Shite in Miniature II

[morrisoxide]

18 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

Well, how did that land here?

The Buffalo Sabres are a New York state NHL team

Part of a limited export run for the NFL (US Football) and NHL (Hockey) ‘Trading’ series for 1982

Interesting, seems it was made for the Canadian market? 

[Datsuncog]

So, while pondering if McCulloughs was still even in business anymore, I went for a hike around the remaining charity shops.

Bangor used to have loads of charity shops. Like, dozens. Most of the big nationals - Action Cancer, Scope, British Heart Foundation, Red Cross, several branches of Oxfam, Barnardo's, Guide Dogs, Cancer Research, Age Concern, War On Want, Marie Curie, St Vincent De Paul - plus assorted local outfits like Ulster Hospice, Assisi Animal Sanctuary, Africa Child Ministries, Drop Inn Ministries, Ulster Wildlife Trust, USPCA, and many others I can't quite bring to mind right now.

A fair chunk of Main Street, High Street, Abbey Street and Market Street, plus whatever hadn't been levelled along Queen's Parade, was given over to quasi-charitable purveyors of other people's unwanted tat, and then there were other antiques/ collectables/ junk outlets along Gray's Hill, Bingham Arcade and both sides of another little lane running off High Street towards Crosby Street.

Going round them all could well have been a full-time job - and to be fair, I almost treated it as such. I had a map in my head and I usually went into each one at least once a week. I was very much a regular, and I hoovered up and carted home so many books, records, items of clothing and assorted homeware tat - everything from typewriters, to Knight Rider duvet sets, to still-packaged 1970s shower curtains, to lurid tea sets (ask me about my Hornsea) - that even Mr Trebus might have thought to put a steadying hand on my arm and ask me if everything was ok.

And I never found any diecast worth having.

I know. Bizarre, isn't it?

Jumble sales and school fêtes, yes (though they're nowhere near as common as they once were). Car boot sales, sometimes. But charity shops? Absolutely not.

Except - for the sake of absolute transparency - for occasional Days Gone and Models of Yesteryear, and I'm not counting those - as invariably they'd end up in the window with a price tag that would make Jeff Bezos recoil and think blimey, that's a bit spendy.

Yes, I'm thinking here of the £75 Days Gone and Corgi Cameos in the window at Blytheswood Care last year. Oxfam have form for that sort of malarkey too.

That's why I'm so impressed / insanely jealous when so many of you guys casually arrive home week after week with super-clean Lesneys and Huskys and Norevs from the local charity shops because the best I ever managed was a near-mint Superfast Ford A-Series wrecker and a good-to-fair Dinky Bedford TK tipper - and that was in Sussex, twenty years ago. 

They weren't all that cheap either, I think they cost me seven quid the pair.

It wasn't like I didn't look, either - I don't think I'd care to tot up exactly how many precious hours of my life I've squandered raking through crates of squashed McDonald's Happy Meal toys, headless Barbies in the nip , and well-sucked Tellytubbies with all manner of highly dubious stains adorning them. To no avail.

Actually, I once found a very shonky pirated Husky Transit camper, reborn as a fire vehicle by a no-name Chinese outfit, in the bottom of a tub in Age Concern. That was in 2013.

So on Saturday, I wasn't exactly shocked that this was the absolute best on offer in all the charity shops I mooched around:

Yup, a couple of ultra cheapo plastic vehicle-shaped items, which probably came taped to the front of a comic, plus some anthropomorphic 'early years' toys.

Thassit.

I mean... it's always worth a look, right?

But I've never been able to determine if diecast just never gets donated, or if it's cherry-picked out the back by volunteers who ultimately buck it all up on eBay.

So, given the general dearth of diecast availability, and that my hopes were suitably modest to the point of non-existence, you'll probably understand why I nearly choked when I was hurrying past some hipster emporium I'd never really noticed before, and clocked these in the window:

Is that...a Dinky Ford D-Series sweeper?

