Corgi Toys @ 60: lots of valuable issues (if you had the early ones for Christmas!)

A huge number of new issues arrived in the shops in December 1965! I'll list them in catalogue number order, starting with the second appearance of the #242 Fiat 600 Jolly Ghia. It has lost the roof and comes only in a solid but cheerful yellow. Now with two people and a Corgi dog on the back seat too. 

This was not a particularly popular model and the attempt to make a few more sales from the casting was not very successful and it was quietly withdrawn from dealers' order forms after a few months. Really quite hard to find now.

Next is #256, the VW 1200 in East African Safari trim. This was a great model and something I was delighted to play with as it had really good steering operated by a spare wheel on the roof. So much more realistic-looking than the Austin A60 had been and with better ground clearance from the normal size wheels as well! The model came with a baby rhino about to attack the car on a pleasant scenic tray. The sticker on the bonnet was inclined to lift off but that didn't really bother me and I was more keen on things like the jewelled headlights and opening engine compartment at the rear and bonnet at the front. There was no space to carry anything so they seldom did get opened. I was also impressed by the use of a lovely bright silver base-plate to incorporate attractive bumpers and, remarkably, rear mudguards too!

The first issue was left hand drive but you will also find this in right hand drive form. There is also a very later edition where the jewelled lights have been replaced by rather tedious silver blobs. That's not an easy find either.

You may be beginning to see a trend here in these December 1965 issues.

Next is another casting re-use in the form of #325 Ford Mustang 2+2 Fastback Competition Model. Corgi have added bright red stripes and a coat of white paint to the lovely #320 model and it gets a fresh lease of life. There was a set of peel off numbers in the box but the RN2 shown here is not at all common. Nor are the very early models with shaped wheels as illustrated here.

This model can be found with the fullest range of wheels of any Corgi. First it had shaped wheels but only for a very limited time before wire wheels were fitted. Then detailed cast wheels appeared, the ones with fine spokes, before a chunkier style of 8-spoke cast wheel started to be fitted and, just to add more for a complete collection, these came in a gold finish as well as the plain cast silver-grey colour. Finally some wire wheel models had a red sill added! (The Corgi Model Club made a mistake in adding the red sill to their chunky 8-spoke wheel version.)

You will also have fun seeking out the different interiors. Whilst there was no Corgi dog in this issue, the interior was initially the same as was being fitted to the #320. Later the interior is redesigned and you'll find both chalky blue and chalky green versions.

Next on the list for December 1965 is the #468 London Bus, identical to the original issue other than its advertising which now features Outspan Oranges and this will be the most common version of the #468 model.

Later this will get cast wheels, lose its jewelled headlights and then Whizzwheels as well as a wide range of other advertising banners, some of which are hard to find now. Look out for transition models which have cast wheels but no jewels.

Another re-use of a casting is the Citroen Safari model which is basically the same as the January 1964 issue, also #475, but now Corgi Ski Club stickers replace the 1964 Winter Olympics ones.

The skiing character is the same, as are the skis and ski poles. You will find red and yellow with both #475 models. For a change, that's the only variation!

Now for another 'new' model that isn't really new at all. The #477 is identical to the later issues of the  #417S Land Rover Breakdown Truck apart from the new plastic canopy fitted to this one, replacing the tin affair that had been fitted since the #417 was issued way back in 1960.

This another of Corgi's very long-running editions and stays in the catalogue for many years, getting cast wheels, transfers instead of stickers and, of course, Whizzwheels in the 1970s.

Something else with some play value was the #478 Jeep FC-150, although this is yet another re-working of an existing model. The same Jeep in red and lacking suspension or interior was available as Gift Set 14 in 1961. Now the lamp standard has gone but the character still remains (for a while).

The boom can be found in painted silver, plain metal silver and also gold-coloured metal. There is a variation with a red interior and the wheels become cast later in its long life, although it never gets Whizzwheels, oddly enough.

Two more very simple adaptations prolong the life of a couple of other old models. The #1110 Mobilgas Tanker was first seen in 1959 with the Big Bedford cab. All Corgi have done is add the new Bedford TK cab and changed the number to #1140.

The same trick was done with the #1129 1962 Milk Tanker.

