Shite in Miniature II

[Datsuncog]

Crikey, imagine being asked to do some work on a Friday afternoon.

The very idea. Tch.

Still now that's over, where were we?

I scooted back over to the market just after 12, to a very different tatscape on the stall to earlier.

Despite no-one apparently have two brass farthings to rub together, business appeared to have been brisk in the intervening hours.

The £5 bus table was looking somewhat depleted.

Although the Hong Kong buses were still there, the ABC Fleetline in Fife livery was not.

Up top, the antique china had all been cleared, and the buses and whatnot had space to spread out.

The Karmann-Ghia razoredge was gone, as was the '49 Ford. Most vexing.

The white Superkings DAF had also moved on to pastures new, though a more common green version was still knocking about.

The other crates had also been emptied out, giving me a chance to see what was what, finally.

There wasn't much else remaining that wasn't on the stall.

And there were some quite unusual items in amongst them; more than initially appeared.

This Diapet Mitsubishi Fuso, for example...

Not a common visitor to a Belfast market, I wouldn't have thought.

Equally, this Routemaster/Atlantean mashup oddity was also Japanese:

Sakura? No, me neither.

And this curiosity seemed to be handmade in resin:

Perhaps not that robustly, sadly.

But whoever originally owned all these plainly had an eye for the esoteric.

Even this one, which I first thought was an unboxed EFE or OOC Routemaster:

Turns out to be made by Seerol "for H. Seener Ltd"

I'm sure I had a Budgie Toys Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud which had a similar proclamation on the base.

[EDIT: yes I did.]

And this destination board seems to be hand-painted.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Speaking of Budgie Toys - a French Budgie?

This LWB Renault seemingly made for the French market.

New one on me.

Diecast rabbitholes opening up simply everywhere I looked...

More Rio models, though again the delicate bits broken off:

A Thorneycroft box van, which I initially took to be one of the hoary old Corgi Classics castings from the 80s that are so common (and unloved):

But, moving it revealed that it was a white metal model, very heavy and held together with glue.

No maker's name.

Another scratch build?

Crazy.

And I've no idea what this is even pretending to be:

Not an approximation of one of those weird saloon Citroen ZXs they built in China, maybe?

I tell you, this was all getting too weird for me...

The Matchbox Rolamatics Rangie turned out, on examination, to have quite badly booked axles:

So I ended up scooping the requested models still available, and then carrying out a last turn of the market.

Alan's Emporium had the 50p tray out, finally -but there wasn't much to get trippy about.

A well-used Superfast Woosh-N-Push and a Corgi Juniors Range Rover Vigilant were pretty much the height of the thrills.

Though 2/3 of a Superkings container trailer wasn't nothing - just not much use to me.

Kidco Lamborghini Countach, too.

A final trawl past the Charity Stall revealed a lone Hot Wheels Pontiac Firebird on the 30p heap:

But I was all out of change - so I didn't.

And then, time to scarper back and see what's what...

[flat4alfa]

16 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

New one on me.

I hope you bought that Budgie Renault Chassis Long!

[Datsuncog]

A fairly substantial haul today, tat fans.

Phew!

First up, a few extras for the current @flat4alfa tat box:

Two Tomica buses, a Dinky Hudson Commodore and a freebie scrap Saico Minor.

Two more wheels for the Minor showed up in the box, so now it's a three-wheeler.

For @bunglebus, it's the engineless Charger plus a still-sealed Chinese market Ranchero:

And at @danthecapriman's request, the Corgi Consul Classic - a bit down at heel, but complete and with all the glazing uncracked.

Opening bonnet is a nice touch.

For @RoadworkUK, dealer's choice of EFSI Volvo and Majorette Neoplan coaches:

Quite a few of the Majorettes had waterslide transfers, which had yellowed and started flaking - this one has tampo print, so seems a bit more durable. 

There were a fair few EFSIs, though most were a bit knocked - but this KLM liveried one looked quite smart, I reckoned.

So, the other random dregs scooped included these:

A Norev Renault Caravelle (with some bits missing or cracked) plus a Hongwell Cararama Fiat Punto rozzermobile.

These are nice, though I've no immediate need for either. Just feeling a bit grabby-hands, clearly...

And then these:

The Tomica bus and the Budgie Renault lorry. The Tomica I really like. The front doors even open (very slightly).

The Renault also just appealed, and I more or less got it to remind myself to find out more about this manufacturer, of which I know nearly nothing.

The Budgie Renault, the Caravelle and the Punto are all available, if anyone fancies them. I haven't done my sums yet, but I think about £2 each would cover the initial outlay.

[EDIT: both Renners now spoken for!!]

The Tomica bus is a keeper, for now anyway.

Which is just as well, as I don't think I'd ever be buying one at full market value.

Sorry, HFM?