Corgi Scania and Jaguar XJS??

Lesney Speed Kings Dodge Charger?

PINCH ME IM DREAMING

I cautiously poked my head round the door.

Holy fuckfarts, the place was half-full of diecast.

All laid out very neatly on shelves and tables.

And then I clocked the (equally neat) price labels, and I really did choke.

ARE

YOU

ON

FUCKING

CRACK

M9?

Apparently so.

FUCK

THAT

RIGHT

OFF.

I didn't want to seem too suspicious, so I didn't photograph any more. But it was a big shop. And I was simultaneously intrigued and appalled. And as I got further away from the door and closer to the counter, the prices rose and rose.

Of course, there were loads and loads of Days Gone and MoYs, all around the £10 mark. Even the unboxed ones.

Early Lledo Vanguards were at £20. So were Corgi Classics.

Commercial Corgi Classics, buses and Chipperfields and the like, seemed to be weighing in around £40 and £50.

Still I walked on, towards the back, feeling like I'd fallen well and truly into the Twilight Zone.

The nice proprietor behind the counter was guarding a glass cabinet of 1960 and 70s Corgis, and some assorted Lesneys. None of them were in brilliant nick.

I noticed that it included a Commer PB police van with the roof light and stuff missing - in worse condition than the pair I snaffled for a fiver a few weeks back at the market.

These weren't even priced.

I'm going to guess that the phrase 'if you have to ask, you can't afford ' applied here.

"Anything I can help you with?" asked the shopkeeper, most pleasantly.

"No thank you!" I squealed, a good two octaves higher than my usual register - and promptly fled the premises.

Just... ran out of the building.

I would be shocked, shocked, if that place made any sales.

Still reeling, I headed off down the street - feeling like I'd had some sort of narrow escape.

But nonetheless, the Tat Odyssey continued...

(TBC)

[bunglebus]

4 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

I once found a very shonky pirated Husky Transit camper, reborn as a fire vehicle by a no-name Chinese outfit

zYlMeX!

(I feel like there's a theme on here today,,,)

[TheOtherStu]

22 minutes ago, morrisoxide said:

Interesting, seems it was made for the Canadian market? 

As a hockey nerd, Buffalo is in fact right on the Canadian border. It's the next town on the river to Niagara and the rink is just 3 miles from the border bridge.

The Canadians are nuts about Hockey. I'd be unsurprised if most of their fans are in fact Canadian.

[sheffcortinacentre]

7 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Zylmex - I'll take that one please

That's a bronco  missing it's rear canopy ( nowadays known as an OJ bronco) rather than a pickup

[bunglebus]

6 minutes ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

That's a bronco  missing it's rear canopy ( nowadays known as an OJ bronco) rather than a pickup

Yep I have it as a Bronco, somewhere I have a list of all the Zylmex codes/models

Think you need a login to see it

https://www.diecastgarage.org/node/1517

This one comes up as P369

[Datsuncog]

7 hours ago, bunglebus said:

zYlMeX!

(I feel like there's a theme on here today,,,)

That's the exact one!

But not quite as clean.

I passed it on a while ago - but it's a pretty poor pass that's all I had to show for a quarter-century of Norn Iron charity shop tat-hoking!

You know... you're dangerously warm when identifying the curious Zylmex theme that's running through today's posts... most curious.

STILL more to follow (once I've made tea)!

[bunglebus]

Here's a less tidy one with the Husky it wasn't* copied from

The really clean one came out of a set, actually made in the MotorMax era I think, and sold as Super Wheels

 

[sierraman]

2 hours ago, morrisoxide said:

Interesting, seems it was made for the Canadian market? 

Probably surplus imported, I have a baseball Ford Cobra. A few Arabia bound Juniors cropped up in the U.K., presumably a cancelled order or a container that got lost in a dock maybe. 

[Datsuncog]

So I eventually made my way back to McCulloughs just after ten o'clock.