Add a Bedford TK cab and call it #1141. Corgi didn't even change the trailer component. Well, they may have changed the coverage of the light blue colour on the tanker towards the rear but, as it is so simple to swap things over, I cannot be absolutely sure. #1129 models seem all to have the blue colour all the way along the lower half whereas the #1141 stops in a 90° corner.

Both these models had very short period of availability for dealers to order and are hard to find now - but do beware of an old rear section hitched to a new front one. With the Milk Tanker, that's not so easy as the 'milk' blue is not the same as the other blues used for the cab. The red for the Mobilgas Tanker, though, is more readily switched.

Finally, for 1965, you could have been one of the first to have bought a Gift Set 32, the #53 Massey Ferguson Tractor with Shovel attachment and driver, towing the #62 Tipper Trailer (with raves) issued in February. The #53 is the last of the shovel attachment types in all bare metal.

This is yet another hard to find item now and a valuable Gift Set when in good condition with its original, nicely illustrated box and display.

If you had been lucky enough to get this lot, as shown here (apart from the late #256) in your Christmas Stocking (well, you'd have need a pillow-case!) then your parents might have forked out 87/2d (that's 4pounds, 7 shillings and 2 pence). Now, however, you'd be able to sell them for £1500 if you' d managed to keep everything nice and original, as well as the boxes, of course. (For reference, inflation between 1965 and 2025 would make the original price around £120 in today's buying terms. So definitely an inflation-busting investment that you could also have had a lot of enjoyment from - on the carpet in the 1960s and in cabinets in the 2020s (and probably the loft in the years in between!)

The Corgi Model Club : a taxi while we wait . . .

 

1962 was a good summer for fans of the Ford Thunderbird. Corgi had issued the Hard Top and Convertible 'S' upgrades with suspension and new colours in June and in July they had another go at the Convertible and added a strange-looking roof, stickers and a driver to a new issue #430 called a Bermuda Taxi.

It would have been a relatively inexpensive set of changes at the time and I am sure the same consideration was persuasive when deciding on this month's release from the Corgi Model Club. It's a cheerful model and brightened up a gloomy November morning when it arrived.

You'll see some additional packing with this one - a quite solid bit of card protecting one end, as well as the now familiar chunks of white foam plastic. The cars are also now being wrapped in thin white paper. I can only assume that some people have complained about some scuff marks on unprotected models that allowed a little movement in the past. It's a good idea but I do have to say that in the old days we had the box, the car and a membership certificate and that was it in the vast majority of cases! 

It is another excellent reproduction all round. I don't have my original to hand to make comparison photographs but everything is pretty much as for the re-issue of 215S which you can refer to.

The additions will be the roof, stickers and the driver. The stickers are not stickers so don't try to peel them off as you could with an original model. Whilst I appreciate that these transfers, or maybe they are produced as part of an advanced printing process now, look good and will be cheaper to produce than separate items which then have to be stuck on, and this is not like other issues where we were given the stickers on a sheet to apply as and where we wanted, I would have preferred stickers to make this that much closer to the old #430.

The driver is the one I am familiar with in these models. I have encountered, and written about, another with bigger yellow boots and one or two other differences but I have no idea if that one ever appeared in an original #430 or was something a parts firm had created. This chap looks fatter than I remember the original being but I really cannot be sure about that.

As always, the box is very shiny and I still have an issue with some of the fonts used but the main appearance is very good.

As something to keep us amused for a while this is fine but you know, and I am sure the Club knows, that we are really holding our breath for the much more exciting things due in the next two or three months!

Original Steed brollies and how not to pack a Corgi Gift Set

I seldom win at normal auctions. That is because the amount I am prepared to spend is too low and that is, in turn, due to the extraordinary additions for fees, tax, packing and more tax. A £200 bid turns into an invoice for £348! (30% fee, £30 packing/delivery, 20% VAT). Now £200 might have been a good price, a bargain even, but £348 more often than not isn't. So I do the sums and set a maximum to take account of all this - and lose.

Just occasionally, on a rainy day at some village venue with no internet connection, I am successful and once or twice I do win over the internet just by good fortune. Two of these occasions have been when I've won an Avengers Gift Set, each with the early green Bentley, original boxes in reasonably good condition but lacking the original packing pieces.

