Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i Collectors Gazette

Wallets were certainly emptied at the last Hake’s auction. Whilst many items would not necessarily have had a following over here (such as the 1 inch version of the elusive 1920 Cox/Roosevelt jugate button, one of only six of its type known to exist, which was pushed to an eye-watering US$100,300), there was some familiar fare. For familiar, read Star Wars. The (Australian) 1980 TOLTOYS Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Jawa action figure on an Empire 41 Back-E card, wore a vinyl cape in a rare hue. One of only five AFA-graded examples, the figure from Down Under made its auction debut at Hake’s and closed just shy of its high estimate, at US$49,324. Two fully painted first-shot prototype action figures from Kenner’s Star Wars: Ewoks (1985) Series 2,…

The last sale at Wessex Auction Rooms yielded plenty of interesting collectables, amongst which were some attractive large scale diecasts. A Hot Wheels 1/18 Batmobile was sold for £200 but AutoArt Millennium cars also did well, with a BMW 2002 L and Lancia Fulvia 1.6HF Fanalone pairing making £220 and a Mercedes Benz 280 SE and Toyota 2000 GT Coupe joint lot realising £300. A very pretty AutoArt 1/18 73541 Jaguar XJ/13 model in British Racing Green was contested to £150. On the smaller scale front there were many Matchbox models sold, mostly in job lots of a dozen or more. The most valuable lot, 12 boxed 75 Series models, included a 69 Nestle's Van, No 71 Army Water Truck, No 74 Mobile Canteen, No 22 Vauxhall Cresta, No 75…

The last John Good win auction featured some robust results; perhaps punters are converting cash into assets? At the budget end of the spectrum was a clockwork Schuco FEX 1111 car in dark green, dating from the US Occupied Zone period, which made £45; but a lot more (£300, to be exact) was needed to secure the prototype Exoto model of a Sauber C62 in its “Tickle/wiggle” box. Other large scale Exoto models were eagerly snapped up, as well as a number of AutoArt 1:18 scale cars. It required £420 to secure the lovely Meccano counter top display stationary engine, while for £450 someone took home an N gauge layout of 84 x 50cm dimensions, neatly contained within a travelling case. Railway fans had plenty of Graham Farish, Bachmann and…

There was a sketch on Not the Nine O'Clock News with Griff Rhys Jones on a sleeper train trying to get to shuteye with the usual ‘de dum de dum’ noise of the train. Eventually he gets up, annoyed, goes down the corridor to the next compartment to find Rowan Atkinson wearing a British Rail guard’s hat and playing the rail noise on a snare drum. Apart from being quite surreal, this neatly demonstrates a connection between trains and music. Trains are all about rhythm; as well as the clacking of the rail joints, the exhaust of a steam loco can have a fabulous beat, which varies depending on the number of cylinders. Diesel engines can also produce some interesting rhythms, (pockety pockety pockety pockety) and even the compressors on…

Without a doubt, the advent of the clockwork motor was something of a milestone in the annals of the toy world. Suddenly, toys came alive – and if today’s offerings are increasingly geared to AI (Artificial Intelligence, for those of you who have been dozing), then that’s simply a sign of how far things have progressed in the last half dozen decades. Much to my shame I cannot quite pin down when the first Triang animals and insects wandered into the local toyshops. Box art (when found – for these toys are notorious for turning up in an unpackaged state) would seem to indicate the 1950s although I’m happy to be proved wrong on that assumption. Certainly there’s footage on the Internet of the 1956 Tri-ang Toy Fair in which…

MINI GT LOTUS 78 #5 1977 PRESENTATION Price: £12.59 Scale: 1/64 Release: out now The first of two of MINI GT’s new venture into small-scale F1 cars, along with the Tyrrell on page 15. The detail is astonishing for this scale and price. www.clevelandsdiecast.co.uk IMC MODELS MERCEDES_BENZ ZETROS DUAL CAB 6X6 CARGO TRUCK Price: £159.00 Scale: 1/50 Release: out now Dual cab 6x6 version, with a rear cargo body in a silver finish. Produced in resin with metal detailing, the replica certainly looks the part. www.imcmodels.eu AUTOCULT SIR VIVAL Price: £151.99 Scale: 1/43 Release: out now An astonishing vehicle, superbly recreated in miniature as AutoCult continues to replicate the weird and wonderful of the motoring world. Exquisite. www.ayrey.co.uk DID YOU KNOW WE ARE MORE THAN JUST A MAGAZINE? www.ccofgb.co.uk www.twitter.com/CollectorClubGB…

As we were getting ready to send this issue to print, Corgi and Oxford Diecast both announced the latest models in their respective collections. Below is just a small selection of the models coming up over the next 6 months. More details on each brand, and all models, can be found at either www.uk.corgi.co.uk or www.oxforddiecast.co.uk. Porsche Carrera 6 REF: RT33001 SCALE: Fit the box DUE: Summer 2023 PRICE: £19.99 Wallace & Gromit Austin A35 Van - Cheese Please! Delivery Van REF: CC80506 SCALE: 1/43 DUE: Summer 2023 PRICE: £31.99 Austin Mini Metro – Emberglow (Princess Diana) REF: 76MET001 SCALE: 1/76 PRICE: £7.95 Supermarine Spitfire MkIXc, GC Colin Gray, Operation Husky, July 1943 REF: AA29102 SCALE: 1/72 DUE: Sum 2023 PRICE: £59.99 The Great Escape - Triumph TR6 Trophy (Weathered)…

