Shite in Miniature II

[bunglebus]

I went in BuM last night, they had a restock of the batch with that Toyota Van but nothing we hadn't seen before

[eddyramrod]

When I dropped off my laptop at the repair shop the other day, I slipped into the nearby Entertainer and came out with some HW 55 Bel Airs at 3-4-2: two gassers and a more standard coupe.  I also picked up a MB AMC Sportwagon, as a friend in Illinois has one.  He's perfectly capable of buying his own model, so this will go on the shelf reserved for cars I haven't owned, but which have touched my life otherwise, however peripherally.  It's a Slippery Slope (TM)!  The 55 gassers will become movie cars; not sure what I'm going to do with the coupe yet. 

I was having an interesting conversation with the lady behind the counter.  She's well aware of the adult collectors who buy these things (she called them "our" collectors!) and is trying to interest her son in the hobby.  She did say she didn't know what was likely to come in, or when, so I promised to keep a closer eye on the shop.  I also mentioned the MB twin packs that some of you are finding; she hadn't seen or even heard of those but was most interested.

[Christine]

Those light up cars .. i have    No.6     Nolo 1 .  The stickers must have been separate for kids to stick on ,mine has none.  I changed the button cells and it works . No butchery required  or dremel action , just bend the flat bit with the screw in it , and the glue cracks off  from the bit  holding the cells... change the cells, and poly cement it back together ...

 

 

 

[flat4alfa]

19 hours ago, bunglebus said:

There are two others (Jeep 4x4 and Bronco) but this and the Mustang were the two I really wanted to pair up

I’d hold fire on the Bronco idea as I pitched them together and am not convinced.  It was mentioned by some spark on another die cast forum, not a confirmed source.

So I took photos to prove it must be borrocks, just haven’t posted yet, as away in the sun for a week

[bunglebus]

I picked another McDonald's car at the boot sale this morning. There wasn't much to choose from but these caught my eye 

[flat4alfa]

Tractor I’m sure is Marx as is the Ford C-series at the bottom.  I think.  I had the tractor as a boy (inherited obvs…) and it’s fun to watch if working.

Orange one is more intriguing (edit: confirmed Tri-ang)

Were the Buick and Corniche 1:43 and by Franklin Mint?

[RoverFolkUs]

Just picked up this rather Autoshite spec looking Burango 405 turbo 16 1/24 . For 50p I couldn't say no

Its faded into a hearing aid beige sort of colour!

[sierraman]

10 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Just picked up this rather Autoshite spec looking Burango 405 turbo 16 1/24 . For 50p I couldn't say no

Its faded into a hearing aid beige sort of colour!

I have that one, I think I built it up from a kit, it’s probably somewhere in the kids room in the deepest depths of the wardrobe. 

[Amelia]

Rest of my hot wheels collection up for roffle.

 

 

[danthecapriman]

15 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Im looking into the possibility of creating a custom one next! The Corgi model is a Ford HD (H cab Diesel engine) so I might get another at some stage and stretch the chassis slightly and add a second rear axle to make an HDT (H cab, Diesel engine, Tandem drive axle). How easy it’ll be I’m not sure. Maybe a donor Mack tri axle chassis would be a better start for the Ford cab to fit onto.

I’ve now got a pair of Ford H cabs on the way so I’m going to have a go at this! Might well be a cut n shut style upgrade on the Fords chassis. I’ll see when they’re here and stripped down. Luckily the real tri axle version does look considerably longer than the two axle variant, so hopefully it won’t be too hard to to do and keep it looking ‘right’.

Heres a pic for inspiration!

Great looking rigs though!!

[junkyarddog]

Today's car boot sale find is this rather nice Corgi  juniors Whizzwheels Jensen interceptor. 

Smoll Eddy dreams of being this cool.

 

[barrett]

Miraculously I found my 1989 Mint & Boxed catalogue this morning by chance. Changing my bed sheets and this is in a pile of magazines which are kept in my laundry cupboard for some reason. Benefits & perils of never throwing anything away all in one.

Anyway, it's interesting to look at now as it seems like a curious attempt to mary the 'old-school' historic toy collector with the up-and-coming diecast market. Lots of the very old stuff wasn't of interest to me when I was a kid but of course now how could one fail to be enthralled by something like this?

Maybe not at that price, though. I love this tinplate Alfa 1900 too

I have no idea about the values of this sort of thing so not sure whether it was actually expensive back in 1989, or how prices have changed in the meantime. I guess toys of this age are much less likely to be coming out of the woodwork in such nice condition 30 years down the line.

The real interest to child-Barrett was the selection of diecasts though, including a few oddballs among the Dinkys

Some big rigs for all the transporter perverts here. Nothing's very cheap...

