New arrivals

Hi Jonathan, unfamiliar as this Road Signs set may seem to you, you will see it illustrated on page 67 of DT&MM and on page 65 of the GBofDT. You really found a great one, and with the 'Meccano Dinky Toys' brand name even slightly earlier than the set mentioned in these Dinky bibles! Kind regards, Jan

Thanks, Jan. I will check the illustrations in these books, though as mentioned I already know that my sign set is from 1935, since it has the first type of box. (Rather than the Richardson and Roulet books, I mostly use Jacques' Dinky Toys Encyclopedia, since it is installed on my iPad and therefore always literally at my fingertips!)

I happen to know these books virtually by heart

Here are some new acquisitions. The Red 'Falck' Land Rover is battered but it seems to be harder to find than the white version. Between the two, signs of cheapening are the disappearance of the jewelled headlights and the simplified wheels ... 1024 768 1024 768 The other two models below are prototypes dating from the sad last year of 1979, for the 'Customized Ford Transit' and 'Customized Corvette.'

A rare Land Rover amongst the rares.This is the fifth and last version known so far of the Falck breakdown car. The most common one seem to be the first version with the diecast hubs. Here is my list of the Falck versions. Any comment or correction, please shout. Congratulations.

My Falck Land Rovers correspond to 1 and 3 in Jacques' list. image not found

My red one is in worse condition than the one illustrated and also has even less appropriate wheels! Not much use as a tow truck either, as the hook is missing...

Jan--Very nice additions/replacements for your collection. That box of Estate Cars looks so nice! Best regards, Terry

Rather many new arrivals since early January, a collection in its own right: some replacements, some additions. A collector friend sent me a nice wallet as a present a few weeks ago: On the Road again, Dinky Toys 1934-1966, containing thirty 15 x 21 cm postcards, showing Dinky Toys (some Atlas) in colour, positioned in a contemporary real world black and white scene. Cleverly done by graphic designer Henry Cannon. Two scarcer colour Loudspeaker Vans came in, the fine brown one an addition, the near mint green example a replacement. Another duo from different vendors are the Field Marshall Tractors. The early silver wheeled one is an addition, the more common green wheeled tractor a replacement for a lesser example in the collection. Both near mint. A bargain fifth no. 153a Jeep arrived, the 1948-1952 fifth issue with paint ring, higher bonnet and extended casting gates. With it came the huge British Road Signs set, the box not perfect but the contents are. A very fine set. Also belonging to the accessories category is a green mini trade box with Cooks Men. There were five present, but by adding my loose single one the half dozen is complete. Perhaps noteworthy that my single example has some details (collar, letter) painted white, whereas the same details on the others are a shade of green. A more impressive trade box is the one containing four 27f Estate Cars. Two were correct, the other two were not, but I replaced an incorrect 344 by a correct single loose 27f in my collection and sold it on the Houten fair yesterday. So, still one 344 left to be replaced. Well, the sight of the virtually perfect models inside is very fine in my opinion. As a side line, two ship models were added, all from Germany. Fine prewar 1:1250 Wiking cruiser models and one Mercator Wilhelm Gustloff, sadly representing the greatest sea disaster in terms of casualties, over 9.000 refugees killed, torpedoed in the Baltic Sea in the final days of WWII. Bought last week in an attractive second life shop in the province of Gelderland, a wooden 'Mini Toys' petrol pump, very useful as an accessory in our toy garage booklet in progress. Yesterday, after lock down no. ?, there was a Houten Namac Fair again. A happy meet, I had not seen some stall holders and fellow collectors for quite some time. Rather few of them came from other countries, and the number of attendees was modest anyway, because of the extremely dangerous, stormy weather these days. From the revenues of sold replacements it was easy to buy the virtually mint/boxed yellow Chrysler New Yorker, a companion to my red one. Kind regards, Jan

Great additions Jan! I love your quality of photographing also.

I don't usually collect aeroplanes, but I rather like Dinky's Beechcraft Baron and Beechcraft Bonanza, so I was pleased to buy this pair recently. image not found

New this week ... far from perfect, but it was a good value and still bright ...

Your Ever Ready Guy is indeed still very presentable. I like it when old toys show a little 'history' with signs of (relatively) careful use (as opposed to being mistreated and totally wrecked which was sadly the case with my childhood toys). My Ever Ready Guy has plenty of minor battle scars, but is still ready for business as the picture below demonstrates. image not found