Whenever I send this set to customers, whether the models are lovely or chipped or the boxes reproduction or original, I wrap the cars separately and placed away from the box which, itself, is wrapped to prevent damage. I know what damage can be done if this is not done as the first set I won some years ago arrived and I found the box card had been pierced several times by a Bentley mudguard moving around and chips had been made to the white Lotus paintwork.

So on this second occasion I wrote to the auction house and the packing company they recommended, very clearly requesting that they take care to separate the models and the box.

Here's what arrived:

Although they had gone to great lengths to protect the exterior of the box from damage from the outside, I could see as I opened the box that everything was inside the GS40 box. The reason I started taking photos at this point was that I could hear and feel a rattle, movement inside the box, so was already concerned.

Inside the well-wrapped outside packing you can see here that the two models are not where they should be and seem free to move around.

All that had been added to the box were two loosely crumpled pieces of thin white paper, leaving the models plenty of scope for movement.

As it happens the damage was nothing like as much as I had feared. The cars had uprooted Mrs Peel and that had torn the flap where she stands, worn some of the wheel placement holes more than they were before and produced a small chip on a rear mudguard of the Bentley. I also thought that movement had rubbed some paint off the Elan S2 text in the casting but I think that had been deliberately done by the owner. It actually looks quite good and I thought it was a transfer at first, before I looked more closely.

The box appears to have survived. It was already a little worn but has all its flaps and, apart from some possible dents here and there, I cannot really complain about anything in that respect.

I have written to the people concerned and expressed my annoyance that my instructions were not followed and hoping that they'll be more careful when packing similar items again. I'll ask for a little compensation but don't expect much as with models that have been played with it is always difficult, in the absence of good auction house photos for comparison, to show fresh damage.

On a brighter note, I now have three two original umbrellas! 

I had two one before and this set had the third another. It is not at all easy to distinguish originals but I think I can now do so. Replacements are either metal, which are obvious, or plastic and there are two things to look for in the plastic types: the detail in the furling. handle and the tip. Originals have quite fine and detailed furling marks where the material wraps around and the tip is well-shaped. The reproductions I've looked at often have almost no definition and poor finish at the point. Both appear to have remnants of plastic from where they were detached from a sprue. Originals at the top, many reproductions at the bottom.

You will see two originals on the left are quite clearly different under magnification. I have to admit to believing that the third was original too and only now as I study the enlarged images have I realised that is not the case. So I still need one more! (And I must edit the listing I made yesterday.)

Because it is so difficult to distinguish these in a display of a Gift Set I have offered a substantial reduction in the set price for anyone who is content with three reproduction brollies and maybe then I can keep the two until a third appears one day.

 

Blue Beauties

 

I had this selection of recent additions to my collection on the shelf next to where I write and it just occurred to me how lovely they are and, in particular, how I have liked blue editions of many in the range. I was going to write about some annoying careless packaging but instead decided to be more cheerful this morning and leave that until later.

The Oldsmobile Super 88 is a very plain Corgi. Nothing opens, no suitcases or jewelled lights and the huge white stripe always strikes me as odd but there is something about this model in this colour that makes it one of my favourites and I was so pleased to find this lovely example recently. The shade is typical mid 1960s and you can almost hear the Beach Boys record playing in the background.  The more common metallic shade seems quite boring in comparison.

Now you don't need me to remind you that the Jaguar Mk X can be found in a really large range of colours, including several variations of blue, from solid sky blue to what is often called 'kingfisher blue'. This deep metallic blue is one of the best I have had and even the paint around the headlamps has survived the last 60 years (and a trip from Germany where my friend Andi found it). 

As a child I had the rather unpleasant pale green version. All the first issues were either solid sky blue or that green but I can only imagine I didn't have any choice when I bought mine. I remember returning to the toy shop a couple of years later when working for a local farmer meant that I had some money to spend each week on Corgis. There on his counter was a metallic cerise Jaguar Mk X that he had been showing to someone else and it was such an improvement that it was the first 'duplicate' I acquired. It is only over the last ten years or so that I have realised just how many colours that were issued. If I had known I would have asked the shop owner to look out for this one, for sure.

