New arrivals

Richard Although I have quite a lot of pictures of the 410 Bedford CF vans, All the models in your picture are different from mine except for the Pickford's van. Your original Dinky Royal Mail van has black wheels while mine has chrome wheels. Your Kodak finish is very different from mine.My Dunlop van is yellow / red, yours is red. Your Oxo van has two more words than mine. My Avis van has 'Avis' writen at the front, yours is at the back. My Esso van is white, yours is red. All the best.Jacques

This one shows C.I.J. models.

Hi Jacques. Back home ? Even the Pickford is different : yours has a transfer on the front, mine has one on the rear doors and none on the front. The hubs of the 'Kodak' are the same as the 'Falk' shown on your picture. Kind regards Richard

Thank you Jacques. I enjoyed seeing the model and the photograph of the original vehicle on which it was based. As a boy I lived in London and was, for a while, a keen 'bus spotter'. London Transport, as it was then known, had a huge network of bus and trolleybus routes with thousands of buses in service. As late as 1958 LT were ordering AEC Tower Wagons for overhead use. The oldest of these (in 1963) was a 1936 AEC Mercury and the oldest road vehicle then in use was a 1931 AEC Regent Railway Breakdown Tender, used on the London Underground system. I'm happy to say that I still have my Ian Allan ABC books for both LT buses and the Southern Region of British Railways and cherish the memories they evoke. Kind regards John

Arrival today is a silver/red no. 23a Racing Car. Too cheap and too beautiful to let it escape. This early post-war colour scheme is slightly different from the later 1950s silver/red version in that the driver area is painted all red too. And of course the black wheels differ from the later silver or red wheels. The other addition, a small, shallow display case, did not arrive as a whole but 'grew' in my room in the past week. I finished it this morning, an exact fit below my desk, the only reasonable place I could find for some extra accommodation of a part of my thriving miniature navy fleet. Merchant ships have a separate display case already. Some Dinkies crept in for the time being. Regards, Jan

Interesting to see your early 23a which I think is a 1933 MG Magnette. I attach my picture of George Eystons record breaking cars, 23B 1934 Hotchkiss 2L Montlhery record car, 23e 1936 Speed of the Wind, 1937 streamlined Thunderbolt. All like the Magnette in 00 scale as these were big cars. All original except the Hotchkiss which is an Atlas usurper. Dont know if there is an Eyston connection to 23A?

Please, try the four (!) closely related 23/23a threads. There is a lot of information available there, especially contributed by Bungo (Walter) who is an expert in this field! Kind regards, Jan

Thanks. Lots of variations, but no mention of Eyston and the MG being connected.

Townie, the 23a racer is definitely connected to George Eyston as it was based on the Magic Midget 750cc car that was later fitted with a six-cylinder engine, hence the two essential Dinky types. The earliest has the four exhaust stubs on the left side and the later one has the six pipe manifold and full exhaust of the downsized MG Magnette engine used in Humbug. Also, the chassis of that car was used as the basis for Goldie Gardner's record- breaking MG that was modelled as 23p. Kind regards John

Hi John, hi Townie, almost true, but just almost. Here is the correct story: 1. Capt. George Eystons MG 'Magic Midget' or EX127 is represented by the DINKY TOYS 23 Racer model, 4 exhaust stubs, no driver, issued in April 1934. 2. Capt. George Eystons MG 'Magic Magnette' or EX135 or 'Humbug' was an entirely new vehicle with a larger six cylinder engine. It is represented by the DINKY TOYS 23a Racer, 6-branch exhaust system, driver, issued in early 1935. 3. Major Goldie Gardners MG Record Car was basically an entirely new vehicle too, using just the chassis of EX135 . It is represented by the DINKY TOYS 23p Gardner's MG Record Car, issued in late 1939. Hope this helps. Best regards from Thailand. Walter

Thanks Walter. If anyone should know it is you.

Excellent, thank you for that.