Shite in Miniature II

[bunglebus]

  On 17/07/2020 at 13:14, Jon said:

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I've got a really nice truck that needs that top...

[Datsuncog]

  On 17/07/2020 at 15:58, bunglebus said:

Yes, I would.

Been out on missions all day, glad I didn't miss a mint boxed Spot On Beetle for 17p or similar 

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Good-o: will see if he brings the Not-Wheels Porker along next week!

Feels more like some of advanced 4D memory training test than a simple commercial transaction, the way he re-organises the stall from week to week...

Pics of the rest of the day's pickings incoming!

[bunglebus]

  On 17/07/2020 at 16:06, Datsuncog said:

Good-o: will see if he brings the Not-Wheels Porker along next week!

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I've got a couple of loose ex-Corgi Hot Wheels Carreras, but not seen a Corgi car in a Hot Wheels box. Don't normally chase boxed stuff but that's an interesting one.

Other than the Carrera I've not had much luck with the ex Corgi castings, maybe they were aimed at the US market rather than where they'd been seen before?

[Christine]

Mmmm alfa.. ?

 

 

 

.

[Christine]

Mmmmmercedes?

 

 

 

[eddyramrod]

  On 17/07/2020 at 15:58, bunglebus said:

Yes, I would.

Been out on missions all day, glad I didn't miss a mint boxed Spot On Beetle for 17p or similar 

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You would have had to pay at least 25p for that!

[bunglebus]

  On 17/07/2020 at 16:35, Christine said:

Mmmmmercedes?

 

 

 

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Mmmmmm....needs a wheel swap and silver paint.

 

I wonder how the kids of the 60's felt about their new Husky Beetle being LHD? Maybe it was meant to represent Hans and Helga on the UK leg of an European tour

 

20200717_175745 by RS, on Flickr

20200717_175752 by RS, on Flickr

 

Hot Wheels describe this as a GMC Motorhome, did they really make such a 6 wheel behemoth?

 

20200717_175921 by RS, on Flickr

 

Now this is LHD and rightly so, not sure Ford specified such skinny rims and tyres on the Mustang Mach 1, but Siku decided that was appropriate

 

20200717_180318 by RS, on Flickr

20200717_180323 by RS, on Flickr

20200717_180336 by RS, on Flickr

 

Also hanging to the left is this 1964 Winter Olympics DS

 

20200717_180357 by RS, on Flickr

 

A small wheel underneath turns the marble carrying capacity from adequate...

 

20200717_180438 by RS, on Flickr

 

...to enormous

 

20200717_180500 by RS, on Flickr

 

Tatty survivor Impy Eldorado completes the set (as far as I know). 

 

20200717_180619 by RS, on Flickr

 

Corgi Rockets, Corgi, Husky, Hot Wheels...any others, apart from the Sugar Caddy (internet pic) and the 2018 HW re-tooled Eldorado?

 

20200531_151902 by RS, on Flickr

20200604_175827 by RS, on Flickr

20191018_131219 by RS, on Flickr

20200414_155929 by RS, on Flickr

20190829_120326 by RS, on Flickr

 

[Christine]

Rocket Aston but like all my rockets ,missing an axle  ?

[Datsuncog]

Sorry folks, chronic tech fail over here.

Fighting with the stupid broken laptop and stupid broken phone all afternoon, and I'm just about ready to buck the both of them out the window.

Don't know if the site's also playing up or if it's the laptop, as it keeps periodically logging me out and losing everything I've typed. But then the phone was also doing that earlier...

Will have another bash in the morning when tempers and motherboards have cooled - but I assure you, there's some decent tat worth waiting for!

[flat4alfa]

  On 17/07/2020 at 17:46, bunglebus said:

Impy Eldorado completes the set (as far as I know). 

Corgi Rockets, Corgi, Husky, Hot Wheels...any others, apart from the Sugar Caddy (internet pic) and the 2018 HW re-tooled Eldorado?

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Don’t forget Marx

This one had been painted twice and still back in the body shop

[bunglebus]

  On 17/07/2020 at 18:32, flat4alfa said:

Don’t forget Marx

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Could have sworn I had that one

[AndyW201]

  On 17/07/2020 at 17:46, bunglebus said:

Hot Wheels describe this as a GMC Motorhome, did they really make such a 6 wheel behemoth?

 

20200717_175921 by RS, on Flickr

 

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They certainly did...

IIRC they used a 455ci Oldsmobile Tornado FWD driveline with twin airbag suspended rear axles.

[bunglebus]

Beigetastic!

[AndyW201]

Check the hell out of some of the interiors!

[warch]

I love that! You'd have to look like Ron Burgundy to carry it off though.

[sheffcortinacentre]

Yep correct re camper.