Another model with a fair range of colours is the Ghia L6.4. My first one was a strange, darkish turquoise-blue shade with a red interior but the duplicate I acquired in sage green was my favourite at the time. I was particularly fond of the cream interior and delighted to find a more normal metallic blue version with that cream interior some 50 years later! Of course, I now appreciate that there are many shades of the metallic blue and the model I should have illustrated here is the one with matching door panels as opposed to the odd red ones in this example. They are original, though, but I have never seen red door panels in the sage green car. They do appear in some gold cars with cream interior. The few bronze editions that I have had have only had all cream interiors too.

This was the first Corgi to have opening everything and it was a delight to own and play with. I shall probably always have one of these to look at somewhere around me. People do buy them every time I advertise them and then I have to start looking for another but, luckily, they are a bit easier to find than the Jaguar!

The Oldsmobile Toronado was after my time, to coin a phrase, in that by 1967 I was listening to Radio London, collecting 7" singles and albums by the Byrds and The Mamas and The Papas, singing Monkees songs and writing poems to possible girlfriends. It was one of the first 'new' Corgis that I found when I started all this Corgi stuff in 2012 or thereabouts. Again, that lovely metallic blue finish and very bright and clean-looking, almost white, interior appealed to me. The opening twin headlights were nice, especially with the chromed finish and operated so much better than those on the Chevrolet Sting Ray of earlier times.

It didn't do much else than flash its headlamps and shine with all that glorious chrome (the chrome sills were great) but the design just works for me. 

For a long time I was confused by what appeared to be variations but eventually I realised that the #264 model in a box did not have a tow bar and those that did were from Gift Set 36 with a Glastron Speedboat. I did, however, much prefer the look of the early and quite scarce editions with normal wheels as opposed to the more common cast variety.

Whilst on the topic of attractive 'blue' Corgis, I have written before about how I searched for a metallic blue #230 for  while before appreciating that Corgi had revised the Mercedes 220SE as #253 without steering and modifications to the boot and pillars. I did love the steering on the #230 model and the black model is likely to rank in my all-time Top 20 but I do like the blue #253. It must be that cream interior again!

I cannot allow any text on this topic to be published without reference to what could be my favourite Corgi - the metallic blue Ford Mustang.

Here it has wire wheels as that was the first photo I found. I think the one with plain wheels may be the one that actually tops my own poll. I will have to write a note to myself not sell the next one I find in good condition! Maybe this article will do.

For now, though, I hope you will excuse my rambling about some not particularly different or hard to find models but, instead, remembering just how nice ordinary Corgis can be.

I am aware that I have not mentioned a whole host of other models in blue that may or may not deserve mention. These few just happened to be next to me.

Corgi Toys @ 60 : the Wickerwork Mini-Cooper and a Beast Carrier

 

November 1965 brought us the Beast Carrier in an individual box. Previously it had only been available in Gift set 33 with a Ford 5000 Tractor. It still has the four different calves inside on a card 'straw' base and a green plastic mesh above.

I am not aware of any variations to this model in its life from 1965 to a quite extraordinarily late 1972.

Also lasting quite a while in the catalogue will be the Mini-Cooper with deluxe wickerwork as it says on the box, with Morris Mini-Cooper on the base, this being essentially a way to give the #227 model a longer life.

It starts with the old type 1 casting and normal shaped wheels. Later the Type 2 mini casting is used and then cast wheels get added too. I seem to recall that I have had both transition models - type 1 with cast wheels and type 2 with shaped wheels - but I may need to check that before you go looking for a missing variation! It would seem unlikely that both exist but that did turn out to be the case with the #416 RAC Radio rescue Land Rover with the headboard and wheel types, so who knows what was possible?

The 'Wickerwork' comprises plastic panels which were quite easy to remove without damaging the black paintwork. So you may well encounter many black Mini-Coopers with red roofs! 

The later models are often used to make reproductions of the Pop Art Mini as they have the right casting, jewels, interior, wheels and base.

The film Shot In The Dark was released in the UK in 1965 and starred Peter Sellers and this gave much publicity to the stylish (for those times) Mini - something upon which Corgi were particularly good at cashing in.

Some interesting little Imps

 Many, many years ago I came across a #251 Hillman Imp in bronze with jewelled fog lights. This week another one arrived and, unlike the first one, this is in pretty reasonable condition.

