Shite in Miniature II

[Amishtat]

Both your kennel vans are nicer than mine (nae dags, nae transfers) but then it was bought solely for the chrome insert. Think it was two quid but I don't recall. At least l know the insert will fit,unlike the repro one I bought. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

2 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

Repaired the collapsed Escort van with bodgery

 

You've limited your market with that modification if you plan on selling the van at some point.

The whole point of a van is decent storage space in the back! 😄

[DoctorRetro]

32 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Is that one you had off me?

I believe so. 

[DoctorRetro]

43 minutes ago, flat4alfa said:

I have Dialogos too.  That makes at least three on this forum

I have the Lybra too. 

[bunglebus]

3 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

Friday evening question

What am I ?

Go on then...

Is the hole in the back for some mechanism or a missing bit of trim?

[Datsuncog]

With no Tat Friday, and the winter wind a-howling round the house, what better than some early 70s Matchbox Superkings to make things a little cheerier?

So here's a Ford D-Series from the K-20 tractor transporter rig, with typically shonky regular wheels, next to a similar - but crucially different - version that arrived recently from @eddyramrod.

The King Size Ford first appeared in 1967, and was seemingly a scaled-up version of the regular version, which had appeared the previous year with either a gritter or refuse compactor back (different castings, but the cab detail was pretty much the same).

The King Size cab was paired with either a low loader trailer hauling a bulldozer (K-17, in green) or flatbed with a load of tractors (K-20, in red). So this is what mine once looked like...

By 1971, the regular wheels with separate tyres and hubs had given way to the obligatory one-piece nylon speed wheels, and King Size was relaunched as Superkings - just as the catalogues dispensed with those fantastic realistic pictures of the toys in 'real life' settings, in favour of mere colour photography.

I also suspect that this was the point where the casting was modified to do away with the tilting coupling mechanism, and the trailer was permanently attached to a modified tractor unit using a rivet. A bit of a come-down, really - surely half the fun of an articulated truck is being able to hitch and unhitch the trailer? But then Lesney were always a bit inconsistent - the Guy Warrior transporter also had a rivet, as did the Dodge dump truck. Yet earlier Bedford transporters were unhitchable...

But I digress. By 1972, things suddenly got exciting... almost.

K-20 Ford was out, BM-2 Ford was in - yup, Matchbox pulled out all the stops for their 'Big M-x' range - a series of 'action vehicles' modified from existing Superkings which did something-or-other when the 'Power Activator' - basically an electric screwdriver (batteries not included, kids) - was applied.

Just look at his happy little face. That's magic happening right there, that is.

Unfortunately, Lesney weren't quite so thrilled because the sales just weren't there. Despite putting the range right at the front of their 1972 catalogue, it never took off and the whole range was canned before the 1973 catalogue rolled out. Gone without a whisper.

When you consider that the Ford would have set you back the equivalent of £23.26 in today's money, you can maybe see why some toy shops were still displaying dead Big M-x stock well into the 1980s. Especially as you had to buy the Power Activator separately, setting you back another £16.62 in modern prices. That's forty quid for a toy truck - even if it did come with a plastic factory and three diecast tractors.

All of which makes the metallic blue Big M-x variant a bit less common than the others...

But the main change was visible behind the cab:

Okay, so it's vanished on this one, but the Big M-x D-Series originally came with a winch mechanism on the back of the cab, operated by the Power Activator, which pulled up the tractors up via a pulley and a ramp.

You can see the mounting brackets still there; the clip-on plastic overhead pulley to carry the winch hook and matching clip-on ramp are also long gone, but overall this is a rare survivor.

Pretty sweet, hey?

I didn't actually realise this was a Big M-x toy when I asked Eddy to set it aside for me, but a spot of catalogue flicking identified it. It's the only one of these I've ever encountered; but then I'd never heard of the range until last year.

I still quite like the detachable trailer mechanism, and hopefully one day I'll find a matching trailer.

You can see just how much the wheelbase was lengthened on the later versions, tpo - even though the same baseplate was used, with modification for the spring front axle.

So there we have it... Hopefully more SK jollies to come before long!

[Split_Pin]

The big M stuff did look great, I recall the catalogue that was posted up here maybe last year. The price was very high though, for that you could probably have been on your way to buying a bike for a child of a similar age to whom would have likely played with this sort of toy.

I didn't realise that the regular wheels version had the detachable towing mechanism. It was therefore missing from the green Taylor Woodrow version I had although that was really just a husk and is long gone now.

Another interesting comparison would be the Corgi juniors version and the slightly larger tractor unit. Inexplicably the latter had a superhaulers-type casting but was far too small to come anything close to the right size for even the early smaller Superhauler box trailer!

