Corgi Catalogue 1960

 

Having recently acquired a whole lot of Corgi catalogues from the 60s through to the 80s I thought it would be a good idea to take readers through some of them. Each has fascinating content when you look more closely and it is a nice way to look at review models once more that often get overlooked in articles. Whilst I do have the very early catalogues and leaflets, I will start with the 1960 catalogue and let's see if you can identify all the models that the artist has included on the front cover! (Answers at the end of the article).

This catalogue is one of very few in portrait form, most being landscape. The images are all drawn but quite accurately showing models and one assumes that the artist was working with actual models provided. So it's interesting to see that the first page shows an Austin Seven in what may well have been 'primrose yellow', quite scarce to find now. 

The British cars are mostly the second issues in two-tone finish or a new colour and are a combination of the old and new, with the Minis, Jaguar and Aston Martin having suspension and interiors, the old just windows. The Aston Martin appears to have a slightly different style of wheel - likely to be the cast 'spoke effect' type which I believe was actually the style of the very first issues.

The inclusion of the Austin is surprising as the model was not available until early 1961.

Note the Austin A40 is in red and black, normally used for the Mechanical edition. None of the Mechanical editions would now be available, having been discontinued in 1959.

In the 'Continental' section we see the Fiat 1800 with a dark blue roof.

The 'American' section has the old Thunderbirds and Plymouth but a 211S Studebaker as well as the three Impalas.

The Sports Car section shows the scarcer all-yellow 304 Mercedes-Benz and silver 151 Lotus. None of the sports car have suspension yet.

On the Utility vehicles page note the later screen Bedford CA vans are now featured. The 412 Ambulance shown, however, is another scarce model that can be hard to find now.

The next page, however, shows the 405 Bedford in green with a single screen which was not issued. Instead we had the 423 in red as shown on the previous page. The 416 RAC Land Rover has the headboard and canopy with logo only, helping us to date the change to the version without a headboard and with text on the canopy to sometime later than 1960.

Once again we see a scarce issue on the next page - the 422 Bedford CA Van in 50-50 finish. 

Corgi Cargoes appear for the first time, all four being launched in 1960.

And there's another nice 50-50 finish Bedford! Try finding these now!

 

The next few pages don't tell us a great deal that we don't know already. The little Skip and Churns that fits on the back of a Massey Ferguson Tractor is not something you see often now and I always thought it a bit odd that the churns were so much larger than those in the Cargo for a truck. Now I think about it, though, the lorries were still produced to a much smaller scale, around 1:55 at this time and so it may make sense after all for the churns to have been smaller.

Chipperfields Circus collectors would have to wait a while for the items shown. Military item were taking priority in 1960, as the next three pages show.

 

These were all remarkable models and these can be good reference pages to all the model numbers and what was contained in the various Gift Sets too. Despite all Corgi's efforts, though, military equipment did not sell well, some of these items having the lowest of all Corgi models sales in the 1956-70s era. That makes them very worthwhile keeping now, of course, and much more sought after than they may have been initially!

The penultimate page has some useful summaries of what were contained in the Corgi Accessory Packs and also which spare tyres were available then. This particular catalogue comes from USA but its content appears identical, other than prices and distributor references, to that issued in the UK.

At the end you get the good old Service Ramp, something Corgi had in its original Mettoy days, with the outlined Studebaker looking a little too small. Or perhaps the main section is too long. It gets withdrawn almost as soon as the catalogue reaches collectors, however. 

On the other hand there is the brand new Jeep FC-150 with lamp standard and a nice hydraulic device with an electrician too in the box. 


And here is what I think are the identities of the models represented by the artist on the front cover. I am not sure about the Standard. It might be a Ford Consul and the car at the front on the bottom of the Car Transporter looks like a convertible Jaguar!! I guess it's just a white one with the image affected by the shadows.

To view this in a larger format you should be able to right click and open it in a new window on a PC. Not sure how you can see it more clearly on a phone. So there's a list below too.

457 + 1488, GS2, 452 +1485, 205, 206, 408, 220, 422, 211S, 302, 416, 226, 452 + 1488, GS1 + 205, 206, 208, 300, 409, 207?, 1100, 417, 419, 208.