And lo, it was now open.

The shutter had been removed from the diecast window, and the contents could be seen in all their glory.

It's annoying that the window's so reflective, but hey.

Some of these models have probably been on display for a long time, going by the faded boxes.

Inflation's present even here, though.

This larger scale Hong Kong (?) bus was a bit of an oddity - 1/76 Oxfords are just above it, to show how much bigger it is.

Manufacturer unknown (unless it's made by 'Big Model'?)

Not all that cheap, though, it's true.

Staff were busy putting stuff out the front, and so I quietly slunk in to see what could be seen.

It's mainly a corner of railway scale diecast, with some railway track and scenic accessories; also a few plastic kits and paints; and a handful of bigger 1990s and 2000s Corgi Classics commercials. One or two recent release Vanguards too.

Quite a few local tie-ins as well - Ulsterbus and UTA livery buses, and Woodsides and McBurney haulage trucks, all by Oxford Diecast.

Hard to know whether the older stuff has been brought in secondhand, or it's simply unsold stuff from 20+ years ago.

But there was indeed some much older stuff, on some shelves right by the window...

Mmm. Bit of an eclectic selection.

The Corgi Majors Midland Red motorway bus was appealing - though a little chipped, and priced at £15.

Corgi Ferrari 250 Berlinetta was very clean - but £25 clean? Maybe.

No price on the Siku Mercedes fire ladder, that I could see.

A fairly steep £135 on the Dinky Supertoys Bedford O Transporter - but it was complete with the loading ramp, and looked the very definition of mint and boxed.

Tekno Scania bus was also pristine - and £40.

This little oddity - seemingly a military vehicle of some sort, going by the roof hatch - had no paint, and no price.

Apparently made by Kemlow, who seem a dimly familiar name.

A few Gama models from their 'Oldtimer' veteran collection were on offer - at only £5.

Strange how unloved some models can become.

It was around this point, just as I was beginning to wonder if The Nemesis was perhaps a smidge over-generous in his glowing assessment of the range of older stuff kept here, that one of the Saturday Girls approached and asked if she could help me with anything.

Feeling slightly caught on the hop, and in terror of coming across as one of those blustering, boring sad-act blowhards who used to wander in first thing on a Saturday and bend my ear at length about the technical spec on the latest Joal construction releases back whenever I worked here, I kinda half-smiled and said no, probably not, but thanks anyway.

But then I thought, well... I've come all the way down here. So I nervously asked, in the manner of a speakeasy newbie trying to remember the special password, whether there happened to be any more models anywhere else in the shop.

She looked mildly confused, and asked what sort of stuff I was looking for, exactly.

In for a penny...

"Well, like... Corgi?"

"Ohhh... you mean old stuff?"

"Yes. Old stuff."

Well yes, there was some more stuff upstairs - but it was old stuff, not new stuff, in case that's what I wanted. The lights were off still, but I was welcome to come up and have a look.

In best Mills & Boon fashion, I followed her upstairs into the dark, whereupon she flicked on the light, and...

OMG SECRET TATCAVE

**faints**

 

(Yet more to follow - Christ this is taking forever, apologies)

[flat4alfa]

4 hours ago, sierraman said:

A few Arabia bound Juniors cropped up in the U.K., presumably a cancelled order or a container that got lost in a dock maybe. 

One of those is here

UAE Police شُرْ طَة‎ (šurṭa) 

[AndyW201]

Second arrival,

I'm a sucker for dealer packaged models, and PeterC's earlier post made me realise that, although I'm currently on my 9th 1:1 scale Mercedes, I don't really have much of a collection of Mercedes models. I tried to put this right last year with a selection of Minichamps 124 and W202 models, all reasonably cheap, and a few various toy Mercs from some of our resident Tatbox vendors have helped to fill the void, but I have been searching for a nice W203 C Class, which is what my current real car is. Ive already got the Cararama version,

Which isn't bad, but a bit toy-like. There was a dealer packaged saloon, made by Schuco rather than Minichamps unusually, but they are quite hard to find, (and sellers take the piss with prices) as are the Minichamps estates. A lot more common is the CL203 "sport coupé" again by Minichamps.

