Shite in Miniature II

[flat4alfa]

edit

It's back online

[Noel Tidybeard]

phew!!!

[flat4alfa]

I bet the office girl* got an earful!

[flat4alfa]

6 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

Mini Monte Carlo with roof rack
Volvo P1800 Saint Car Roger Moore
Porsche Carrera 6 – in rare dark blue livery
Lotus Climax F1 Car
Landrover Breakdown
Mustang Fastback Coupe – Competition in White / Red livery
Ghia Racer with separate De Tomaso Chassis
Bentley Continental
Ford Thunderbird open top with suspension 
Jaguar 4.3 litre E Type
Mercedes 300 SL
Mini Traveller Surfing Roofrack
James Bond Aston Martin DB5
Cadillac Superior Ambulance 
Batmobile
Oldsmobile Sheriff Car
Triumph Herald Hard Top in blue / white two tone livery
VW Beetle East African Safari
Ford Thunderbird – Bermuda Taxi
Citroen DS Rally Car
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Customised Racer in Yellow
Public Address Vehicle
Man from UNCLE Thrust Buster Oldsmobile ’88
James Bond Toyota in white
Beetle German Police Car
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray
Marcos with opening doors
Buick Riveria
MGA
Studebaker Golden Hawke in blue livery 

'Riveria' will be an interesting one...

I reckon most folks will give up after getting their Climax

The cynical side of me unfortunately senses the whole enterprise will go bust well before half-way through that list I reckon...  after all, the official list is committed to eight models

Nine, if including the Anglia Ice Cream Van

[Datsuncog]

It does seem like a bit of a gamble, given that the Atlas Dinky partworks series didn't seem to survive for very long in the UK - and they weighed in at less than half the price, plus were available at newsagents for impulse purchase.

I think a lot of folk are a bit wary of signing up for these collectables subscription services - plenty probably remember their grandparents getting burned with escalatingly expensive bone-china plates featuring kittens and puppies that just wouldn't stop arriving, after a coupon from the Sunday Express was sent off...

I'll see how long it lasts, sure. I'd  have hoped they've done their market research on converting the lure of the £1.99 Anglia Ice Cream Van into subscribers; if the Anglias are now sold out then maybe they're on track... but equally, maybe not.

I would quite like that Land Rover Recovery Truck, though. Here's hoping they make it that far.

[bunglebus]

Delivery from Santa Cog!

I'll get back to that shortly - found the Moving Parts 911 in Entertainer 

[flat4alfa]

1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

I would quite like that Land Rover Recovery Truck, though. Here's hoping they make it that far.

And there's the rub.  I've no real interest in the repro box and bundled gubbins really.

I have enough original Corgi Land Rovers to go around.  Just grabbed these, I know there is another in stripped condition deep in a resto box too

 

So, comparing resurrection cost (already have paint)

Steve Flowers Model Supplies parts to complete
417 Land Rover front bumper (1st type open frame)	£0.80
417/477 Land Rover tin canopy roof and searchlight	£3.10
417/477 Land Rover crane hook	£0.55
417/477 Land Rover breakdown panels for side of tin canopy	£1.35
P&P	£3.50
Total	£9.30
Chinese reproduction
417 'Landrover Breakdown Truck'	£19.99
P&P	£3.99
Total	£23.98

 

I thought I'd stop at the Volvo.  Then I remembered I already have one!

And a fair number of the others in the 'promised' list.  Hmm...

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, flat4alfa said:

So that's what my recent find should look like!

 

[bunglebus]

You've seen these before on @Datsuncog's tat friday posts, nice to get a box of goodies land on the mat though.

Plasticine encrusted Impala...

Now looking a bit better

Fire Chiefs look suitably impressed

 Bentley is a beauty with those big jewel headlights

Guessing there should be a spare wheel in here?

Also guessing it should have steering of some sort, only moves slightly at the moment

I absolutely love the funky Maxwell Mini Bus!

Melkus is a proper oddball. 

