Shite in Miniature II

[sierraman]

Is it Friday market tat today Datsun?

[Datsuncog]

Whistle-stop tour through the market this morning, as I was feeling rough, overslept and missed my customary train into town...

But I think you'll agree some things are worth being late into work for.

Chiefly, this little honey.

I wasn't aware Dinky France had put together a model of a Honda S800, let alone one which manages to catch the lines so well.

Engine detail is really quite lovely, too.

A mere £5 for this crisp Atlas reissue; I shudder to think what an original release in this condition would set me back.

I also nabbed this:

I have a very strong memory of receiving this Jaguar SS100 at Easter 1984; indeed I still have the same model, albeit with hardly any paint and a very mangled windscreen after three decades in a toybox.

For £2, I couldn't say no.

Still unopened, and I'll have to think hard about whether to open it. Normally, I'm firmly in the opening camp - even for blister packs - but somehow the sealed and pristine nature is oddly soothing here.

The remains of the NPO (short for National Post Office - a now-defunct local chain of stationers, bought over by Easons in the 1990s) sticker are very familiar - whenever my grandfather bought me the odd matchbox car, it was usually from the NPO in Springhill Shopping Centre. 

Ah now.

Other stall highlights include:

All recent boxed models (Corgi Classics, Atlas-repro Dinkys) £5; proper old Dinkys/Corgis and tinplates £5; unboxed stuff between £3 and £1. Boxed old military stuff considerably more (think £20-£30ish)

Boxed Matchbox: £2

Unusual short-lived Corgi range from c.1981 - their 'Wild West' range. This seems to be the complete collection; M/B for £2 a pop. I was kinda tempted, but they don't interest me a great deal I'm afraid.

The 50p and 'reserve selection' boxes are still there, but a cursory glance shows there appear to be no substantial change to their contents. I think I've scooped anything reasonable from them, now - didn't take any fresh pics, but here's a link back to last week's:

http://autoshite.com/topic/10758-shite-in-miniature-ii/?p=1786339

Normally there's not much mini-shite on other stalls, but I did encounter this on some charity tat stall: a largish, battery-powered Fire Engine by Playart, stamped 'Made in Hong Kong' and with those wobble-wheels that make it change direction.

In surprisingly good, clean condition - I'm not sure whether it would originally have had bigger ladders, or if it's complete as-is.

As ever - should anything here catch your eye, give me a shout and I'll toddle over in an hour or so...

[Amishtat]

Nothing there for me but thanks for update all the same. Pretty sure I wouldn't be able to resist the Honda either. I've got a Matchbox SS100 probably from the same year as yours but subject to a Humbrol repaint in black around 1990..

[egg]

Very good price on the s800 compared to eBay/toy fairs...

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 10:58 AM, egg said:

Very good price on the s800 compared to eBay/toy fairs...

Yes, indeed... I nearly choked when I saw what those repro red BMW 1500s were fetching online... these aren't far behind. Yow.

Stall blokeyseems to have a weird pricing policy, but for once I'm not complaining.  He seemed relatively jovial this morning, so I guess it's all just a case of catching him on a good day...

 

(Oh, and your box was posted yesterday morning so with a bit of luck you'll have some diecast fun arriving tomorrow.)

[egg]

Thank you.

 

If you could be bothered, there's a few quid for the mini-shite fund to be made flipping the Fiat 1800!

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 11:16 AM, egg said:

Thank you.

If you could be bothered, there's a few quid for the mini-shite fund to be made flipping the Fiat 1800!

I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should! I'd have thought the Atlas stuff would be too recent to be fetching much, but the asking prices seem to say otherwise...

 

I also had a quick look online and it seems that the Corgi Juniors Wild West range also featured a paddle steamer, and later a covered wagon, so it's not a complete range shown above.

This is what I remember from the 1981 Corgi Catalogue...

But it seems a couple more were added later.

That said, a quick Google doesn't show up very many with those boxes - either blister pack or box set seems to be more common - so I dunno... the wheeler-dealer lifestyle doesn't really appeal, but boosting the minishite fund does... hnnnng...