We’re all familiar with those Christmas cracker puzzles that slot together, right? There’s a fascination about assembling something from parts. This was behind such great products as Meccano (over here) and Erector (across the Pond). Offering scale models in a knocked-down format was a natural evolution and thus the likes of Airfix, Revell, Frog and Penguin all helped to satisfy the market. But although Airfix was arguably the giant when it came to kits, for my purposes it is Skybirds that deserves a place in the pantheon. Incredibly, Skybird model aircraft were designed by a teenager, one James Stevens. They were marketed through the AJ Holladay company, whose proprietors quickly saw the potential of these little models. Stevens was a skilled modeller and took pains to ensure that there enough…

Crescent Toys were rather strange toys to me when I played with them as a child. They were often a bit quirky, unusual and a little crude in manufacture when compared to Dinky Toys. There was however a certain charm about them. They came in bright eye-catching boxes and tended to be sold at the cheaper end of the market so were much more affordable. You would often see Crescent Toys for sale on markets and in seaside souvenir shops where they were perfect for kids like me who didn’t get enough pocket money to afford the latest Dinky Supertoys. The Crescent Toy Company was formed in July 1922 by Henry George Eagles and Arthur A. Schneider at premises located at 67 De Beauvoir Crescent, Kingsland Road, North London. It…

You know there are certain times in your life when you realise that the world has moved on around you and you feel, well, slightly out of touch. It can be anything from plant-based burgers to Grand Theft Auto, or my personal bug bear, the man cave phenomenon. Men have apparently become so beleaguered with the rigours of modern life that they feel the need to have somewhere in the house or garden where they can hide themselves away… an allotment or a shed will no longer do. No family, no bills, no in-laws or any other distractions that you or I can throw into the mix. Let’s try not to get onto the subject of misogyny or sexism here, it’s just pure British pantomime. Personally, I’ve never yearned for…

Vectis continues to be a magnet for the big ticket items, and its last couple of auctions proved the point yet again, with crime fighting a key theme. For secret agents, the Multiple Toys 3600 James Bond Secret Agent 007 Shooting Attaché Case was a rare find. The ensemble included the attaché case, code book, pistol with extension butt and other accessories. Highly desirable, it sold for £2,640, way over estimate. Hard on its heels was the Corgi Juniors 3008 "Crime Busters" four-piece Gift Set comprising the Batmobile, Batboat, Man from UNCLE car and James Bond Aston Martin. Still shrink wrapped, £2,280 was the winning bid for the lot. As for those ursine lovers out there, an Educa (Eduard Cramer) German antique teddy bear from the 1920s, with blonde mohair,…

There are big, well-known British toy manufacturers such as Dinky Toys, Corgi Toys, Matchbox, Mettoy and Tri-ang from the past and then there are the ones that go a little under the radar. One of these firms is Lone Star toys. The company, like so many others, started after World War Two, in 1948 to be precise. This company was originally called DCMT standing for Die Cast Machine Tools Ltd. It was closely associated with Crescent toys in the early days. DCMT made both Crescent toys and their own “Slikka” toys. After a short time the companies went their own separate ways. One of the first Slikka Toys products was a cowboy cap gun, made around 1948 and it was called the Lone Star gun. It must have sold well…

Why Back to the Future, you might ask? After all, it hasn’t exactly inspired the huge amount of collectables that some other films have, particularly compared to the likes of James Bond or Batman. Well, the reason is that the original movie will soon celebrate its 40th anniversary (in 2025). October 21st 2015 was the ‘futuristic’ year Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) travel to in Back to the Future II. That’s right, if you can remember the film Marty McFly travels to 2015 in a DeLorean that’s capable of flight before riding on a hover board and almost getting chomped by a 3D hologram of Jaws. Now look out of a nearby window… does that look like the 21st century that we’re living…

I wonder if there’s anyone who grew up in the 1950s and 60s who did not have a Dinky Toy of some sort in their toybox. Dinky Toys spanned five decades from 1934 when the first Dinky toy was produced from Meccano’s Binns Road Factory in Liverpool, until 1979, when production ceased, and workers were given their P45s pretty much without warning. Not that they gave in without a fight and led by union representatives escorted the management off the premises and took over the factory. Alas, the late 70s did see the end of this incredibly successful range of metal diecast toys but children, dads and granddads have continued playing with, and collecting, Dinkies right up to the present day. Dinky Toys was the brand name for a range…

Hi folks! I made one of my best finds ever from a charity shop the other day and unusually for me it was a modern toy rather than anything obsolete. I was just about to leave the shop when I took a quick glance at the kids section and saw what looked like a large LEGO vehicle on the floor. It was a fabulous LEGO Land Rover Defender, fully built with all its intricate moving parts in full working order. I’m still on a huge learning curve with LEGO and this is by far the best thing I‘ve found to date. There was no box or instruction manual with it but with a price tag of six pounds that hardly seemed to matter. Perhaps one day a box will turn…