Catalogues

THE FOLLOWING THREE POSTS HAVE BEEN TRANSFERED FROM THE THREAD 'COLOUR VARIANTS' WERE THEY WERE OFF TOPIC.There are many examples of catalogues showing the wrong colour. The drawings of the catalogues were often made from the wooden mock-up which had been painted at least a year before the final decision of colour was made or from colour samples. The catalogs may also have gone to the printer to be ready for the launching of the model.The Encyclopaedia contains several of these miss coloured drawings.Could Dave and Bruce email me large scans of their documents to add to the CD ?Thanks.Jacques.

Jacques I quite agree that there are numerous examples of incorrect colours being used with catalogues, but here is an example, not only the wrong colour, but the wrong model! The 140 Morris 1100 was only issued as a four door, not as shown, a two-door, and also only in light blue. Below it is a 130 Ford Consul Corsair - wrong colour. This is from the first printing of the 1964 catalogue and it continued with the second printing and the Australian edition, so no doubt all the other editions for that year. The catalogue also has a number of other inaccuracies. A case of someone not happy with the prospect of a change in ownership of a unique institution? Bruce.

Bruce, This is already recorded but note that on the catalogues and the yellow boxes, the Corsair is a four door saloon, the Dinky model is a two doors. There are other interesting or amazing errors in the catalogues. The 1961 Portugese catalogue states that the ladder on the 555 Fire engine is from Magirus. The 1960 Swiss catalogue on page 16 states that the Forward control lorry ref. 25 r / 420 is a Leyland. On the 1951 Dutch catalogue, a suffix Z has been added to some only of the French Dinky. In the 1955 catalogue printed in the U.S. for this country only, a letter F has been added to the reference number of the models made in France. On the French 1957 catalogue, the drawing of the car carrier is wrong : the wind screen is in one piece only and the crank of the trailer's upper deck is on the wrong side. The 1959 US catalogue states that the trailer of the 666 is a landing platform ! I doubt that the NASA has succeeded such an accurate landing yet.The catalogues were printed twice. First the drawings and no text. The texts in different languages were added on the second printing. So any errors in the drawings is seen in every country edition when text errors are specific to a language. Any more comments on catalogues will be most welcomed. Jacques.

Jacques My post was not 'off topic', admittedly the different colours appeared in a CATALOGUE rather then a LEAFLET - still they concern the same topic raised by Dave under the subject of COLOUR VARIANTS. I have therefore re-posted my last post back in the COLOUR VARIANTS thread as a topic of interest. Finally, how much is your CD on Dinky Toys? This is Off-topic but you have raised this subject in other threads. Bruce

dinkycollect wrote: 'Bruce, This is already recorded but note that on the catalogues and the yellow boxes, the Corsair is a four door saloon, the Dinky model is a two doors. There are other interesting or amazing errors in the catalogues. The 1961 Portugese catalogue states that the madder on the 555 Fire engine is from Magirus. The 1960 Swiss catalogue on page 16 states that the Forward control lorry ref. 25 r / 420 is a Leyland. On the 1951 Dutch catalogue, a suffix Z has been added to some only of the French Dinky. In the 1955 catalogue printed in the U.S. for this country only, a letter F has been added to the reference number of the models made in France. On the French 1957 catalogue, the drawing of the car carrier is wrong : the wind screen is in one piece only and the crank of the trailer's upper deck is on the wrong side. The 1959 US catalogue states that the trailer of the 666 is a landing platform ! I doubt that the NASA has succeeded such an accurate landing yet.The catalogues were printed twice. First the drawings and no text. The texts in different languages were added on the second printing. So any errors in the drawings is seen in every country edition when text errors are specific to a language. Any more comments on catalogues will be most welcomed. Jacques.' Jacques When I wrote about a second printing, I am not writing about the printing process, but a new version of the existing catalogue when stock for the first printing has been exhausted. The printing code for the first catalogue, January 1964. The printing code for the second catalogue printing, July 1964. The Australian version of the 1964 catalogue, printed in March 1964 does not have the printing code on the back cover where it is located on the UK edition, but on the front within the white circle where the UK had the price of 3d as shown below. By the way, with your comments on the 1961 Portuguese catalogue, you wrote: 'the madder on the 555 Fire engine is from Magirus.' I presume 'madder' is ladder, but I'm unsure as to what 'Magirus' means. Kind regards Bruce(150)