There's a few pages of Matchbox, which is priced much more keenly but I suppose £10 in 1989 was a lot more than it is now. The prices certainly don't seem outrageous in today's money, and I'd say these are some of the only things in the whole lot which have really increased in value, particularly those Superfasts

My favourite pages are the Spot-Ons, though

Again, they seems outrageous to me as a child but probably not too far off the mark in terms of value now

Although I'm not a truck person, I loved these proper 1:42 commercials and buses

The catalogue ends with a spread of plastic toys, which clearly didn't have the same appeal as diescasts and probably would have been a hard sell back in the 80s

Always intrigued by this one, which looks like the most accurate period Amazon model out there. Anyone recognise it?

Anyway, that was a fun trip down memory lane for me. Interesting to not there's not a single Politoys or Mebetoys (or any Italian diecast at all) featured, which is probably why I'm still so interested in them, as they register as 'unfamiliar' to my brain, whereas Spot-On toys, despite their rarity, are all filed and logged in the memory banks from hours staring at this when I was a kid.

 

 

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

Tractor I’m sure is Marx as is the Ford C-series at the bottom.  I think.  I had the tractor as a boy (inherited obvs…) and it’s fun to watch if working.

Orange one is more intriguing (edit: confirmed Tri-ang)

Were the Buick and Corniche 1:43 and by Franklin Mint?

Yes Franklin Mint and very heavy. Truck with the window missing was a Marx yes

[bunglebus]

A few bits found at the boot sale

Dirty Dumper indeed. Bought as a donor...

[bunglebus]

...so Big Pete can be complete

[bunglebus]

On 25/03/2023 at 22:46, bunglebus said:

High Speed Capri

Not convinced it is a High Speed (blue one) now - although similar, I think it's actually a Summer (black one)

[sierraman]

Bought the ‘First 40 years of Matchbox’ book for a four hour flight I’m going on at some point. Looks like it’s full of all the useless information I crave about Matchbox. 

In other news managed to bag a Corgi Rover 3500 Triplex for £3.50 delivered. Can’t be doing with car boot this time of year when there’s swapmeets that are indoors and realistically priced. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

4 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

Tractor I’m sure is Marx as is the Ford C-series at the bottom.  I think.  I had the tractor as a boy (inherited obvs…) and it’s fun to watch if working.

Orange one is more intriguing (edit: confirmed Tri-ang)

Were the Buick and Corniche 1:43 and by Franklin Mint?

 

Look like 1/24th to me. Their 1/43rds are a bit crude in places.

 

1 hour ago, barrett said:

Miraculously I found my 1989 Mint & Boxed catalogue this morning by chance. Changing my bed sheets and this is in a pile of magazines which are kept in my laundry cupboard for some reason. Benefits & perils of never throwing anything away all in one.

Anyway, it's interesting to look at now as it seems like a curious attempt to mary the 'old-school' historic toy collector with the up-and-coming diecast market. Lots of the very old stuff wasn't of interest to me when I was a kid but of course now how could one fail to be enthralled by something like this?

 

Maybe not at that price, though. I love this tinplate Alfa 1900 too

 

 

 

I have no idea about the values of this sort of thing so not sure whether it was actually expensive back in 1989, or how prices have changed in the meantime. I guess toys of this age are much less likely to be coming out of the woodwork in such nice condition 30 years down the line.

The real interest to child-Barrett was the selection of diecasts though, including a few oddballs among the Dinkys

 

 

Those prices have not moved much. It also depends how mint the models and boxes were.

I have some of the Buby Collectors Classics over the years. Nice looking models, and very under valued I think.

[bunglebus]

39 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Look like 1/24th to me. Their 1/43rds are a bit crude in places.

Yes I'd say so, wasn't paying attention before but definitely bigger than 1:43 scale

[bunglebus]

5 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

I’d hold fire on the Bronco idea as I pitched them together and am not convinced.  It was mentioned by some spark on another die cast forum, not a confirmed source.

So I took photos to prove it must be borrocks, just haven’t posted yet, as away in the sun for a week

I saw one with the aerial on today, should have bought it

[Christine]

 

 

Finished my Tamiya Lotus 7 .. bit of a fiddle .. twin 40's

 

 

 

 

[Christine]

A tonka something.....missing wheels

[FakeConcern]

Well it seems I am officially old now!

Mrs Concern spotted that there was to be a toy and model fair on down the road from us at Polegate, so we went along this morning. Never been to one before and we both enjoyed it!

We weren’t actually the youngest there, but it was close and apart from the “ladies” providing teas, Mrs Concern the only female.