It is a strange model. It has the same jewelled fog lights as were added to the first Monte Carlo Hillman Imp #328 but the windscreen is the later style with two horizontal lines as was fitted to the second Monte Carlo (Sunbeam) Imp #340.

It is the same bronze colour as was used for the Transporter Gift Set models, which were also available individually in boxes for some lucky buyers at the time. Although this one came with an original #251 box I have no idea whether that was added later and believe this would have been part of a late set and not issued individually. With its normal shaped wheels it is not the last of the #251 production as I also have the delightful and very scarce edition with cast wheels.

The timeline for Imps starts with the blue (and maybe individual bronze) issues in November 1963.

These were withdrawn from dealers' order lists in 1966 and were absent in the 1967 Corgi Catalogue.

The Car Transporter Gift Sets 41/48 were available from December 1966 to 1968 and these contained the bronze edition.

The first rally edition, #328, had a short life from January 1966 to February 1967 with the #340 edition appearing in March 1967 and staying around until quite late in 1969.

All #328 models had shaped wheels and no lines on the windscreen. They can be found with either yellow or white interiors.

The double lines on the screen were absent from the #328 model but do appear on all #340 models, even the early ones with normal shaped wheels. Later (and most) #340 models have cast wheels.

All the 506 Police Imps were the Sunbeam version, using the #340 style of base, and all these had the double lines on the screen and cast wheels.The Police models often display marks at the front where the holes for four jewels were filled in.

So it would seem that cast wheels were first fitted to Imps in late 1967 or early 1968 and the one I have in bronze would have come from one of the last Transporter sets in 1968.

The bronze edition with jewelled fog lights is likely to have arisen when the #328 was replaced by the #340 and bodies given a bronze coat of paint instead of the metallic blue and, as this would have been in early 1967, I can only imagine the small batch getting this treatment were sold in a few Transporter Gift sets in early-mid 1967. Although it is possible that they were sent out to dealers as a sort of one-off addition, maybe free to them, I suspect the box with this one has been added at some time between 1967 and 2025.

I shall, therefore, put this one with the cast wheel edition in my own collection cabinet and transfer the box to one or other of my #251 models that I have available for sale. I might sell the other two but they will not be cheap as I do think they're pretty scarce models and, at the moment, I have nothing to compare them with in terms of valuation.

I do seem to be accumulating rather a lot of models like this - genuinely very scarce ones for which I have little guidance as to what they may be worth. It is probably the case that values for items like these will very much depend upon the depth of the pockets of those who would like them. For my own part, my resources are quite limited and, even if something wonderful appeared on the market that I had always wanted but never owned, my limit would have to reside in the three figure numbers. For someone fortunate enough to have a far greater amount of funds available, and with other living expenses taken care of so that whatever he has he may spend freely on a hobby such as Corgi Toys, then should he wish to have a model, and that model is likely to appear just once in a blue moon, then he will pay a vast sum for the satisfaction with just a mere small dent in his bank balance.

Corgi Model Club Mini Magnifique again

 

The Corgi Model Club issued another Mini 'Magnifique' recently, this time in metallic green and with wide bands on the sliding roof.

It always struck me as a remarkably sold model, bearing in mind how many things opened or moved, and the Club edition has that same feeling of strength, with a high quality finish, inside and out.

The axle ends, as for the blue one, of course, look a bit large but not big enough to be hub caps and just look slightly odd. This is the case with several Club models.

Both the box and the certificate indicate that this is a different model to the blue edition issued in late 2023.

The blurb on the reverse of the Certificate reminds us that the first Mini had been issued in 1960 and remarks that this model had disappointing sales. The 237,000 that I have seen as recorded sales does not seem too bad, pretty much on par with many other models released in 1969 and 1970, if one ignores the favourites like police cars and racing cars. It was actually not issued until December 1968 so a withdrawal in 1970 would imply this model being available for dealers over a rather shorter period than two years, in which case the sales were not that bad. Indeed, they were four times the figures for the Monkeemobile. Read into that what you will!

It is a nice addition to the Model Club collection and might spice up interest in collectors now looking for the original in the many forms I discussed in a previous article.