New arrivals

Thank's a lot Santa Claus but ..... there is no snow ! Next year perhaps. Richard

Red, like the Santa Claus coat ! Cheers Richard

Hi friends. 2 new Bedford van 410 arrived to complete the team : Royal mail, code 1, first type. British airways, code 2, John Gay production. Kind regards Richard

Red too, Richard, my latest addition. Good sales at the Houten Fair, yesterday, compensated for spending money on this extremely lovely French Dinky no. 24A Chrysler 'New Yorker' 1955. A longtime desire realized, at last! Kind regards, Jan

Jan. A very well made Dinky Toys. Very nice model. You probably know that there are some variants in the colour cream for the seats and in the red ! This morning I got a new John Gay Bedford. it's the eleventh. Kind regards Richard

Very happy with this Lincoln that I received this morning. We don't see it in sale very often. Kind regards Richard

Did the real car come in such exotic colours? Or the dull greens and greys of later issues? Were the bright colours to appeal to the young or the dull colours a result of post-war austerity (or a lack of paint)? Certainly a great looking car appealing to Herge!

Patrick I do not know about the others but the colours of the yellow / red 39eu are original.

Yes thats a taxicab. My fine book Chronicle of the American Automobile has a photo of a Lincoln Zephyr in maroon but wings and body coloured as one. Reds, maroons and brown seem quite in vogue then pre-war US. Blues and greens quite common too pre and post war, with a bit of wood appliqu materialising! Perhaps it was just Dinky who went a bit austere. My Lincoln Zephyr is the common grey green.

I think nearly all of the pre-war American cars, such as the Lincoln, came in one, solid color. I have seen quite a few vintage photos of them, and none had wings painted another color. I think Dinkys efforts on these 39 series two-tones are similar to those they used in the late 1950s, on both US and English cars.......eye catching for sure, and did make them appear different, but totally unrealistic. We have to remember....these were primarily toys, nicely built, and quite accurate, but not always exact models. Best regards,Terry

As Terry notes, these two-tone paint schemes are entirely unrealistic for prewar cars. Much as they make for attractive toys now, they also make me rather sad, for they are 'mutton dressed as lamb,' one of the first signs that Meccano Ltd. was losing ground to Corgi and other more nimble competitors. in 1950s USA, planned obsolesence was at its height, with annual restyling of automobiles that was as drastic as the manufacturers could possibly afford. In addition to the chrome and fins, two-tone and three-tone paint schemes were common. And, while Terry was an honourable exception (after all, he drives a Ford Model A to this day), most children wanted toys that reflected the 'latest and greatest.' Cars did not last as long as they do now, and prewar vehicles seemed absolutely ancient -- especially to young children. Obviously, Liverpool adopted these colors as an attempt to boost sales of older models, when it could not afford to have enough new ones in the pipeline. Perhaps it worked -- but children are a lot harder to fool than adults think.

Three Bedford Van 410 John Gay arrived this morning. You will note that two of them are in a 412 box (???) and that I have never seen, in any listing, the 'Rey Racing' To note, also, that the baseplates are not metallic grey ! For the Rey racing it's black and the two others are dark brown. Kind regards. Richard