New arrivals

Here is a modest new arrival, sporting the unusual painted, concave cast wheels.

This Porsche 356a coup is a German icon. it's a pity that no forum topic has been created about this car yet. This car was used on the highways of the Netherlands in the 1950/60's by the (AVD) General Traffic Service of the National Police (Rijkspolitie). Every motorist was in awe of these fast cars when you saw them approaching in the mirror at high speed. To illustrate, some photos from this nostalgic traffic era and a replica of this car from Minichamps. Jan Oldenhuis 2 September 2022

Some of you who use Facebook may have seen my most recent acquisitions. Nothing too exciting as far as I can see but bought from a local gentleman at an advantageous price. I've held off posting here as I've been away from home for three weeks and can't access the collection. Hopefully, other will get pleasure, as I have, from seeing these models. They have expanded my collection and added a couple of items that I didn't previously own. In this instance it's the two 23d Auto-Unions, both with pre-war wheels and drivers. I presume these are early post-war examples. There are one or two pre-war items - a 29b Streamline Bus and a 25f Market Gardener's Wagon. The Junkers Bomber in wartime black is a nice addition albeit it has a damaged undercarriage leg. there's a Britains field gun among the items and a nice Dinky 161b Anti-Aircraft Gun. I'll post more photos when I'm home again.

Jan -- what a wonderful thing for you to have done! I too hope that other collectors follow in your lead. Not that I am planning a trip to Liverpool, but is there any way to find out what other sorts of holdings the Meccano Business Archive has? I am impressed you even found out about them; certainly they seem to have no Internet presence that I could see ...

Hi Jon, I discovered the Meccano Business Archive in 2001, and found very interesting material there. However, many of such business archives are still underdisclosed, and accessible on a collection level only on the internet. I know this from my own professional practice. The Meccano Archives are now housed in a much better building than 20 years ago and more and more documents are moved to the Museum building. Subsequently online access will increase. Now one has to work with the analogue lists and indexes available on location. But a persevering researcher has no problems with that ... and surprising discoveries may show up! liverpoolmuseums

Well done Jan, lets bring them all together again.

Jan---What a wonderful idea for you to donate your drawing collection as you mentioned. It must give you great piece of mind that they will be preserved and cared for properly long after our time has passed. Hopefully this will inspire others to do the same some day. What a terrible pity that the large majority of those factory drawings were broken up, sold, and re-sold over the years to very private collectors, whom have little intention of ever making them public. And thus, a huge amount of valuable documented history and information about Dinky Toys models is inaccessible. Bravo to you! Best regards, Terry

Jan---What a wonderful idea for you to donate your drawing collection as you mentioned. It must give you great piece of mind that they will be preserved and cared for properly long after our time has passed. Hopefully this will inspire others to do the same some day. What a terrible pity that the large majority of those factory drawings were broken up, sold, and re-sold over the years to very private collectors, whom have little intention of ever making them public. And thus, a huge amount of valuable documented history and information about Dinky Toys models is inaccessible. Bravo to you! Best regards, Terry

Additions of the past few weeks together. The no. 454 Trojan Van Cydrax is an improvement. I have an example of similar quality, but that one is unboxed and will be sold. For the first four of this series this is no obvious problem because they were sold separately initially. But the Cydrax and the Brooke Bond Tea versions were always sold in their individual boxes. The Pullmore Car Transporter is no new addition, but its box is. The box in which I bought it in 1994 was heavily repaired, creased and grubby. The box I managed to find now is almost perfect and exactly the same with dual numbers 582/982. The no. 319 Weeks Farm Trailer is a strange bird in my collecting policy, it is too young, from 1961, but it is so fine and I got it almost for free, as it is very common. The no. 60t Douglas DC3 Air Liner was a very old desideratum. It is pre-war only and the only Dutch owned (KLM) plane ever produced by Meccano. I bought it from a Dutch fellow-collector for a very fair, friendly price, complete with a good box, gliding game eye and gliding game leaflet, plus three additional, differently dated gliding game leaflets as a bonus. Collecting also means uncollecting. After 22 years in my ownership I thought the time has come to part with my 73 unique sheets of original Meccano/Dinky factory drawings and lists before something unwanted happens to them. So, I was in Liverpool yesterday to transfer them officially to the collection of the Meccano Business Archive, housed in the Merseyside Maritime Museum at the Albert Dock. The Archive and I signed the transfer agreement and both of us are very happy with this solution, safeguarding them for future generations, professionally kept and available to any serious researcher. I hope other owners of such documents will be inspired by my example. I made hires scans of all of them years ago already. Some images are already available for registered users on this DTCA website, the remaining ones will follow soon. Kind regards, Jan

And also thanks, Kas, Terry, for your comments. From the very moment I acquired these documents (because I had a special interest in the never made Bedford Articulated Streamlined Petrol Tanker and the lists) I was convinced that this unique source material should not be private property but public property. Kind regards, Jan

Bravo, Jan!

You wait a while for a new Dinky, then they all come at once (and sit on the floor of the toy room because there's no place for them) ...