[Split_Pin]

Speaking of D series, I was somewhat alarmed to see that my Refuse Collector version is still carrying it's last load, which was brown in colour. A tentative sniff told me that it was only plasticene, phew! Attaching this to my toy cars way back in the day to make exhaust pipes and spoilers was a also a favourite pastime of mine.

Does anybody know how to safely and carefully remove it? I'd rather not scrape it out as that half of the body is plastic it's too nice a model to scrape, even inside.

[sierraman]

When I was a kid I remember another lad on our street had the plastic tractor factory. The factory was smaller than the truck!

[Tenmil Socket]

Majorette 205 Convertible ending soon 99p

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393035224636

 

[junkyarddog]

19 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

Majorette 205 Convertible ending soon 99p

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393035224636

 

The £17 postage kinda takes the bargain out of it though.

😂

[Datsuncog]

17 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Anyway. I'm in Brighton, and I have found tat. I've only bought a little bit, though.

Couldn't possibly not take this home. It's a Chevy Impala, of course, but it seems to exist on eBay mainly as Kennel Club.

It's gently (and I think charmingly) playworn, but entirely intact; no broken glass, both sliding windows and the tailgate present and correct. And, importantly, still with its prismatic animated hound glued to the roof.

It is, though, sans the three DAGS that it was supplied with. But they'd realistically have snuffed it about 40 years ago, so perhaps their absence is appropriate.

Probably not the world's greatest bargain at £3.50, but irresistible enough for me.

Great find! And a surprisingly good price... I'm assuming it wasn't from Snoopers'Paradise!

[bunglebus]

1 hour ago, junkyarddog said:

The £17 postage kinda takes the bargain out of it though.

😂

Comes up as £3.20 for me, are you in Azerbaijan? 

[bunglebus]

Saturday mini tat collecting has happened. Found a job lot locally that contained;

The red Caper Cart I'd been looking for, unfortunately lacking its front bumper

this rather squashed transporter 

Citroen doctor's car

a tyreless trailer

multiple Bertones

and a grille donor for the charity shop Bora

not bad for £2.20!

Other arrivals include

A Dixie Challenger...

...to go with my Dixie Challenger 

Maisto 911 speedster

very tired but unusual Impy Mustang

Edocar (MC Toys?) 205 - is this casting borrowed from another manufacturer? 

Novacar Porsche 962

And from Tesco, the Matchbox Plymouth 

[RoadworkUK]

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Great find! And a surprisingly good price... I'm assuming it wasn't from Snoopers'Paradise!

Astoundingly enough...it did!

Even more astonishing is that the establishment's usual scandalous pricing lapsed twice in the same visit:

1958 Observer's Aircraft, with dust jacket, again for tree fiddy. Handily fills a gap in my collection, which incidentally is mainly nourished by charity shops. Much more fun to capture them through serendipity than to just get 'em from eBay.

[andrew e]

I’ve never seen a bargain in there ever! It’s a great mooch though you can totally loose track of time 😁

[barrett]

23 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

Friday evening question

What am I ?

That's a 'shooting spring'car by Laurie Toys of Hong Kong, circa late 60s

I reckon it looks like a Fiberfab Jamaican, but that might be a coincidence

[barrett]

15 minutes ago, andrew e said:

I’ve never seen a bargain in there ever! It’s a great mooch though you can totally loose track of time 😁

You need to look harder! Admittedly the 'collectables' tend to be pricey, but it's a good source of bargain books and records. I spent most of my wages in there in my early 20s on stall 23, where every record is £3 and the guy puts new stuff out every afternoon. Best find was probably an original spiral Vertigo press of Gentle Giant's Octopus (which I gave to a mate, for some reason) but there were, literally, hundreds of others like that... it's not been the same since he started pricing things individually 

[andrew e]

I’ve had a spend there on occasion, but never pulled an ace so to speak. Will try harder!

[Datsuncog]

Only ever bought vinyl out of Snoopers' Paradise, and even then only a handful of times over the years... Oh, and a few old photographs from a big wicker basket.

Diecast pricing in the cabinets was usually crazy - a tenner on scratched-up Superfasts and Corgi Juniors, £20 on a knackered Batmobile; that sort of thing. I used to go in there more to laugh at the prices than anything else.

But that was over 15 years ago - and I guess the stallholders change over time. Just the way St George's in Belfast had its Giffer Alley of oul lads with their endless refrain of "them's rare, them's Dinkys..." trotted out to justify an eye-watering price tag on a very average old toy. People who haven't yet clocked that it's never been easier to buy and sell stuff, and the exchange of tiny tat online does kinda make it a buyers market these days.

But! Glad there are still goodies to be found - my top diecast hunting grounds in Brighton were the wee independent model shop on Queens Rd (where I picked up a load of boxed Tomicas for £not much), the now-gone ModelZone near Churchill Square (did loads of Johnny Lightnings for only £1.99), and the Sunday morning car boot sale at the station which often had some excellent Lesney stuff for cheap. Oh, and the Toy Museum in Trafalgar St sometimes had some unusual items for sale, in amongst the Chinese pull-back Morris Minors and stuff.