This was for sale by the same guy who had the Pug 309, so a deal was done. It's kind-of related to my car...

The CL203 was an obvious answer to the BMW Compact /Audi A3 small premium* hatch market. As a biased Merc owner, I think the shape of the Merc was a bit more successful than the Beemer in looking less like a saloon with the back end chopped off, using the raked back CLK type front end probably helped there. Although it did end up looking a bit like a Citroën Xsara VTS with a CLK front end grafted on...

This one is the "Evolution" version, a special edition of the sport coupé which meant a fancy paint job (Adventurino orange on this one), panoramic roof, some AMG body bits and special 17" alloys.

Being a Minichamps (therefore fairly expensive when new), it's all done very nicely. The paint is stunning and the shape is spot on. Load of tiny details like the led brake light and the sports tailpipe trim with the original twin tailpipes visible inside it.

Nice wheels and good brake detail with gold calipers front and rear.

The panoramic roof gives a nice view of the interior.

The interior detail, as usual, is fab. The weird half moon speedo is there, with the sports three-spoke wheel. 

Console detail looks good with the optional Comand radio/CD/phone/nav fitted.

I have always loved Minichamps models for their interiors, this one doesn't disappoint. A very nice model overall.

[bunglebus]

7 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Kemlow

Kemlow was the lead character in a series of science fiction books from the 50s. I remember reading my dad's copies. Totally irrelevant of course

[quicksilver]

8 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

This larger scale Hong Kong (?) bus was a bit of an oddity - 1/76 Oxfords are just above it, to show how much bigger it is.

Manufacturer unknown (unless it's made by 'Big Model'?)

Not all that cheap, though, it's true.

 

 

Collector's Model is the brand. One of the Hong Kong firms that popped up in the early 2000s mainly making 1/76 buses but also these Metrobuses in 1/50 scale. They disappeared after a few years and I don't know what happened to them.

[egg]

There's some stuff about Kemlow on the archived Nick Jones site

https://web.archive.org/web/20181007130133/http://www.vintagebritishdiecasts.co.uk/3index/kemlows.htm

maybe should have a field gun

[danthecapriman]

@Datsuncog

I don’t do well with suspense. It’s killing me!! 
 

I NEED TO SEE WHAT’S IN THE HIDDEN TAT CAVE!!

🤪

[Datsuncog]

Right, so I was tappy-tapping away into the wee small hours to chronicle the final part of the Saturday Tat Epic, only I ended up fumbling the wrong button and lost the lot, to my great chagrin... so here goes (again).

It's fair to say there was a bit of a jaw/ floor interface as I looked around the first floor shelving.

True, much of it was railway stuff - including what looked like someone's old rail/ model village layout, which appeared to have suffered a significant catastrophe, the like of which wouldn't have been out of place on Emmerdale.

But it was principally the diecast that grabbed me good and proper.

There was quite a lot of Danbury Mint stuff on offer - although brave and pricey.

I mean, yes these are expensive - but then I understand they were also pretty expensive when new, unlike Yer Man up the road trying to flog a Superfast era Field Car with the roof broken off for £4.

Still, if you've got a crystal meth habit to feed, I guess that ain't cheap either.

It sort of begs the question of who's buying models like this nowadays?

This Rolls-Royce was exquisite, no doubt, with its delicately opening doors and bonnet, and intricately cast plated parts - but is there really much of a market for models of these big Edwardian tourers and sports cars any more?

I know people will happily spring £100 on a Sunstar Escort, but is £75 a throw on these vintage models achievable anymore, now that the people who remember them and their era have passed on?

Somehow, I worry for their futures.