Blimey.

Oh, and lastly this:

The teeny-tiny Oxford Corsa D, with tyres that look like they're melting.

A bit of work with a scalpel should see the glue removed, and then we'll see. I do kinda like this one too.

[flat4alfa]

Budgie Renault please

[Datsuncog]

1 minute ago, flat4alfa said:

Budgie Renault please

 

1 minute ago, flat4alfa said:

Caravelle please

Sure thing!

[flat4alfa]

3 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

The Renault also just appealed, and I more or less got it to remind myself to find out more about this manufacturer, of which I know nearly nothing.

The Cog Book gets a new chapter.

[Datsuncog]

So there we go - a very tat-ful day, with some very lovely pieces soon to be winging their way to new homes.

It's always a bit strange to come up against what's obviously someone's personal collection, with a number of rare/ unique items that I've never seen before, and will likely never see again.

Also sad in a way at the state of some of these white-metal models, which were never designed to be handled roughly and so have sustained catastrophic damage while being heaved in and out of tubs on the stall. Once-prized models, carefully built and detailed, but now just bin fodder.

But yeah - that's the way of things. We can but appreciate those that survive, cherish them ourselves where we can, and hope that some day they'll go on once more.

I guess it's just the Circle Of Tat, really...

Happy Friday, kids.

 

[danthecapriman]

Cheers @Datsuncog for picking up the Classic! She looks a nice old thing!

Let me know how much I owe you and how to pay you and I’ll get you payed.👍

[Datsuncog]

Sure thing - will tot it all up later and hit everyone up over the weekend!

[danthecapriman]

Speaking of metal kits, that get handled badly and battered to buggery…

I got this Mikansue kit built Triumph in a recent job-lot. Lost a wheel and taken a bit of a pasting over the years. Anyone fancy taking it on?

[RoadworkUK]

21 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Quite a few of the Majorettes had waterslide transfers, which had yellowed and started flaking - this one has tampo print, so seems a bit more durable. 

There were a fair few EFSIs, though most were a bit knocked - but this KLM liveried one looked quite smart, I reckoned.

Proper result. I'm actually really glad you picked the KLM EFSI – I'm a bit of a sucker for airline-liveried stuff. Sits rather well with the Majorette, too. Thank you. As ever.

Gawd bless St George's Market.

[Split_Pin]

Holy mackerel, I had an unexpectedly busy Friday so haven't seen much of AS since before I started work this morning - what a day! A great tat haul.

Shame about that Fife Fleetline, its a great model, I got mine way back in 2006. Its unique in the ABC range as it has a Scottish -type front with more elaborate moulding rather than the plain front with a triangle seen on the Hong Kong examples.

ABC obviously wanted to get the most out of their 33 foot Alexander bodied Fleetline casting with peaked domes and dual doors, however as you can imagine it's a very rare specification. Luckily for ABC, Dundee Corporation bought a batch and PYJ442L was later bought 2nd hand by the Scottish Bus Group in the late 1970s after the original owners shed all their Fleetlines in favour of Ailsas. It's even got its route number 95 purposely not set quite in position by the driver,  as per the real vehicle. A nice touch.

@Datsuncog,  let me know how soon you want the D series away and I'll sort something out!

[flat4alfa]

47 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

Caravelle please

Thinking about it I might have been a bit greedy there, and did snaffle a lot of the @danthecapriman thread offerings

So if anyone else wants it you are welcome

[danthecapriman]

3 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

Thinking about it I might have been a bit greedy there, and did snaffle a lot of the @danthecapriman thread offerings

So if anyone else wants it you are welcome

I’ll be adding some more to that thread tonight!

[flat4alfa]

5 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

I’ll be adding some more to that thread tonight!

[bunglebus]

@Datsuncog If you see the green Rolamatics Rangie again I'd quite like it.

I'd also just like to mention the Karmann Ghia discussed earlier is a type 34, based on type 3 running gear. They never made a type 4 Ghia, probably a good thing...

[MiniMinorMk3]

17 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

@Datsuncog If you see the green Rolamatics Rangie again I'd quite like it.

I'd also just like to mention the Karmann Ghia discussed earlier is a type 34, based on type 3 running gear. They never made a type 4 Ghia, probably a good thing...

 

But the engines ended up in this, which was VWs replacement for the type 34 Ghia. Karmann built the chassis and completed the VW 914 versions, whilst Porsche completed the 914/6 models themselves. 

[flat4alfa]

36 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

I'd also just like to mention the Karmann Ghia discussed earlier is a type 34, based on type 3 running gear. They never made a type 4 Ghia, probably a good thing...

It was a typo, I did correct it

[danthecapriman]

More stuff getting added now, a few oldies, Corgi & Dinky.

