The Wilford Collection Pt1

I am delighted to report that I now have many of the interesting items from the desk or drawers of Mr Percy Wilford, Senior Model Maker in the 1950s and 1960s at Corgi in Northampton and his son Robert, Senior Development Engineer in the 1970s.

The items cover a vast range, from the fascinating and probably unique to some probably common late items. Rather than attempt to catalogue everything in one go I have decided to release details over the next few weeks, one group at a time.

I shall start with the oldest item which really has to have a group of its own.

This is a master model, in what I think is brass, of one of the forerunners of Corgis. A range of New Miniature Numbers was introduced by The Mettoy Company in 1950 with a Standard Vanguard and Rolls Royce, each in two sizes. This appears to be the model for 502, the smaller Standard Vanguard.

It is 70mm long, heavy and attached to the simply varnished wood block by a bolt.

 The New Miniature Numbers disappeared from the Mettoy Catalogue in 1954. This must be a unique and quite special item in Mettoy / Corgi history.

I have just acquired one of the original 502 Standard Vanguard models. It is in very poor condition but I hope to be able to clean it a little and will include photos here as soon as it is available.

Although this chunk of metal has polished to a lovely bright silver (with a golden radiator grill) and is not as golden brown as those shown in this illustration from The Great Book of Corgi, the style is very similar - see how the wheel areas are represented.

The album, containing higher resolution images, for this item can be viewed at this link.