[flat4alfa]

  On 17/07/2020 at 20:34, warch said:

I love that! You'd have to look like Walter White to make money off one though.

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FTFY  ?

[flat4alfa]

  On 17/07/2020 at 19:11, bunglebus said:

Could have sworn I had that one

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You did, you put that and a Marx Camaro on eBay....

[Datsuncog]

Right, hopefully this'll post after all the earlier shenanigans… including, but not limited to, my laptop’s helpful* effort to insert every single image file on my hard drive into this post, rather than the one single picture of a Corgi Turbos Camaro that I was trying to upload… no idea how that’s even possible.

So! Friday tat… what came home in my bags??

Well, these two, for a start:

The Jaguar was inevitable, really – a mint, boxed Mettoy-era Corgi for a fiver? This week, I simply ran out of excuses not to.

I know they’ll never be valuable; I appreciate that finding a playworn one of these is several magnitudes of scale rarer than one that’s spent the last thirty-odd years in someone’s dining room cabinet. But it’s a neatly done casting, with plenty of detail such as the cabin cover, plus an opening bonnet and boot. The base is plastic, but there’s still a decent heft to this one.

I’m actively looking for the Mercedes 300SL in silver, from this “50’s Classics” range – one I had and trashed as a kid. Hopefully I’ll be able to track one down, but until then, there’s this.

It does beg the question though, if Mettoy hadn’t sunk so much capital into the doomed Dragon PC project which pushed them into receivership in late ’83, might they ultimately have developed their entire Corgi Classics range in 1/36 scale?

Hard to know whether the post-Mettoy 1/43 models (like that Chevrolet Bel Air I picked up a few weeks back) were always intended to be that size, or whether they were scaled down in an effort to trim costs? The big Corgi book is silent on the matter. But I can’t help look at my Vanguards display case and wonder what it might have looked like if 1/36 had become the dominant collector scale in the UK…

I took a whole load of pics of the Jag out of the box, but my phone managed to eat them – maybe I’ll try again later. It’s really very nice.

 

And, dropping a scale now, I also picked up the first colour release of the DY-6 Matchbox Dinky VW Beetle – I picked up a later version in black last year, and I also had a knackered one of these from a car boot sale many years ago (which I believe I passed on to the erstwhile @Hertz of this parish a while back).

As with the A40 van last week, I’m scooping these up as they’re still cheap and available – there’s a few I’m actively looking out for (like the Cadillac Eldorado, Tucker Torpedo and Mk1 Land Rover) but for five quid, I’m happy to hold on to this one for a while. The box is filthy but there's not much UV damage - unlike the one in the Smithfield model shop, where the blue plastic wheels have gone a nasty yellow from sun damage.

 

From Blokey’s tat box, then, I also picked up this regular-wheels King Size Scammell Mobile Crane (K-12):

Apart from the usual Lesney missing tyres due to hub shrinkage, and a hook that’s been chewed off, this is a rather nice example showing the fine detail that they were so capable of in the 1960s.

I really do love their take on the big Scammell, and – apart from the awkward lack of anywhere to place the jib other than directly onto the cab – this is a nice model, and one I’ve had my eye on for a while.

£3 was probably a fair price, and this’ll be joining my other King Size of the same era.

 

And I also picked this up from my second raid on the tat stall yesterday – since a load of old Corgi had magically appeared via an old fella with a plastic bag or diecast while I was getting all grabby-hands at the charity stall, apparently – a very early Corgi Morris Cowley, No. 202 from the original Corgi Toys launch range in 1956.

It’s a bit shabby, and I may have overpaid a smidge at a tenner, but the emotional connection is that my grandfather owned a Cowley just like this… so I felt a bit of a tug.

Ideally I would have swiped this and the big LaFrance aerial ladder (the childhood desire to own one hasn’t gone away) but I didn’t have the cash for both on me. So I came away with the Cowley, just.

It feels much lighter than later Corgi toys, owing to the tinplate base, and the glazing is a little murky – but it’s still rather charming. I may well gift this one to Cog Sr (he's the little one in the middle, in the above pic)…

 

Moving on then, to where the tat action’s happening: this week, it was all about the Charity Stall.

First up, scale-wise, is this: a Saico Mitsubishi Pajero Exceed, in 1/34 scale.

One one hand, it’s a cheapie Chinese pull-back toy – but it’s also pretty detailed, in fairness.

Some opening bits open, too.

Sadly, it seems that someone’s eaten the arse off it – rear bumper and spare wheel are AWOL.

But if anyone takes a shine to it, 50p would secure it!

 

Staying large-scale, there’s also this tinplate oddity:

Although there’s a little bit of rust creeping under the red lacquer, this is still surprisingly complete for a cheap toy that must be knocking on 50 years old.

From the shape, I’d guess this is a loose approximation of a Datsun 240Z.