 

[flat4alfa]

On 1/13/2023 at 4:13 PM, Datsuncog said:

Speaking of Budgie Toys - a French Budgie?

This LWB Renault seemingly made for the French market.

Been doing some research for the Cog Box chapter.

This Renault Long Surbaisse does in fact pre-date the Budgie brand, as it was meant to be released as part of Morris & Stone Ltd 'Trucks of the World' series under the Morestone brand.

It also had a canvas bed cover, that was held in place by two metal hoops.  In the bed you can see the where they slotted in apposing corners.

Canvas you ask?  Well could be an interesting* way to involve my long suffering wife in toy tat enthusiasm.  Because she is pretty handy on the sewing machine and a cottage industry success may start here!  Probably.

[Remspoor]

New releases from Corgi and sister brands.

To be honest not a great deal to get excited about.

 

[sheffcortinacentre]

57 minutes ago, Remspoor said:

New releases from Corgi and sister brands.

To be honest not a great deal to get excited about.

 

Well that Mk5 cortina is a late 1.6L

[AndyW201]

11 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

Well that Mk5 cortina is a late 1.6L

There were a couple of mistakes in the announcements when that vid was made, the yellow MK3 GXL was wrongly described as a GT as well. They're correctly listed on the Corgi site now, with the red Mk5 listed as an L.

[MiniMinorMk3]

13 hours ago, Remspoor said:

New releases from Corgi and sister brands.

To be honest not a great deal to get excited about.

 

15 new models, 13 are Fords. Around half those models have been released by other manufacturers over the last 20 years. It's about time they started filling the gaps that have never been modelled. Oh I forgot, Corgi are only interested in selling models of the same stuff they have sold before until they have saturated the market so much the models become worthless.

I can not wait for all those Ford collectors to get annoyed when the values of their precious models plummets as Corgi release the same colours over and over again in special anniversary boxes.

Corgi rant over.

[MiniMinorMk3]

Vanguards used to make Rover models.

 

[155V6]

1 hour ago, AndyW201 said:

There were a couple of mistakes in the announcements when that vid was made, the yellow MK3 GXL was wrongly described as a GT as well. They're correctly listed on the Corgi site now, with the red Mk5 listed as an L.

Have they actually done a civilian spec GT?

[Datsuncog]

22 hours ago, Rover414 said:

Missed out again but always seems to be a few new buses of interest, the London Metrobus, Nottingham Trident & that kit/scratch Northumbria Delta. Must set a reminder for next time to check!

Will keep an eye out for those three at any future weeks - it's weird what resurfaces, sometimes months or even years later.

Just depends which box he grabs out of the lock-up on any given day, so he tells me.

The scratch-built Delta was an odd one - seemed to have been made out of plasticard.

But if no-one's modelling something you really want... guess it's going to be DIY or nowt. But I'm impressed at the ingenuity, even if the final result might be a wee smidge wonky.

18 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Proper result. I'm actually really glad you picked the KLM EFSI – I'm a bit of a sucker for airline-liveried stuff. Sits rather well with the Majorette, too. Thank you. As ever.

Gawd bless St George's Market.

Good stuff! Will pop those to one side for you.

18 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Holy mackerel, I had an unexpectedly busy Friday so haven't seen much of AS since before I started work this morning - what a day! A great tat haul.

Shame about that Fife Fleetline, its a great model, I got mine way back in 2006. Its unique in the ABC range as it has a Scottish -type front with more elaborate moulding rather than the plain front with a triangle seen on the Hong Kong examples.

ABC obviously wanted to get the most out of their 33 foot Alexander bodied Fleetline casting with peaked domes and dual doors, however as you can imagine it's a very rare specification. Luckily for ABC, Dundee Corporation bought a batch and PYJ442L was later bought 2nd hand by the Scottish Bus Group in the late 1970s after the original owners shed all their Fleetlines in favour of Ailsas. It's even got its route number 95 purposely not set quite in position by the driver,  as per the real vehicle. A nice touch.

@Datsuncog,  let me know how soon you want the D series away and I'll sort something out!

Yep, quite the day - I wasn't expecting much, but some quite nice finds transpired!

That's great to know about the ABC Fleetline - seems that it was indeed something a bit special. Ah well - with any luck, there'll be other days with equally good items.

There's really no rush on the Kirk D-Series, it's safely stored for now so really just whenever suits you, I'll be happy to pop it in the post. If March time works well, that's good with me!

17 hours ago, bunglebus said:

@Datsuncog If you see the green Rolamatics Rangie again I'd quite like it.

Ooh, I was so close to picking that up, too... shoulda just gone for it!*

 

 

 

* The sort of habit that, unfortunately, got me into rather a lot of trouble about a year ago... 🙃

[AndyW201]

1 hour ago, 155V6 said:

Have they actually done a civilian spec GT?

Just the one so far, Marine blue.