It's only when reviewing the pics later that I realised what a spectacularly bad job I'd done of recording what was on the shelves. Erratic photography is a bit of an indicator that I was becoming a little over-excited.

So I'll just try to present the pics here as best I can.

First up: Dinkys.

Lots of them.

Not mad-cheap though.

The dreaded card tags indicated £15-20 a throw, so not quite tat stall pricing.

The Austin Atlantic and Mercedes racer were very tidy.

Mostly '30s, '40s and '50s stuff along this shelf - so not the stuff I'd typically gravitate towards.

Some were better than others, but still a bit on the spendy side.

I'm not sure why these ones in a biscuit tin were cheaper, as they looked in just as good condition as the ones on the shelf. Cuckoo-in-the-nest Riley Pathfinder was one of the initial Corgi launch castings from 1956, but the original red paint here had been gone over in blue - otherwise I might have been interested.

More oddments...

Is that a Pegaso tanker - and did we have one of those just a  few pages back?

The little Merit Station Accessories Pack was a bit of a blast from the past - there were boxes and boxes of those up in the storeroom back in my time here, all NOS.

Also Corgi Golden Jacks wheels. I can remember a whole drawer full of unsold Golden Jacks spare wheels here, back in the late '90s - still packaged.

I wonder where they went... they could well be still upstairs, somewhere in the warren of stockrooms.

Now, also in the 'not cheap' bracket, but perhaps justifiably so - some Spot-On.

The Nemesis had mentioned these. So the tales were true, after all.

£55 on the boxed Meadows Friskysport, and the unboxed Aston; £65 on the Jensen; and a whopping £110 on the remanufactured Mini - but a quick look suggests that's broadly the going rate for MSMC recasts.

No price on the Fiat Multipla that I could see.

Still - PHOAAAR.

Rather than try for another mega-post and then lose the lot again, I'll post these pics up in smaller chunks... which will hopefully avoid unnecessary suspense!

[sierraman]

I’d imagine these shops go days without any takings. 

[Datsuncog]

And there were buses. Lots of buses, and coaches. Mostly EFE and OOC releases.

More than I could reasonably photograph - though a lot were pre-war Guy and AEC deckers which I think hold less interest on here, so I prioritised the more modern stuff.

I'm not even going to attempt to identify them here - but this is what I snapped, anyway.

I'm sure those of you in the know will be able to quickly recognise something worth having!

Some were on the shelves, others were just piled up in banana boxes and shoved in a corner.

Of those that were priced, £10-12 seemed to be about the going rate.

Again, not tat-stall OMG fiver clearance prices, but given that these models were maybe £20 new back in 1998, it's maybe not crazy money.

Some interesting Oriental versions, as well.

Brighton and Hove Dart brought back some memories, too.

(More to follow...)

[Datsuncog]

This shelving area over by the door through to what used to be known as the Repair Room had some particularly interesting items...

Ohhhhh...

Oh wow.

A Yonezawa Diapet Mitsubishi Fuso bus - like the Tomica Long examples found a few months back - but big, and fitted out as a TV outside broadcast vehicle.

Not, like, super cheap at £25 - and seemingly missing whatever should be mounted on the roof tripod - but oh, I wanted this badly.

This Gama Mercedes 208D van was really nice too:

No price on it, and an odd scale of 1/53, but I could feel the want growing...

Hnnnng.

[Jon]

That's certainly an interesting couple of items in that last post. Shame about the missing camera on the VTR coach conversion but that GAMA Benz van is beckoning me with an Anne Robinson level wink, should there be any way that about a tenner could procure it...

[flat4alfa]

A DanBox™ arrived the other day.  5 kilos of it!  Wife took it in from delivery man as I was away from the door at the time.  The squint in her eyes was understandable.  But I think I got away with it as I hid it in the garage after.