No maker’s name or any other identifying features are present – not even a country of origin. Possibly the rear ‘number plate’ of MF 037 is a code of some sort.

The friction drive motor still works perfectly, too.

50p shiter price? Gotta be a bit of a rarity. I think @flat4alfa had expressed some interest in learning more about this one?

 

Keeping the far-eastern theme going, here’s a Mercedes recovery truck by Hongwell:

The diecast crew cab’s pretty well done here, with opening doors; the plastic rear (with inevitable missing towing dolly) is a bit less good.

 It’s also utterly filthy, having no doubt spent a lot of time in an ankle-biter's toybox. Probably originally part of a ‘Junior Explorer’ set, available at Tesco and the like in the early 2000s.

Again, if anyone can make use of it, 50p would set it aside for you.

 

You may recall I speculatively bought a Matchbox K-28 Bedford TM skip truck last year, and have been trying to offload it ever since without success.

So, obviously, I went and bought another one.

In my defence, this one is in much nicer condition - even though there’s still no skips to load on…

Unsure whether to sell or keep this one… if you fancy making the decision for me, then again - £0.50.

 

Staying with Matchbox, I nabbed these because I thought they went together:

… but it turns out they don’t fit; the Porsche is too wide.

The trailer is from the K-46 set, and originally would have carried a single-seat racer, pulled behind a Mercury Commuter…

…whereas the Porsche belongs to the much later K-102 set. While the same trailer chassis is apparently used, a wider loadbed must have been fitted to tow the Porker behind the Dodge race support van.

Until I saw this in the tat box, I’d forgotten that I still have some unspecified grievance against the K-101 Racing Porsche. I don’t know why; I seem to recall this was a commonly-found car at jumble sales and in other kids’ toy boxes, but I just never liked it.

Maybe it’s the lack of opening parts; maybe it’s the weirdly blocky body kit with the DTM-style front spoiler that obscures the 911’s lines; maybe it’s the apparent lack of doors. But I had to push that feeling of antipathy down, and it felt odd after so many years to have to subdue that fractious little voice of dissent.

If either appeal, then 50p each will add 'em to your personal tat box. **TAKEN!!!**

 

Lastly on the Superkings front, it’s another K-41 Bandolero similar to the one @bunglebus picked up earlier this week – although missing one of the engine air scoops, annoyingly.

A few years ago I might have huffily written this one off as ‘fantasy crap’, but I can now kinda see Lesney’s progression here from real-life concept cars such as the Chevrolet Astro, the Dodge Charger III and the Adams Probe into their own designers’ realms of imagination. And if the kids of the time responded enthusiastically to these futuristic ideals, with all their giant canopies and twin V8 engines, who can blame them? There were still accurate replicas of road cars in the range, to cover all tastes.

It’s still not my bag, but I can see the joy to be found in these now.

50p, to anyone who wants to relive that groovy retro-futurism vibe! ***SOLD!!***

 

Also, you’ll have noticed alongside a rather more austere 1980s depiction of a sports car – a Corgi Turbos Chevrolet Camaro.

As with the Matchbox Porsche, I’ve still a bit of side-eye for the budget 1/43 Turbos range, which seemed to crop up more often than I might have liked on birthdays and Christmases – their lack of compatibility with the rest of my car collection annoyed me.

They were always destined to lie unused in the toybox; too big to participate in play with the Matchbox Superfast-sized cars on the Motorcity playtrack, but noticeably puny alongside the Superkings and ‘normal’ Corgi vehicles.

Whereas in the 1960s, Corgi had sought to delight and inspire their young target market with ever-more elaborate working features, this was the 1980s flipside – no features, no detailing, sparse interior and a deadly-dull and squinty tampo print on the same blue that Ford seemed to slap on Fiesta Populars. Using generic tiny wheels that gave no ground clearance just put the tin hat on it. Compared to the exquisitely detailed Sierra Ghia, this was a travesty.

But, lest I sound like an ungrateful little bugger, it’s maybe worth bearing in mind that it made toys available across a range of prices, and I’m sure there were plenty of kids who were able to afford Turbos with their pocket money, when ‘full size’ Corgis were simply out of reach. Profits from basic mid-range Corgis like this probably enabled lower prices at the more detailed end of the catalogue…

50p, to anyone who likes the misery! ***ALSO SOLD!!!***

 

Staying at 1/43 scale, here’s another worthy contender from Bburago for the ‘who did it worse’ Mk1 Range Rover competition from a few weeks back:

Not that it’s awful; just perhaps a little bit wide, and a little bit flatter than it ought.

But the overall shape is good, and apart from some dried mud suggesting some exciting adventures in the flowerbed in this model’s past, it’s in pretty good shape.