The charity shops in Shoreham and Portslade were also pretty good, with less hipster-centric pricing, although back then I was mostly buying 1970s Haynes manuals, for some reason...

[Split_Pin]

There are no model shops near me at all now.

McLaren Models on Graham's Road in Falkirk was paradise for me. It was a tiny place which my mum discovered in the late 1980s when she was looking for a Morris Minor model for me. They were a Corgi Classics Gold Star stockist and also managed to cram a huge range of other makes into their tiny shop, including a large railway section. I got my first 'proper' model car there, an Audi 80 and they also stocked Schabaks. I also got my first EFE bus there in 1993, a McGill's Leyland National and would go on to buy scores more throughout the late 1990s. My dad also took an elderly Hornby Dublo locomotive there for refurbishment as the motor was dying and it's still going well to this day.

Things started to go downhill in the early 2000s though. They moved over the road to a glitzy, glassy showroom and stopped stocking English Liveried buses. They also slipped about 6 months behind other shops with new stock, which was important when the new EFE releases were in the back of Bus magazine every month.  I remember ordering an Astra Coupe model from them in 2005 when I got mine. It wasn't even the right colour but I thought it would have to do. I discovered eBay had exactly the right one, for less money and could be posted in a week. They called me about a year later and said it was now in stock. I visited the shop a few times over the following years but by then they were only displaying high end stuff like Minichamps or First Gear which was neither in my budget nor of interest to me. Their range of Corgis was limited and expensive as well. They did have a range of 2nd hand stuff which sometimes turned up a few gems but overall eBay was where I was getting my models from. A couple of years ago they closed their shop and are now entirely online, a shame but probably a sensible business decision.

They have also organised the local Swapmeet for many decades and have a presence there but the last time I attended they simply had the same expensive stock as their shop. The last time I saw the family in public was at their usual stall at the model railway exhibition at Falkirk College in November 2019.

Rip off buyers selling their items for inflated prices stopped me going back to Swapmeets (£18 for a tired Siku Volvo F7 with non-matching low loader in February 2004). Things have improved a little when I returned a few times over then last couple of years (reasonable Spot On Austin 1800 for £15, boxed 1/18 Mercedes Sport Coupe for a tenner).

Leisuretime in Bank Street in Falkirk was another shop I loved going to. They were very different to McLaren Models concentrating more on model kits and RC cars. I got around 8 1/24 truck kits there during the 1990s. They also sold 1/18 Bburagos, Gate, Solido, UTs and such like however their most interesting range was Sikus. I got 2 trucks from there over a couple of Christmases, I still have them and their boxes. They also had a nice selection of 1/87 Wiking models. This shop sadly closed quite a long time ago, likely due to the availability of the items online and the opening of Hobbycraft at the nearby retail park.

Wonderland Models are still in Lothian Road in Edinburgh thankfully and my head office was a few doors down. Once we all get back to office working, whenever that will be I will celebrate with a visit to their shop (if they have survived )

[sierraman]

It’s getting harder to find older Matchbox/Corgi at a reasonable price. Everyone assumes they’re worth a ton of cash. The charity shop up the road from work had a Tonka - the 80’s ones where they modelled on a pick up, not in excellent nick by any imagination. Anyway they had it on at £20 - it was £2-3 worth maximum, this is what happens with these charity shops. Instead of being a place to rummage they end up becoming antiques emporiums. 

Car boots can be decent but again the seller fancies themselves a bit of an expert pricing everything into orbit wanting outlandish prices for even completely battered rubbish then patronising you that they’re collectible and even their broken tat is a priceless collectors item. 

Ebay you can pick up some bargains sometimes but again I’ve put job lots of basically the most undesirable tat like the Matchbox Police Patrol etc and they’ve gone for mad money presumably only to sit in a glass case in an antiques shop for 20 years. 

[eddyramrod]

The place to pick up a bargain these days is... here!

Especially (he says, in an orgy of self-advertising) my Diecast Sale thread...  My prices are way below eBay. 

I haven't been to a toy fair in a long time as they were getting to be an expensive day out.  Boot sales are too thin on the ground where I am, and anyway have little to choose from.  Market Andy was a prospect but Covid has closed him down, and some of his prices were bordering on optimism.  If you want a good deal, buy from a Shiter.

[Spottedlaurel]

3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Wonderland Models are still in Lothian Road in Edinburgh thankfully and my head office was a few doors down. Once we all get back to office working, whenever that will be I will celebrate with a visit to their shop (if they have survived )

I picked up a kit in the summer that had one of their price tags on it. I looked them up and was pleased to see they were still going, they had stuff online at a very good price.