I bought a random selection of stuff, some of which I actually wanted.

I had a Corgi Riley Pathfinder Police car as a kid, but no sign of it now so it’s been on my wish list as a replacement.

The paint is really good, not many chips or scratches and nice and shiny. The bell is missing from the roof, but I’m pretty sure both the bell and siren were missing from my original for most of my ownership.

Next one of my fave cars as a small boy was a Corgi Ford Classic. The bonnet pops up when you press down on the front suspension and I would do a ventriloquist voice “Good Morning” as it opened on the breakfast table, so that’s been on the list too.

This one is pretty nice, a few paint chips, but the bonnet is good and the grill not

bent out of shape like so many. I actually have the original still, but been repainted brown and the bonnet has broken off and one of the rear fins is squashed so this is very welcome.

I also bought a few I didn’t have on my list.

Spotted this Corgi Fiat 1800, I didn’t have one as a kid, but it just looked so nice despite the shit banger racing re paint!

I’ll put that in the box for a re furb, but I can’t stop looking at it I like it so much.

Also in the Tat box was this badly repainted Corgi Plymouth Wagon which wanted me to rescue it. I’ve never been keen on any American cars apart from muscle cars, but I like this. In the box for later maybe.

By the way what is the strange spherical shape under the rear axle? Is it meant to represent the diff or something else?

I spotted this Citroen Safari in white just like one I had and still have with a repaint and no tailgate at all. I did get another one from Dan that had broken windows so I could put the two together into one good one. I may still do that, but this is the right colour already.

Lastly I saw a Corgi Bentley in bright pink with quite a chipped paint finish and missing grill and one jewelled headlight, I was tempted until I saw another one on the same stall in much better condition and found it was only £4! So I got it and it’s lovely!

It does have some strange white shading to the paint around the edges which I think is the lacquer going funny and it’s pretty filthy.

I love the opening bonnet boot and doors.

And the printed dashboard.

I want a few newer Corgis with Whizzwheels for the Scammell Tri Deck Transporter particularly in a bright colour and this Bentley is contemporary with it. I don’t really understand how Corgi changed the scale of toys. As I understand it the early ones from 60s were 1/43 and later ones from the 80s such as the Minis I showed above on my Tri Deck and the Porsche 924 I got from Dan were 1/35 or similar. However this Bentley was in the 1970 catalogue, so what scale is it? It is pretty big.

 

[Jon]

From memory, in the early 1970's Corgi produced some F1 cars with sponsorship decals - a slightly newfangled idea in itself on F1 cars. The upscale from 1/43(ish) to 1/32(ish) or whatever the larger new scale was, related to the bigger size allowing a better scaling of decals, especially in sticker form, rather than water slide transfer jobbies.

I'd hazard a guess that the Bentley is 1/43 but a more truthful scale than previous castings, who varied in scale to fit an accepted size of model. Spot On bucked the trend in this respect, of course.

The 1970's Corgi line-up would've frustrated me as a child, as it seemed to take 6-7 years to fully develop into the larger scale. I think the Mercedes 350SL and 911 were sold right until the late 70's. The Mk3 Cortina and Marina were also introduced in 1/43, so I think the scale change came around 1973/4.

One final point is that I think it was only the Bentley that ever got upscaled from 1/43 to 1/32 scale:

Well, it was a Corniche - no upscaled Bentley version but you know what I mean! These stayed in production off and on well into the 1990's, when I bought a 2 tone one. Minis and Land Rovers both got brand new castings but this one looks quite faithful to the OG 1/43 version.

 

 

[bunglebus]

10 hours ago, FakeConcern said:

Mrs Concern spotted that there was to be a toy and model fair on down the road from us at Polegate, so we went along this morning. Never been to one before and we both enjoyed it!

You're doomed!

I'm off to the Raleigh one next weekend, funny enough I spotted one of the regular sellers from there mooching around the boot sale yesterday 

[andrew e]

If anyone else fancies a mooch I will be down there with Mr Bus too 👍

[bunglebus]

My local Lidl has no Hot Wheels,  found a dozen or so dotted around a different one but no designated area or price for them

[junkyarddog]

Interesting message on this VW Camper I bought on Saturday 😂

 

[MiniMinorMk3]

13 hours ago, Jon said:

The 1970's Corgi line-up would've frustrated me as a child, as it seemed to take 6-7 years to fully develop into the larger scale. I think the Mercedes 350SL and 911 were sold right until the late 70's.

 

Talking of the Corgi SL, here's one I had earlier

 

[bunglebus]

1 hour ago, junkyarddog said:

Interesting message on this VW Camper I bought on Saturday 😂

 

But does it have the fuel flap?