50p on this one! ***TAKEN!!!***

 

And now… well, I’ll let the pics speak for themselves.

Ok, so you may recall ‘Old Gluey’, the Oxford Anglia van that showed up on the Tat Stall last year with a few unusual enhancements (and is now set aside for a certain E.Ramrod of this parish, having found its way into the 50p box in January)...

...and also a Mini with similar, erm, additions…

…well, I’d be suspicious that this is the handiwork of the same, um, restorer.

The use of chunky diamante earrings and lashings and lashing of UHU to add massive spotlights seems a bit of a clue.

I’m just trying to work out what’s going on here… is it the work of a child? A disturbed adult? An art project of some description?

On one hand, it’s bizarrely cackhanded – the wheels are all wrong, the addition of paint and glitter-glue looks like it was done in the dark, while drunk – yet there’s certainly some sort of peculiar artistry at work.

The driver is an unexpected touch. It’s as if John Waters decided to forego filmmaking and launch a diecast collectables line.

It’s bizarre and faintly troubling.

It’s yours for free, if you can stand to look at it for more than a few minutes without feeling queasy. There's quite a decent 1/43 Chevrolet Caprice under all that goop.

***NOW SPOKEN FOR!!!***

 

And then, some more free-form customisation… I’d guess by the same genius.

Lost a wheel? Never mind, plenty more in the back.

This is also peculiar as it seemingly started out as quite a nice Altaya partwork model from their Michelin collection – but somehow, this horror has been visited on it.

I mean, at first you’d think it’d been painted with an icing bag – yet there’s some big ol’ hairy brush bristles right there on the bonnet.

What is even going on with the wheels? I can see why you might want to make a toy more realistic – but why make a decent model less realistic?

As the kids probably said about ten years ago, I can’t even.

HALP.

Take it away, for the love of God. Free.

***AWAITING RESCUE!!!***

 

Okay – sorry to leave you hanging, but I really have to go and do some errands this afternoon – so I’ll be back with Part 3 (or is it Part 4?) of the Friday Market Odyssey later. Yup, that's the smol stuff…

[warch]

I've returned to the automotive fold with this rather nice 1/43 model of an Opel Kadett C, by ART. It's nicely detailed apart from the lack of wing mirrors and I'm really pleased with it. I don't actually like toy/model cars to have too much detail especially delicate parts that can easily break off or be damaged and this fits the bill perfectly. I considered the Solido version in the same scale which also looks nice. 

The real car is one of my favourite looking cars ever, but they must be pretty rare these days. I was considering buying one but I'm unsure of parts availability and also they almost never come up for sale. 

 

[Crusty Sills]

Lidls came up trumps on Hotwheels. 

Looking online I believe they are '20 releases. 

If anyone finds the Beetle pick up please grab it/1 for me. 

[DoctorRetro]

@Datsuncog

Dominic is interested is 'saving' some of the more questionable ones there.. 

[bunglebus]

I'd quite like the trailer please @Datsuncog, as I have the tow car.

I used to have the tow van for the Porsche too, I'll have a look for it - the Porker isn't a very pleasing shape but I'll re-unite them if I can, so please put that one on hold for me too

 

 

Thanks

[DoctorRetro]

  On 18/07/2020 at 13:04, TheDoctor said:

@Datsuncog

Dominic is interested is 'saving' some of the more questionable ones there.. 

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So can you put the two monstrosities and the Range Rover and  Camaro aside for me please? 

[junkyarddog]

I picked this up today at a market.

Looks really good for a reproduction. 

Happy to have this,nearly bought a rough later wheeled Dinky original one last year,but though it was too much.

[Split_Pin]

I didn't know Atlas had made the Rekord again, the original has been on my watch list for years but always too expensive. It was identical to a rough K registration example I saw parked in a nearby village in 1990. Not knowing what it was, thankfully I took a picture of it.

This one would be nice though, I'm off to check eBay!

[Datsuncog]

  On 18/07/2020 at 13:31, bunglebus said:

I'd quite like the trailer please @Datsuncog, as I have the tow car.

I used to have the tow van for the Porsche too, I'll have a look for it - the Porker isn't a very pleasing shape but I'll re-unite them if I can, so please put that one on hold for me too

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  On 18/07/2020 at 13:45, TheDoctor said:

So can you put the two monstrosities and the Range Rover and  Camaro aside for me please? 

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Sure thing, chaps!

[bunglebus]

Guy I do a bit of work for mentioned he has various cars he's had for years, got him to dig them out today. There were some interesting things buried under a load of MOY stuff. Apparently he has boxes of Scalextrix, no idea what he's doing with any of it

[Floatylight]

Found this fabulous shop in a garden centre just outside Uttoxeter today...

Sent from my SM-A505FN using Tapatalk

[bunglebus]

The dreaded paper tags