Bruce, You are right, I misunderstood your post and I made a misprint of 'madder' insted of 'ladder' and I have corrected this. Magirus is a German manufacturer of trucks and fire engines. It is now part of the Iveco group and is the world leader in fire engines. That the manufacturer of the ladder on the 555 Dinky fire engine is a model of a Magirus ladder remains to be proved, but why not. The ladder on the 568 and 956 is certainly not a Magirus as stated by Roulet. The Brits would not have used a foreing ladder on their Dinky when there was a British manufacturer making similar items. An article published in the November 1952 issue of the British Meccano Magazine is about the British manufacturer John Morris and sons Ltd of Salford England.

I quickly gathered some catalogue/advertising picture curiosities. Some are single incidents but others are repeated in other catalogues or issues, and there are many more. Here they come: Meccano Magazine March 1949 showing the repeated quite different style representation of the Single Deck Bus, also assuming windows. Meccano Magazine February 1951 announcing a logo-less Trojan delivery Van

Yes Jan ! nobody's perfect .... even our idol ! Richard

Following on with Jan's huge dissertation are these two. First the 1963 USA catalogue with a print number of 13/563/50 Printed in England, 72548/22 and the 1963 Canadian catalogue (overprint of the 1963 US catalogue) with a print number of 13/1063/50 also Printed in England, 72548/42 Notice we now have the 140 Morris 1100 in the correct blue, but still with only two doors, and of course the 145 Singer Vogue remains in yellow, as mentioned in another thread, 'New Arrivals'. (Unless those posts have already been transferred to this thread.) And here we have the first/cover page for each catalogue:

For the information in catalogues one is hardly dependent on paper anymore, digital information on the web and other devices tells enough about availability, colours, dating, prices, etc., etc. Still, whenever a very cheap catalogue comes along, I seize it, not strictly for the information, but for the print- and artwork too.Today the 30 page French 1957 Meccano catalogue arrived (15 euros only), a very good example. It is so well executed, showing the programme of Meccano, the Hornby Trains and four wide spreads of available Dinky Toys. The quality of the pictures, despite done in black and white only, is marvellous, so well taken care of. For an impression I post two details here, one of page 26 (100%) and one of the rear cover illustration (ca. 150%). Pixel limitations, however, cannot cope with the true quality. I have used my Photoshop software in order to get as close to colour, contrast and general image quality as I can: Kind regards, Jan

Jan, Very good value for your money. Unfortunately you have ct the page which shows the Unic multibenne with single windscreen. The Dinky model issued had a split screen. Jacques.

Hello Jan and everyone, like you I have also acquired a good collection of catalogues from several countries which have much period appeal, as well as providing useful information. However, from time to time, one appears which holds special interest (at least for me): I grew up in Twickenham, an outer suburb of London, and Beazley's was my local toyshop - they would change their window displays about every four weeks, and I would gaze in their window looking at the new Dinky arrivals - not that I received many! Although this is not strictly Dinky, I think it qualifies for this thread. Over the last dozen years I have compiled a list of all the dealer's names which were overprinted on both Dinky and Meccano catalogues in the U.K. between 1953 and 1960, and currently have a list of around 350 dealers - these are all from catalogues which have been listed on eBay over the last six or seven years - my task now is to compile it as a Word document alphabetically by town. The above catalogue is not mine from childhood, I came across it only around 18 months ago on eBay and had to have it, although it was not at all expensive! I googled the address on 'street view' and see that the shop now sells musical instruments - ah, progress! Regards, Adrian.