leading to a memorable game of 'spot the difference'. Similarly, at school, the bus routes that were served by Eastern National employed Leyland Nationals in Mk1 and Mk2 form, so the two generations would often be parked side by side, with subtle differences in looks and sound. And, even more geekily, I appreciated comparing the two generations of Duple Dominant-bodied Bedford YMT that Hedingham operated, and I enjoyed seeing their Plaxton Viewmaster standing a foot taller than the otherwise similar Plaxton Supreme.

Collecting them in miniature helps me to remember the things I remember enjoying.

[RayMK]

13 hours ago, Metal Guru said:

My wife bought my son a model Routemaster on a trip to London. Unknown make , London on it had been printed as “LODON”. She also bought a black cab with it. I said “look , spelling mistake there too, it says TXI” . 
It was two years later she found out what a TX1 was.

I think my son's double decker was bought by my parents. I thought they only shopped in M&S or John Lewis but can't imagine either of those selling a plastic bus of dubious heritage.  The orange taxi on the floor of my son's play pen was a very nice FX3.  It disappeared decades ago, otherwise I would have taken that into safe keeping as well. My daughter's Matchbox taxi is a TX1 (or FX4R?) in yellow with various graphics. In fact, sod the dust, I'll take some photos now.  No.1  Homing in, looking for yellow taxi.   No.2  It's on the second shelf, in the shadow of Elvis.   No.3  Extracted from its dusty parking place.  No.4   Underside. 1986 FX4R it says.  

Both passenger doors open but the shots I took suffered from too much camera shake even with the anti-shake filter on.   The above are just about passable.

[Datsuncog]

24 minutes ago, RayMK said:

My daughter's Matchbox taxi is a TX1 (or FX4R?) in yellow with various graphics.

Oh, nice - one from the My First Matchbox 'Live 'n' Learn' range, dating from around 1990.

They usually had a hard life in the toybox, so decent examples can be hard to find.

I'm sure it has more sentimental value to you, though!

[Datsuncog]

1 hour ago, FakeConcern said:

When I was a kid, I wanted one of those so much and asked for it for Christmas, the local toy shop only had the German police car version and that's what I got. I never liked it (although I do still have it). Anyway I saved up my birthday money and pocket money hoping to buy the safari one they by now had in the shop window. Guess what? by the time I'd saved enough money, the shop had sold it and never had it in again. They did have another police one in the window though just to rub it in haha!

That's maddening - I can recall missing out on specific models as well, and the rage and frustration of never seeing them again still burns bright all those years later...

The East Africa Safari Beetle hit toyshop shelves in December 1965, with the Politzei version following in May 1966.

However, the rally Beetle was deleted in 1968 while the peelermobile variant continued in the Corgi range until 1970 so - depending on the year of your disappointment - it's possible the rally version had been discontinued and that was why the shop never got it back in again?

(Not that it helps, but Corgi Model Club do have replicas to buy - should you wish to right a longstanding wrong! 256 - Volkswagen 1200 in East African Safari trim – Corgi Model Club)

[junkyarddog]

I picked up a nice original safari beetle last week at a market for £13.00😊

[Datsuncog]

Not sure how accurate it is, but I've turned up a list of Kirk models produced on Hobby DB:

Kirk | hobbyDB

Also a 1971 trade flyer for their Model Products line, marketing them as "The world's first take-apart/ assembly cars and trucks"

The Ford D-Series trucks look great.

[bunglebus]

What the actual F is that buggy? I need it!