Then the next day a CogBox™ arrived.  2 kilos of it.  Had one too many glasses of wine later that evening and accidentally left some of the contents out on the sofa until the morning.  Not the cleverest move.

Then the next day a smaller package arrived.  It was a ConcernBox™ of surprise!  Contained a Corgi Mini Van with the proper wrong grille.  I was made very pleased and it helped the weekend get by with enough distractions and projections to keep things subsided.

But this morning, I complained about being too busy to repair a front window, so she had words.

[bunglebus]

 

[flat4alfa]

17 hours ago, morrisoxide said:

Interesting, seems it was made for the Canadian market? 

That looks to be a Canadian market packaging example, yes.  'Corgi Hockey trading cars!' is a bit of a tongue twister

These are the US releases

Same three models, Jaguar XJS, Porshe 911, Ford Mustang Fox body, different colours 

On the back are teams from both US and Canada, which proves the market in both territories as all must be part of the NHL then I assume.  So it ought to have been the IHL: International Hockey League!

'Crafted in Great Britain' makes me laugh.  Says 1989 above, that was a long run as this one says 1982 which fits the models better

[flat4alfa]

51 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Ohhhhh...

I can see why!  That's brill

Maybe you should become an Tat Influencer and crowd-fund

[Noel Tidybeard]

yes that metrobus IS cheap @ £30 they only made 400

https://www.orientalmodelbuses.co.uk/MCW/Metrobus/70102.htm

[flat4alfa]

Corgi 1983 NFL American Football special editions. Each pack stated as 83 Corvette, but the 83 Corvette was the Corvette that never was.

'Corgi Football Collector Cars'.  28 in set.  

I'd feel like a proper Pequannock collecting these.

[Jon]

30 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

'Crafted in Great Britain' makes me laugh.  Says 1989 above, that was a long run as this one says 1982 which fits the models better

You were right in thinking that 1989 was a bit late, as with an unnecessary amount of enhancing to prove/disprove something of so little consequence in 2023, it's revealed as an obfuscated 1982:

To me, the card design was just way too old fashioned for 1989, even for cash strapped Corgi. Indeed, by 1989, even blister packs seemed a little avante garde, given the propensity of the same 8 or so 'Juniors' castings sold in the generic blue boxes.

On the subject of these North American sports collectible Juniors, I vaguely remember a pile of them featuring in this book I had years ago:

(Not my copy - no idea when/why I got rid of it)

Those images of glass shelves are a big nostslgia hit - I pored over these images for hours as a young teen, before I got too cool for such interests. 

Thankfully (?), that train of thought was relatively short-lived.

[Datsuncog]

There were a lot of oddities here, in fact.

This large-scale rendering of the Red Baron, for one.

And this Zylmex (told ya!) 'California T' for another.

£15 - but looked very clean and complete, bar a sticker on one of the doors.

I[EDIT: no it's not, the headlights and front shocks are missing!]

And from the sublime to the ridiculous (or is it the other way around) - some very cheap Charben's Old Crocks, which sadly were showing some signs of metal fatigue:

A fair few BP promo Corgis were also scattered around the place:

I later reunited this Renner van with its box, found quite some distance away:

Corgi Volvo Plaxton coach was still boxed - sadly these are my least favourite wheel version:

I've seen folks use these Micro Machines buildings to give quite a nice backdrop to 1/76 scale models on display.

There were loads of old shop catalogues too:

Some were... not very cheap.

I bet these were all found upstairs too. I remember stumbling across a trove of old Minix trade catalogues and Tri-ang Motorway booklets in one of the attic storerooms once; not much seems to have ever been chucked out.

Lesney CA van was in reasonable condition, but unpriced.

In fact, a lot of the stock here was unpriced, but then I think this area's not really open to the public - it seems to be made available only upon request.

So much was just sitting around in crates, a jumble of Lesney and MoYs and modern Hot Wheels and rolling stock and rail controllers and various bits of Superquick and Metcalfe cardboard construction set:

Mostly Rio vintage stuff in here, maybe some Brumm plus MoYs and early Mettoy-era Corgi Classics:

Oh, complete with @sierraman-approved hammer - for your convenience, sir.