Incidentally, quite an informative blog post about these toys is available here:

https://mikepigottsdiecasttoysandmodels.wordpress.com/2018/10/07/222/

[egg]

Look at it as a 'finders fee', if there is someone in say, Kent, looking for these they aren't going to stumble across that set - and some people are just happy not to seek out stuff but just have it arrive on their doorstep. Particularly, say if they have reduced mobility.

 

Sorry, I'm encouraging you to hold stock!

[Datsuncog]

You know, as £15-25 seems to be the going rate for those Atlas Fiats, I really probably should...

[barrett]

If you ever spot one of the Atlas Renault 16s on this bloke's stall I'd be v interested at a fiver...

[sierraman]

Those Atlas things aren’t going for far off a careworn original would cost sometimes.

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 12:28 PM, barrett said:

If you ever spot one of the Atlas Renault 16s on this bloke's stall I'd be v interested at a fiver...

Duly noted... I actually sold my original French Dinky R16 to a fellow Shiter last year for less than the repros seem to fetch, but I'll keep a look out for you!

 

On 4/12/2019 at 12:29 PM, sierraman said:

Those Atlas things aren’t going for far off a careworn original would cost sometimes.

Baffling, isn't it?

I can only assume people are hoovering them up as 'investment pieces' - I'd predict that, like Lledo Days Gone and MB Models of Yesteryear, so many will survive in as-new condition that prices will never really rise.

I'm just buying the ones I fancy for now; I'd like to think I won't take too much of a haircut when I pass them on, anyway...

[DoctorRetro]

Charity shop haul. Only picked as they looked interesting. If anyone wants any, 50p each as that's what I paid. 

 

 

[vulgalour]

May I take the orange and the yellow car in the first photo, green truck in the second photo and silver truck in the third photo?  Chuck me a PM with details for payment etc.

[egg]

The modern Norev 16 isn't bad...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Norev-1-43-Renault-16-silver-with-box/113711052864

 

[sierraman]

Duly noted... I actually sold my original French Dinky R16 to a fellow Shiter last year for less than the repros seem to fetch, but I'll keep a look out for you!

 

20180426_081221.jpg

 

20180530_002555.jpg

 

20180426_081243.jpg

 

 

Baffling, isn't it?

 

I can only assume people are hoovering them up as 'investment pieces' - I'd predict that, like Lledo Days Gone and MB Models of Yesteryear, so many will survive in as-new condition that prices will never really rise.

 

I'm just buying the ones I fancy for now; I'd like to think I won't take too much of a haircut when I pass them on, anyway...

All these so called collectible items from the 70’s and 80’s are now practically worthless. There’s a guy on the market near me trying to sell his vast collection of Days Gone By with no luck even at 50p each. I must admit there’s appeal though in the Models of Yesteryear stuff from the early 70’s in those really lairy unlikely metallic colours.

 

I remember my grandparents having a Days Gone By Lledo Shredded Wheat Van. It was deemed a collectors item and so kept away from my hands as a kid. Ironically the stuff I was playing with in the garden at the time was the truely valuable stuff in hindsight. All those old Lesneys and Corgi Juniors! Distinctly remember having a large brown pick up by Ertl from ‘The Fall Guy’ which sell for a silly amount on EBay now!

 

Says it all when we cleared the flat out 10 years ago we slung it in the stuff for the house clearance people to shift. I think my Grandfather expected it’d be worth a fortune by now!

[DoctorRetro]

May I take the orange and the yellow car in the first photo, green truck in the second photo and silver truck in the third photo? Chuck me a PM with details for payment etc.

Of course. Typically I'd just posted you a few bits yesterday, including that green toe Joe.

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 1:14 PM, sierraman said:

All these so called collectible items from the 70’s and 80’s are now practically worthless. There’s a guy on the market near me trying to sell his vast collection of Days Gone By with no luck even at 50p each. I must admit there’s appeal though in the Models of Yesteryear stuff from the early 70’s in those really lairy unlikely metallic colours.

Indeed - there's another market stall that does a few toys and models, and he has a box of Days Gone models.

I once saw a Model T Ford in the box, but didn't have any money on me to buy it. I then fretted all week that it'd be gone by the time the next market day rolled around.