Golf is very nicely done, can't say I've ever heard of JGL spec though

I know these aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they're nicely detailed for 1:64

 

[flat4alfa]

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

It does seem like a bit of a gamble, given that the Atlas Dinky partworks series didn't seem to survive for very long in the UK - and they weighed in at less than half the price, plus were available at newsagents for impulse purchase.

The man behind BLUE 14 (D2C) LTD (11552224) is only the very same managing director of ATLAS EDITIONS UK LIMITED (02161709) dissolved 2009

[flat4alfa]

On 5/30/2021 at 1:44 PM, bunglebus said:

Land Rover has broken glass but I hadn't seen one with a winch before

You've got the later Whizzwheels version of the LR SII casting, with sprung finger wheel for winding the string

One of mine is the earlier of the version LR S1 with flat turned wheels, no suspension, no interior, pre-reinforced crane jib, pre-reinforced front bumper, the spare wheel used for winding and no spring.  In other words, the fragile one.

[flat4alfa]

On 5/30/2021 at 1:31 PM, bunglebus said:

Dinky Ford D800 is uber cool

But seems to be missing some essential parts

Do you have plans for this?  It's a shame its ripped to pieces but I could happily give it a home

It was once the Snowplough version

Could just create flat-bed out of plasticard but that might be a bit dull

What I do have here is a spare tipper trailer about the right size

But even better than that, a spare Horsebox also in blue, with a broken hook.  Can you imagine a Dinky D800 Horse Transporter, complete with steep ramp to worry neddy?  It just might work!

It just might not, too.

[flat4alfa]

2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

 Bentley is a beauty with those big jewel headlights

Guessing there should be a spare wheel in here?

Also guessing it should have steering of some sort, only moves slightly at the moment

[bunglebus]

I found a couple of YouTube videos about restoring those Bentleys, they have steering like the Matchbox Mercury Commuter that steers to whichever side you lean the car, pretty simple but as it wears it binds up. Might be able to lubricate it and get it working again

*edit* yep, tiny bit of light oil has the suspension and steering working again. It's very simple but clever, it will only steer with the coil spring suspension compressed, otherwise it's locked in the ahead position

[Split_Pin]

No interest from me in the Corgi repros I'm afraid as I have a fair few of the originals. I guess I'm more of a Dinky fan although I'm not sure why!

[ProgRocker]

Sold this on eBay. Matchbox Lesney Superkings K 10 car transporter ©1976. While I cleaned it up before photographing it, I appreciated how sturdily built it was. Proper metal!

 

[Datsuncog]

2 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

No interest from me in the Corgi repros I'm afraid as I have a fair few of the originals. I guess I'm more of a Dinky fan although I'm not sure why!

I guess that's a big factor in whether or not the Corgi repros have much appeal - and I know you have a fantastic collection of original boxed Corgis!

I did have a fair few originals of those Corgis in the replica range, but they were mostly in poor to very poor condition. I got shot of them all a few years back, along with the Dinky, Budgie and Spot-On, as I knew I'd never get round to restoring them to a decent standard - and they weren't really in display-worthy condition as they stood.

They were also just random car-boot and charity shop acquisitions, which held no real personal meaning to me. So I figured they'd be better off with people who did want them, and it's given me a remarkable amount of pleasure to see them finally brought back to their former glory after several decades of being shunted in boxes from house move to house move.

I remember a few folks earlier on the thread discussing the UK Dinky repro range, and how they weren't interested in them because they had no 'soul'.

And that's quite an interesting point too - the extent to which originality influences our perception of an object, and the sense in which it has a 'story' - known or unknown. And that taps into all sorts of cultural concepts of 'authenticity'.

(Don't worry, I'm not going to start pontificating here like a sub-par undergraduate sociology thesis.)

I managed to find a fair few of the French Dinky Atlas repros a year or two ago, and while they were certainly very nice little things which I enjoyed viewing and handling, they didn't do a great deal for me, weirdly.

So I swapped most of them for some other diecast that was more in line with my interests (except for the little yellow Honda S800, which MrsDC took a shine to for some reason).

I guess this is maybe the same feeling - or lack of feeling - that others experience with the repro Corgi range.