Someone really ought to give it a good tidy and sort it all out. It used to be such a neat store (in the customer-facing areas anyway).

But even in the late 90s, there was much more money to be made in the nursery end of the store than in the toys and models section.

Parents-to-be and munificent grandparents-in-waiting would gaily whip out their chequebooks for prams, car seats, cots and changing tables in a way that just didn't happen for Solido 1/18 and Scalextric.

So I can't blame the family for reducing the diecast selection down to what's basically a heritage collection, kept for nostalgia purposes - a reminder of where the shop began. It's more than understandable, because it can't have been making any money.

Sad, but understandable.

In fact, it's fair to say I was having a lot of feelings here.

It was strange to see some of the familiar old signage still up, like this Britains Super Toys promo, now semi-obscured by the suspended ceiling.

There used to be cabinets and cabinets of Britains here - all the plastic farm animals, zoo animals, farm workers, soldiers, cowboys, mediaeval knights. Plus tons of vehicles, castles, ranches, accessories. The full range.

This place was such a big part of my childhood, and then I guess a big part of being a teenager, for slightly different reasons.

Both because it was my first job, and also because I had a tempestuous on-off relationship with one of the Saturday Girls who worked here. We met where I was now standing. Although she was only working here for a matter of weeks, the next three years of my life took rather a different slant as a result of it - hell, everything changed forever. 

If I hadn't been right here on a wet November morning in 1997, I can't even imagine where I'd be. Somewhere better? Somewhere worse? But not where I am now, not on any level.

It's peculiar to be able to return to such a precise point of divergence.

So - there's the youth element.

But I doubt I'd spend nearly as much time on this fair forum, nor on rising at silly o'clock on a Friday to head out and raid the Tat Stall, if I hadn't caught the diecast bug hard in here.

Even though I've gone through phases of not collecting diecast, foreswearing it utterly, selling off loads of it, I always come back to it. And it's probably due to this place.

And despite this town becoming ever more run-down, and retail becoming an online game, it's heartening to know there's still a little corner somewhere that's been consistently stocking Corgi for over sixty years now.

I guess that's the present.

But there's also the chilly knowledge that the boxes of secondhand diecast and model rail items are most likely dead men's shoes.

The retired lads in their sixties and seventies who I was providing with their Peco scenics and Corgi Classics MGAs twenty five years ago are very likely now gone, and I wouldn't be surprised if these crates are the result of house clearances, or widows offering their late spouse's collection of buses back to the shop they originally came from.

And that's kind of a headfuck. What does the future hold?

Well, I guess we know. Ultimately.

Just thinking about what happens to... stuff. The things left behind. The accumulations of a life. The personal meanings, the connections. What becomes of it all when those threads are cut? Just... fragments of someone else's joy, lying like glass splinters in the bottom of a crate, no longer whole. The data lost. File not found. Artefacts whose meanings can now only be guessed at.

Phew. This was getting heavy. It was almost a relief to hear the Saturday Girl's tread on the stairs, no doubt wondering what the fuck I was still doing up there.

 

[flat4alfa]

54 minutes ago, Jon said:

You were right in thinking that 1989 was a bit late, as with an unnecessary amount of enhancing to prove/disprove something of so little consequence in 2023, it's revealed as an obfuscated 1982:

To me, the card design was just way too old fashioned for 1989, even for cash strapped Corgi. Indeed, by 1989, even blister packs seemed a little avante garde, given the propensity of the same 8 or so 'Juniors' castings sold in the generic blue boxes.

Jon Van Cleemput gets to the bottom of it!  Yay

Also Corgi Baseball Trading / Collector Cars, for 1982 and even re-packaged too, it seems

In French flavour

And repackage / rename of series

Oh woe.