I got it. Phew.

That was in 1991. He still has all the others left, nearly 30 years on. 

 

Looks like I could have saved my 11-yr-old self some worry, hey?

 

Quote

I remember my grandparents having a Days Gone By Lledo Shredded Wheat Van. It was deemed a collectors item and so kept away from my hands as a kid. Ironically the stuff I was playing with in the garden at the time was the truely valuable stuff in hindsight. All those old Lesneys and Corgi Juniors! Distinctly remember having a large brown pick up by Ertl from ‘The Fall Guy’ which sell for a silly amount on EBay now!

Exactly that! As with vinyl records, anything that claims to be a 'collectors item' hardly ever is. The valuable stuff is where 99.999% of production got played with to death. I 'customised' a big Ertl Dukes of Hazzard Dodge Charger, then shot the windows out with a pellet gun...

It's International Record Store Day tomorrow and I just know there's going to be a whole clutch of mooks snatching up every 'exclusive collector' repressing they can find to immediately post up on eBay, or else squirrel away unplayed.

Guys, seriously - just stop it.

[sierraman]

They were fucking cack thinking back. It was that era of Antiques Roadshow and about saving every skerrit of crap because it would be a collectors item off the back of Dinkys fetching insane auction prices.

 

Can remember being at a car boot as a kid and this miserable old giffer going to my mum ‘Dear those are Collectors Items, not for kids!’ Then directing me to a box of Matchbox Superkings instead of his crappy Days Gone Past shit.

[Datsuncog]

The Corgi Cameos range has to rank as my absolute most-hated. There were a couple of them on the stall this morning.

Crude, cheap, nasty, randomly scaled and usually in dreadful anachronistic liveries. A staple of giffer sideboards.

"They'll be worth something someday!"

Yes, you're right - they'll be worth about a quarter of what you paid, in about eighty years time when even your grandchildren are dead.

Actually, add +1 points for anything that involves an Eddie Stobart livery on a pre-1970 vehicle.

Yes, this piss-winkling old bollocks.

If you have a 'Motoring Memory' of seeing a real one of these, then I'm sorry to say it but you've gone irretrievably soft in the head.

[MarvinsMom]

ah but then it would no longer be a "mint collectable" in mint condition......

 

[sierraman]

The Corgi Cameos range has to rank as my absolute most-hated. There were a couple of them on the stall this morning.

 

Corgi Cameo Collection.jpg

 

Crude, cheap, nasty, randomly scaled and usually in dreadful anachronistic liveries. A staple of giffer sideboards.

 

"They'll be worth something someday!"

 

Yes, you're right - they'll be worth about quarter of what you paid, in about eighty years time when even your grandchildren are dead.

 

Actually, add +1 points for anything that involves an Eddie Stobart livery on a pre-1970 vehicle.

The Morris Minor they did was good but the vintage stuff was TERRIBLE! I had half a dozen of them. Slung the lot in the bin about 5 years back. Where I live I bet a lot of the old pit pensioners spent their pensions buying them as a bit of a nest egg. However they went back to the nest 25 years later and found what they’d bought was fucking worthless.

 

Who is up for an amnesty for these? Send them in then one of us smashes them to bits with a big fucking hammer and a vice.

[quicksilver]

Good old Lledo, peddlers of worthless giffer crap for so many years. The only decent range they ever had pre Corgi takeover were the Cargo Kings lorries and when they finally made something really good it was too late. They were going to introduce an Iveco and an ERF, decent 1/76 modern lorries that would have sold like hotcakes, but went bust before they could put the best things they ever made into production. I managed to acquire the pre-production samples and have them cast in resin, and they look brilliant even by today's standards.

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 1:42 PM, sierraman said:

The Morris Minor they did was good but the vintage stuff was TERRIBLE! I had half a dozen of them. Slung the lot in the bin about 5 years back. Where I live I bet a lot of the old pit pensioners spent their pensions buying them as a bit of a nest egg. However they went back to the nest 25 years later and found what they’d bought was fucking worthless.

Who is up for an amnesty for these? Send them in then one of us smashes them to bits with a big fucking hammer and a vice.