I'm lucky in that there are a couple of decent local shops still going - Model Junction in Bury St Edmunds, and Langleys in Norwich. The latter recently opened a separate shop selling secondhand kits and diecasts. My taste in obscure stuff means that I don't tend to buy many kits from them, but whenever I can I pop in and pick up paints etc.

There used to be Snetterton Park Model Shop, at the circuit. It was good when I started going, but they kept expanding and tried to diversify into too much other stuff and sadly it closed down.

I can think of numerous other local model shops where I bought kits over the years, but they've all sadly gone.

One thing we do have here is Hannants, primarily a wholesalers but they also sell online and they're happy with customers turning up for a wander around the warehouse and buying direct from them.

[AndyW201]

Sadly, I got a bit of bad news this week.

Earlier this year, by accident I discovered TigerTaz models, a proper old school model shop, which happened to be in my local area, dealt in exactly the sort of models I go in for, and didn't go in for taking people's trousers down with pricing. It was one of the leading model railway dealers, and also an official dealer for Corgi and Oxford diecast, so I could get my new Vanguards stuff for quite a bit less than they go for on ebay. Lots of older Vanguards stuff there as well, (some nice mint boxed Vitesse French shite as well, which I've had my eye on)  and lots of nice buses from the likes of EFE and Corgi OOC, all at a fair whack less than eBay prices. It turned out that I once worked with Anth the proprietor, years ago, and soon became a fairly regular visitor, and made quite a few purchases. Unfortunately after going into hospital for a few days, Anth caught Covid, which had him in hospital for a good few months, and when I last went to the shop after the first lockdown ended and he was out of hospital, it was obvious it had taken it out of him.

Anyway, this week, Anth passed away after coming home from another hospital stay, which pretty much knocked me (and many people in the hobby) sideways. Obviously, there are arrangements to be made and other priorities, but a lot of people seem to be in agreement that the shop should continue, it was Anth's pride and joy, his favourite expression for running his own model shop was "I'm living the dream". There have been a few enthusiasts running the shop for Anth while he has been ill, so hopefully his dream will continue.

[AndyW201]

On a slightly happier note, some new Hot Wheels have arrived.

A few re colours, but I don't mind with the Nova wagon gasser, I love this version,

Ditto with the Silvia. In a nice blue this time. This would look great IMO as a Factory Fresh version like they did with the DR30 Skyline,

The Toyota GT looks good in white, pretty much the only colour I've ever seen them in TBH. I think I may have to open one of these Tokyo Toyotas and de-tampo it.

Interesting semi-matt paint job on the Merc A Class. Now I'm prepared for a flaming here, but I like the full size A Class, in the right colour and with the AMG styling pack. The Hot Wheels rendering is a decent one, the panoramic roof being a nice touch. Nice tampo detailing front and rear too.

Next, didn't realise till I looked at the base, but this is a new casting of the AE86 Sprinter. Apparently the JDM fans are all excited about this one.

A bit disappointing though that a new eagerly awaited casting doesn't have any tampo detailing at the front or rear. 



One release that I didn't know was a thing, until now. 

Another good casting, and a nice colour. Good detailing on this one,

And the one I was most chuffed to get,

Always knew this one would look good in road trim!

Pleased to see this road version has tail lamp and badge detailing to the rear as well, which the touring car versions don't.

Can't wait for the custard edition!

[bunglebus]

Who's hungry?

[warch]

Some 1/76 (railway scale) stuff I've acquired lately

An Atlas Editions Morooka tracked dumper in Stobart Rail livery. I saw a real one of these the other day (see my Plantshite thread). Atlas sold a lot of interesting looking models of unusual machinery that no one else makes. This is a very good model of the prototype, albeit with non functioning tracks but a working tipper bed and tailgate. 

A Tomica (Tomy) model of a Yanmar YT5113 tractor. This is a very good model of quite a strangely styled prototype, although the huuuuge front weight pack seems a bit over the top for this type of tractor. Yanmar tractors are very rare in the UK, although I did see one at a fruit farm a mile or so up the road from me. I bought it because there are really no other models of modern tractors available in this scale, although Oxford Diecast do have a JCB Fastrac on their dad job list.

[Split_Pin]

I finished the Tamiya Supra.

After the difficulties painting the NSX I decided to leave this one alone. The shell was a decent enough metallic silver, had it been a solid or Matt finish then I would have needed to have another go. I did paint as much else as I could though, such as the sideskirts, splitter, lights and engine parts.

In the main there were no foul-ups and I'm quite pleased with this one. It makes a nice model, and a type I have never had in my collection before.

In the new year I'm going to try another 1/24 truck. They're expensive though which is putting me off a bit.

 

 

 

 

[Split_Pin]

I didn't check my pictures before posting, they were shite, here is a slightly better one.