The majority of 1/43-ish Corgis and Dinkys have very little personal meaning to me, as they weren't really a part of my childhood (other than a box of totally demolished 1940s Dinkys in Miss Finlay's P2 classroom, and they just made me feel sad as they were so broken) - and I think that plays a role in whether they float my boat nowadays.

The bigger 1/36 Corgis and Matchbox Superkings do have a significant appeal, as they were the ones I lusted after on the shelves of Woolworths and Stewart Millar back in the early/mid 1980s. So it's probably no surprise that those are the ones I've been buying up in recent years, with a heavy slant towards Corgi.

Late 80s and early 90s Corgi Classics and Matchbox Dinkys also generate the same feeling in me - maybe it's something to do with being a certain age, and staring into shop windows with a feeling of such strong desire, that it never quite goes away.

(Although, weirdly, Bburago and Polistil 1/18 and 1/24 leave me a bit cold these days, and I was obsessed with those whenever I was eight or nine.)

With collecting, there's very little rhyme or reason to what appeals and what doesn't - it's only ever going to be a gut reaction.

I've come round to the idea that Corgi Toys are kind of my 'thing', and while the later 1/36 are my preference, I guess I am interested in the smaller scale 50s and 60s stuff too.

Either way, I like opening the little cardboard boxes and popping out a new, shiny car - I know it's not the same as an original, and it doesn't have a history, but in a way that's no bad thing.

I guess maybe I can enjoy these repro Corgis more fully as the mass-produced play objects they were intended to be, rather than venerating them as valuable antiques - in much the same way that I sold off a lot of my original-release vinyl records a few years ago and replaced them with reissues.

On one hand, that might seem stupid and the antithesis of 'the collector experience' - but I'd realised that I didn't listen to them any more, as I'd become hyper-aware of how valuable some of them were. I got a good price for them, and now I don't need to get myself in a tizz about whether my desire to listen to a certain LP is enough to warrant the mild wear which playing it will inevitably cause, even with the best-adjusted stylus arm and dust control practices.

If I have a bit of a handling mishap (and that's happened in the past), then I can buy myself another reissue copy of Nevermind or Dark Side Of The Moon at 11pm in Tesco; not very rock 'n' roll, but true nonetheless. Someone else gets to have a mint original press on their record shelves; and what they choose to do with it's their business. Once upon a time I was very scornful of reissues, and only an original disc would do - but now I've kinda shifted on that. I'm not sure why.

I know I'll never want to spend however many hundreds of pounds on an original boxed 1960s Corgi (though I concede that I might for certain boxed 1980s Corgi, so strong is their appeal), so I think this mail-order collection occupies a fair middle-ground for me.

I do like the boxes, and the artwork, and the catalogues, so I suppose it's all fairly well pitched for my level of interest. Corgi's inclusion of little cardboard dioramas and other knick-knacks adds an extra layer of interest to these repros too, since surviving originals with all the inserts intact are so scarce and they're things I've only ever seen in books.

While these aren't a direct line back to my childhood (and I guess the power of nostalgia is what management at the cryptically-named Blue14 2DC Ltd are banking on to keep the cash rolling in), they do give a nice context to the rest of my 1970s, 80s and 90s Corgis.

Hey, I suppose this breadth of different interests is what makes this thread work so well - if we were all after the same stuff, it'd just be a bunch of middle-aged blokes jealously guarding their diecast hoards...

[bunglebus]

I was looking at the cleaned up sliding door MK1 Transit thinking I could sell it to offset my purchases. But then of course putting them side by side I saw they have different wheels, side door, base etc, so back in the collection they go!

I also really appreciate that the registration letter was changed in line with the then-current year

[sierraman]

Likewise I picked up a load of 50’s/60’s Dinkies at a Village Fete. I gave a fiver for 2 carrier bags full, I’m going to sound like a right mercenary here but I stuck them all on EBay. As fascinating as they were to have a look at for 5 minutes they just didn’t intrigue me in the way 70’s/80’s tackle does. 

My interest in Corgis begins with those early 70’s ones with the fantastic detail like the Citroen Le Dandy or the Mercedes 350 SLC. Some of the earlier ones interest me like the military Diamond T trucks and the Bloodhound Rocket but you are talking some serious ££ for those now. 