Aye, their Fifties/Sixties Cameo Collection was surprisingly well-proportioned (I had the whole lot through collecting Cornflakes tokens - Minor, Mini, 2CV and Beetle) though very much promo-grade stuff. I think the base fell off my Minor, and there was a casting bleb on the bonnet, but y'know... free with six tokens plus 20p postage.

I can understand, in a way, that Corgi in the '80s probably only kept afloat by pushing out this sort of collectable crap at over-inflated prices, to shore up their much better toy lines - but yeah, I think it's the extent to which these models almost preyed on older folk who, as you say, had their heads turned by Antiques Roadshow headline prices and then were encouraged by 'nostalgia' ads in the Sunday supplements to buy this sort of tat.

It's funny, I had a look through an old copy of Collector's Gazette from the early 90s recently and the Vectis auction prices for M/B Corgi, Dinky and Matchbox are way more than you'd pay now, even after 25 years of inflation. I s'pose eBay has had some benefits...

It's been a long while since I've taken a hammer to any diecast but y'know, I'm almost tempted... and I know there's some battered Days Gone vans in the market 50p box...

 

:the pit: 

[sierraman]

The thing was in 1995 if you wanted a number 9 Matchbox Escort you were chancing finding one for sale so you could name your price. Now there’s millions of them for sale. Some absolute dog shit still seems to make strong money though and I’ve no idea why. I’ll have a root through for some Days Gone by tonight and stick them in the Record No 6.

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 1:53 PM, quicksilver said:

Good old Lledo, peddlers of worthless giffer crap for so many years. The only decent range they ever had pre Corgi takeover were the Cargo Kings lorries and when they finally made something really good it was too late. They were going to introduce an Iveco and an ERF, decent 1/76 modern lorries that would have sold like hotcakes, but went bust before they could put the best things they ever made into production. I managed to acquire the pre-production samples and have them cast in resin, and they look brilliant even by today's standards.

Yeah, those resins looked pretty awesome - there's such a demand for decently cast modern commercials that it's a crying shame Lledo never had a chance to get them to market. I was working Saturdays in a model shop in the mid-90s, and they would have absolutely flown off the shelves.

Oxford Diecast's current range of articulated stuff seems to hold its value, so they seem to be on to a winner.

[Datsuncog]

On 4/12/2019 at 2:10 PM, sierraman said:

The thing was in 1995 if you wanted a number 9 Matchbox Escort you were chancing finding one for sale so you could name your price. Now there’s millions of them for sale. Some absolute dog shit still seems to make strong money though and I’ve no idea why. I’ll have a root through for some Days Gone by tonight and stick them in the Record No 6.

Yeah, that's about the size of it - it makes my current task of trying to find late Mettoy-era Corgis way easier when I'm able to just thumb through two dozen mint/boxed Opel Senators and pick one that balances price and condition... the old fashioned way would be touting round swapmeets and toy fairs, or sending SAEs for stocklists to model shops at the other end of the country. Price = ££££.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that about the £20 mark will bring a forty-year-old NOS Senator right to my door - which isn't bad going when you consider how much new models cost these days. 

It's not even much more to buy a mint/boxed version than an unboxed/playworn one, strangely.

We are living in a bit of a golden age for diecast collecting, I reckon.

 

And do share, if you go a bit Vice Squad on some of the DGs later on...

[rml2345]

At least the Lledo "Days Gone" stuff was reasonably well made, those Cameos are abysmal quality as well as being unrealistic shiny shite for the hoodwinking of auld dearies who think a mostly plastic van they got out the back of "People's Friend" in 1996 will be worth even a fraction of the £4.99 they paid for it. It applies to other so called "Collectibles" too. Nothing depreciates quite like a collector's item.

[sierraman]

Danbury Mint stuff is still worth a few quid. But then it was hilariously overpriced to start with.

[vulgalour]

 

This came to me broken.  I was going to see if I could get the parts and rebuild it and then saw how cheap they are.  There's no point restoring it at all, so that means a custom job would be more appropriate.  There's no point doing that because the amount of time and effort I'd need to spend on something I'm not that excited about just doesn't line up for the end result.  Maybe I'll do something with it some day.  For now, it lives in the bits box.