2 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

15 new models, 13 are Fords. Around half those models have been released by other manufacturers over the last 20 years. It's about time they started filling the gaps that have never been modelled. Oh I forgot, Corgi are only interested in selling models of the same stuff they have sold before until they have saturated the market so much the models become worthless.

I can not wait for all those Ford collectors to get annoyed when the values of their precious models plummets as Corgi release the same colours over and over again in special anniversary boxes.

Corgi rant over.

Problem is, there seems to be a fine line between what sells in big numbers and what people want. Development, tooling and distribution costs have rocketed. Corgi need to make runs of at least 1000 per colour way and each new casting needs to have at least three or four colour ways for them to make money. So say, an Austin Maxi, a popular request on the Vanguards site, yes quite a few folks on there would buy one, me included! But would they sell four or five thousand of them?  four or five thousand Rover R8s? (another popular request, and another I would hand my money over for like a shot), four or five thousand Vauxhall bloody PC Crestas? (Yes, I'd buy one though...). Their figures show that Fords sell, and that's that.

See, I'm sat on two fences, I'm a bit bored of all the Fords, and would love to see all makes represented like previous years, but having taken the time to watch the Christmas Q&A video with the Corgi head of brand, I sort of  realise they are a business and they need to make money. If I ran a business like that and I saw that the highest number of Vanguards models flying out of my warehouse were Fords, I'd be wanting to make more of them! Already they've had to increase production of the newly announced '70s Fords as they were all sold out on the Corgi site on pre order after 3 days. Okay, the truth is the majority will have been ordered by eBay chisellers hoping to make a mark-up, but if you were in charge of the brand and saw that, what would you do?

On the other hand though, I think the modern Ford thing is a wrong way to go,(although I have to admit I quite like the Transit Custom in ST orange with bodykit and stripes.)

There's even a new  Mk6 Mustang casting just announced FFS, but apparently the market research etc has been done so we will have to see. At least us collectors have been assured that it won't affect the '70s/'80s stuff.

In the video, for 2024, we have been promised more new castings, including non-Fords, more reintroduction of non-Ford previous castings and some '90s classics too, should be interesting if they stick to that. More Screen Stars releases, and considering there's a new Mk2 Capri casting on its way (even the anti Ford contingent are happy about that one), hopefully Minder fans will have their dreams come true at last..

In the new releases, I will at least be ordering the MK2 Escort sport. 

The 1600 sport is my favourite Escort and this one is going to look flipping brilliant in Roman bronze, with the striped seats.

I'm liking the look of the purple Escort Cosworth Monte too. Shame Ixo got there first with this one, but the Corgi one will have a properly detailed road car spec interior.

And at last, they're doing the RS Turbo in Mercury grey. I might have to go for this too.

Shame I'm skint ATM...

[MiniMinorMk3]

18 minutes ago, AndyW201 said:

 

See, I'm sat on two fences, I'm a bit bored of all the Fords, and would love to see all makes represented like previous years, but having taken the time to watch the Christmas Q&A video with the Corgi head of brand, I sort of  realise they are a business and they need to make money. If I ran a business like that and I saw that the highest number of Vanguards models flying out of my warehouse were Fords, I'd be wanting to make more of them! Already they've had to increase production of the newly announced '70s Fords as they were all sold out on the Corgi site on pre order after 3 days. Okay, the truth is the majority will have been ordered by eBay chisellers hoping to make a mark-up, but if you were in charge of the brand and saw that, what would you do?

 

I used to buy around 10-20 Vanguards a year. I've not purchased one for about 4 years as they have released nothing that I do not have from another manufacturer already. Minichamps, Trofeu and IXO have done most of the old fords that they have done in the last 5 years. I no longer subscribe to their updates or their diecast diaries as they do not release anything that I want. Vanguards have lost me as a customer for another year. They are so blinkered by the high sales Fords that they are loosing all their BL/Vauxhall/Hillman/Land Rover customers to other brands. Even Oxford do a better range than Vanguards these days and cover stuff such as the Crayford Mk2 Cortina Convertible.

[quicksilver]

The bus selection is getting even more weird and wonderful!

The white Alexander single-decker is unmistakably the work of the late Frank Cumming and is made of sheet aluminium. He scratch-built Alexander buses to order for Model Bus Federation members for many years, so to see one on public sale is very unusual.

The Optare Delta looks like a Roger Hey product, another who would build to order for MBF members but this time in plastic. He's still active but only builds for himself now.

The Metosul Atlanteans are factory-finished. Mine has the same dodgy masking and wobbly hand-painted details. I thought it was a repaint but photos show they're all like this. The sticky-out wheels are because the early ones had single back wheels like the Dinky that inspired it, and they switched to double wheels when they revamped the casting to make it look more Portuguese but didn't modify the base.