New member onboard!

First, I want to thank all of the DTCA folks who have already sent me warm welcomes for joining. I will give a brief introduction of myself and my Dinky Toys interests: I am 67 years old and live in S. California...and have my whole life. My first experience with Dinkys was Christmas, 1951 when I received 5 of them: the miltary Jeep, the Jaguar Sports Car, the Reconnaissance Car, the Police Motorcycle with sidecar, and the AA Motorcycle with sidecar. Fortunately, I was very careful with my toys and I still have all of those models today, although they have been nicely restored. After that, I requested a new Dinky Toy for every birthday and also for Christmas, so that by about 1957 I had a nice, small collection. About that time I met another young boy who also shared my love of Dinky's and we both started collecting them in earnest from about 1957-1960, focusing first on automobiles, but also military, some commercial, and also planes. By the early 1960's I had lost interest in the new Dinky's with windows,and the newer garish colors also, and I went for many years without adding any new ones. Then about 15 years ago the bug hit again, and I discovered eBay and other internet sites, and started collecting once again. My main interest are Dinky's produced from WWII up until about 1959, and all types. My collection currently is about 400 models, and they are composed of autos, small and large commercial (Supertoys), military, farm implements,and planes. I also collect French Dinky's in those same categories and time frame. I like to collect either like new or mint models whenever possible, along with their boxes. I was fortunate to save most of my earlier boxes, along with my original catalogues from 1953-1960. Recently I have gotten more interested in pre-war Dinky's and have acquired a few very nice examples. Collecting Dinky's in the States was probably quite different from lads growing up in the British Isles....we had no access to pre-war or older models at all, and they were no clubs or associations that I knew of when younger, so we were limited to buying what we could from department stores and the like who sold Dinky's. I also started corresponding with the U.S. distributor, H. Hudson Dobson, and quickly found out that they did have some limited stock of older, discontinued Dinky's, such as the 38 and 39 series, as well as the 30 series. I was able to buy several nice examples from them for the old sales price at the time...usually about $.75 or 75 cents plus postage. I also have saved my correspondence with them. I look foward to being a member here and would welcome any comments or discussions!Terry Hardgrave

Welcome onboard Terry. Welcome, also, to your Dinky's photos Kind regards Richard

Terry, what a great story and it is amazing how collecting Dinky Toys is spread far and wide. It is a shame that you had no U.S. clubs and societies or access to the older models like we did in th UK when growing up. I started playing with Dinky Toys when I was about 4 or 5 and was also given some very old Dinkies by an Auntie and have 23a, 23e, 25d dating from 1936. I too was given a Dinky for Birthdays & Christmas for many years and so was my Brother who is 5 years younger than me. He has about the same number of models as me and is also still passionate about collecting. Since I was 10 I have lived in Wirral (which is a peninsula just over the River Mersey from Liverpool and not far away from the original Binns Road home of Meccanco and Dinky Toys!) It was interesting to hear of your contact with H. Hudson Dobson who I know were Dinky importers in USA but I have only read about them in books and journals. I am 65 later this year so we are both of a similar era. I too like models from 1940's through to the 60's and have all of my original collection some are in mint condition and others are in very good condition mostly with boxes. In total I have about 200 displayed in a glass cabinet. I also like restoring old Dinky Toys which have been damaged or badly scratched and return them to their former glory. Regular visits to toy fairs is a must for me to add to my collection or find a bargain to restore. Did you know that the Life President of the DTCA, David Cooke, has written an excellent small book which is a potted history of Dinky Toys with some lovely pictures (published by Shire Publications Ltd). It would be great to see some photgraphs of some of your USA collection. Regards, Don Bugden

Don--thanks for the nice comments.....sounds like we have a lot in common, so it will be fun to trade comments back and forth. Not sure if I am doing this right...importing a picture, so will try showing some pictures of my 39 series cars. I love both the 38 and 39 series and consider them a 'must' for any Dinky collection. Both the Buick and the Chrysler were bought by me in 1958 directly from H. Hudson Dobson, probably from old stock on had. How do you post multiple photos in a single post without editing each time?? First the Packard sedan Here is the Studebaker Coupe: And here is the Chrysler sedan: The Lincoln Zypher The Oldsmobile 6 sedan And the Buick Viceroy (notice the colored wheels...they are usually black)

Hi Terry, nice to meet again on this DTCA forum. You bet we like discussions and look forward to your valuable contributions! As a welcome bonus some pictures of my 39-set box lid: Kind regards, Jan

Jan-- Thanks....I look forward to a little more Dinky activity here compared to Toy Collector for sure. That is a lovely 39 series box...appears to be in wonderful condition....very nice!Terry

Hi Terry, Well done on submitting those pictures I've not mastered that technical bit yet but will have a go. Those old American saloons (sorry - sedans) look fantastic you must be proud of them. I especially like the Buick Viceroy in apple green and I think the black hubs stopped post war so it may be that yours is a 1947-50 model. In my previous message I mentioned about an Auntie who gave me some old Dinky cars when I was very young and, would you believe it, one of them was an Oldsmobile 6 sedan in dark blue with black hubs. It was in bad condition and very playworn. When I started restoring Dinky toys I did this one and it is now in my cabinet. If this upload works you will see three of my American cars which I have restored from wrecks. Kind regards, Don

Hi Don--Thanks.....It took awhile to assemble those 39 series saloons in very nice condition, but was well worth it. They are a great set and Dinky did a pretty good job with them when compared to the actual cars.I did not see your pictures, so possibly they did not download successfully...I would love to see your cars!Terry

Sorry about pics I think I have encounterd a problem I will try again later when I have fixed my picture documents. Don

Trying again with images of my restoration work. Regards Don

Oh bother! my image failed again. I'll leave it for now and try and sort out the fault Sorry Don.

Don-- I can understand your frustration with the difficulty in posting pictures. Sometimes I think it would be nice if they posted a link with specific instructions on how to post them, and many times there is more than one way.Not sure how you are trying, but I just opened either a reply page, such as this, or just started a new one. I then wrote the text I wanted, then went to the bottom of the page, where on the left side there is a box that says 'select image file', and next to it is 'browse'. I already have the photos in one of my albums, already reduced in size (won't accept large file sizes). So I then click on 'browse', and then go to the album where I know the picture is (In my case, it is under pictures, Dinky, e-mail...meaning reduced in size for e-mailing. I then click on the desired photo, which high lights it, then select 'save' on the bottom right side of that page. I then select 'submit' at the bottom of the message. Very soon the picture appears on the DTCA page where you are writing your message. If necessary, you can then select 'edit' and open up the text again....you can then re-write something, correc spelling, space the picture up or down, etc. Maybe this will help out......good luck! Terry