Maybe the 50’s Dinkies will drop in value when the people that remember them pass away. 

[bunglebus]

I know what you mean about 50s Dinkys, nice things but a big basic, and for me they don't have any nostalgia. 

You can't say Lesney didn't put detail into their 60s and 70s efforts though - just look at this Mustang! It's tiny yet everything is recreated faithfully 

 

[Datsuncog]

18 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Maybe the 50’s Dinkies will drop in value when the people that remember them pass away. 

I think you're right - I recall the 1930s Dinky stuff fetching truly astronomical prices at auction during the collectables boom of the late 1980s/ early 1990s, presumably because there were enough old giffers in their sixties and seventies prepared to shell out top dollar to buy back a bit of their childhood.

Thirty years on, most of the old boys have cashed in their chips. While excellent examples of pre-war castings still fetch very decent prices, there are more than enough examples to go round now, as they appeal to a relatively small number of Dinky completionists, rather than the childhood nostalgists.

(Of course, there is the added complication that zinc pest continues to deplete the number of surviving pre-war Dinky Toys.)

I think the same thing happened with Frank Richards' Billy Bunter series of books - first editions from the 1920s and 30s fetched big money, but prices collapsed over the past two decades as the generation of folks who creased themselves laughing at the antics of the Fat Owl of the Remove were no longer around to drive up prices at auction.

So yeah. In a way, it's only a matter of time - and the hard truth is that inanimate objects will outlive us all.

I suppose collecting could be divided up into 'Gen-1' Collectors, who collect things with personal meaning to themselves; and 'Gen-2' Collectors, who gravitate towards old or uncommon things that happen to take their fancy. I think a few on here have self-described as being instinctively drawn to things that belong to another age?

I don't reckon you're mercenary at all for punting your finds out on eBay - it's better that they go on to people who do want to collect and restore them, rather than keeping them 'just because', like I did for so long.

And definitely a better outcome than someone else buying them for their kids to play with in the sandpit...

[sierraman]

I think it’s good to let the kids play with stuff that’s not too valuable. Mine play with all their Matchbox, I like them to enjoy them as opposed to viewing them as ornaments. They’ve been brought up to look after their toys though mind. 

[bunglebus]

OK folks I have a problem - despite searching through four boxes of project/spares cars, and my tubs of wheels, I can't find the one tyre my Mustang up there ^ needs. I think the wheels were mainly fitted to cars with working steering, but the early VW 1600 fastback has them too. Anyone holding anything? 

It's all cleaned up, painted and ready to got together bar that one tyre

[sierraman]

51 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

OK folks I have a problem - despite searching through four boxes of project/spares cars, and my tubs of wheels, I can't find the one tyre my Mustang up there ^ needs. I think the wheels were mainly fitted to cars with working steering, but the early VW 1600 fastback has them too. Anyone holding anything? 

It's all cleaned up, painted and ready to got together bar that one tyre

I’ll have a look in the Sierraman Breakers Yard...

[bunglebus]

On 05/06/2021 at 23:35, Dick Longbridge said:

Have you got build photos? I'm intrigued how you put the interior together

Here's the underneath with some grooves for the axles to locate in. There are two layers of plastic on the base part to get the height I wanted and the ride height where I liked

and the top. Arches were plastic wheels that I cut up. I painted it all grey at first but didn't like it so had to brush paint it black around the seats and dash I'd already glued in. It's not spectacular but looks ok once the body's on

[flat4alfa]

[bunglebus]

More new Lone Star Firenzas being built. I have asked if he'll sell them as a kit but apparently only as a finished car

 

[flat4alfa]

Has he indicated the price for his finished counterfeits?

It's likely he won't let the moulded parts out of his hands as a kit, as he knows they will just get copied

Much in the same way as he made the resin copies in the first place...

[junkyarddog]

I'd quite like one of those Firenza reproductions,seeing as I'll never find a real one.

[flat4alfa]

TAT WEDNESDAY disassembly of a Lone Star Flyer Vauxhall Firenza repeat photo event

A real one.  Made of metal.  No resin here, sir.  No sir.