It was nearly 8 years ago when I last looked at this catalogue. As a very nice example has just arrived I thought I would review it again.
The first thing that strikes me is the style of wheel on the BRM or Vanwall. The criss-cross cast wheel is only seen on a few of the 150 or 152 models and I think these will have come from Gift Set 5. Note the transporter, too. A blue cab pulling the yellow carrier section. More about that later.
Inside you'll see that the two-tone versions of the first range of saloons have arrived but the Mechanical versions are also featured!
There is a whole half-page of American cars with some interesting colours for the 220 Chevrolet and 219 Plymouth. The colours on the rest of these first pages are pretty accurate so one is tempted to assume that the artist was drawing actual models and somewhere we may one day find the production samples in the colours shown. Maybe this is a nice project for one of you expert restorers!
Models with suspension make their first appearance too. This catalogue is dated September 1959 so they are each shown as available slightly later.
Sports and racing cars on page 4 and the Hillman Husky, now in two-tone, plus some utility vehicles. Note the RAC Land Rover with headboard. It took me a while to conclude that this had been the first version but its appearance here tends to confirm matters.
Page 6 still has the cream 102 Pony Trailer and the Massey Ferguson Tractor, Trailer and the magnificent Combine Harvester are the first farm machinery to appear.
Page 9 has the 1100 Carrimore Low-loader No.1, showing a yellow can and blue loader section. This yellow cab often gets attached to the yellow Transporter rear section and some try to convince me that it was issued as all yellow but all that I have encountered have been a different shade of yellow. I'm pretty sure that kids will have swapped cabs around and, indeed, that they will have been swapped again over the years between then and now! You won't see many yellow or blue cabs pulling the Mobilgas tanker, however! That's wouldn't have looked right.
The 404 Bedford Dormobile is interesting, shown here in the two-tone colours that the Mark II editions would have been issued in (although the half-and-half colouring is now very scarce, most being just pale yellow with a pale blue roof!) and which, according to the Great Book of Corgi, had been available since February 1959! My guess is that the artist was provided with a repainted Mark I Bedford and that the issue of the Mark II was a little later than Marcel's book recalled!
More Bedford cabs here - and we have 1104 described as Low-loader No.2 with a pale grey or possibly cream cab which I haven't seen on the real model anywhere. The Transporter section has silver tracks - does anyone know about models without the silver tracks - as has been found on several examples being pulled by a metallic crimson cab but not on the normal red or blue cab editions?
Four whole pages of military models and equipment! Although it took up over 25% of this catalogue, sales were not great and Corgi's efforts were largely unprofitable in this area. Nevertheless, they are much admired and sought after now! Superbly detailed models which must have required considerable engineering skill and attention and which now command very high prices if you are lucky enough to find the items in good condition.
Note that there are no models yet available, at the time this catalogue was printed, with small-size wheels, the tyres shown on page 15 being for normal use, a chunkier size that suited Land Rovers and some other commercial vehicles and the larger diameter for the Major models.
There is also the advertisement of the first accessory pack - containing number plates, tax discs and other bits and pieces which are often still to be found firmly affixed today on models we find!
The back page promotes the imminent issue of Gift Set 8. At 27/6d this was just one penny (1/240th of a pound in those days) cheaper than buying the items individually.
It would be amusing to add up the price of buying everything in the catalogue, assuming that Junior was smart enough to leave them all in the boxes, and then see what they would be worth today, less inflation. As per inflation, one pound in 1959 would be worth 16.34 today. I tend to think that it would have been a good investment 63 years later.
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