Corgi Toys @ 60 : Gift set 35 and an old Daimler

 It's July 1964 and our local toy shop gets a Daimler to add to the shelves. I had hoped at the time that it might be a Daimler Dart or something I could play with but, no, it was the third 'Classic' old timer model in the shape of a 1910 Daimler 38HP, no 9021.

With a chauffeur at the wheel and three passengers it is a busy model. There are three horns along the bottom of the windscreen and two gigantic headlamps either side of the radiator with a nice emblem on top. I had always thought that colours in the early 20th Century were drab but here we have a bright red car with bright yellow wheels!

It is well-made and very detailed and a credit to Corgi's production at the time but not for their marketing sense as, like the other 'Classics', sales were not great. You just couldn't play with these models. Without suspension, they were awkward to steer round corners and lots of bits were vulnerable to breaking. As a consequence, many seldom left their boxes and can now be found easily - with excellent examples for very small prices.

Something that can't now be found so easily is the Gift Set 35 - the 'London Passenger Set' which was also issued at this time.

This featured the 418 Austin Taxi but with two differences - it now had a driver and it now had free-spinning wheels. Although one has recently come to light*, every other example of the 418 prior to Whizzwheels had fixed wheels, smooth or shaped but always fixed.

The driver would be the old chap in a uniform at first, actually the Cato character re-employed from the 269 Green Hornet. Later he will be replaced by a Fred Housego character looking much more relaxed and very much like the Thunderbird driver of old.

The bus was the usual 469 model with a Corgi Toys banner in early editions, later changing to Outspan Oranges.

There is also a policeman on point duty, rotating on a white plastic podium. This part is very difficult to find now so making up a set is not an easy task, even if you do manage to find a good reproduction box.

With the rather different scales of the bus and taxi, this set does look a bit strange on display. Not very many were sold and now complete sets in original boxes are valuable items.

*Discovered by my collector friend, Andi, in France. We think that it may have been a model intended for a Gift Set but the driver was accidentally missed at the factory. It is feasible that free-spinning wheels could have been fitted to the normal 418 but one would have expected many to be available if that were the case.

The Wilford Collection Pt 5: The Daimler that was not 'Available Later' and odd Bentleys

The 1966 and 1967 Corgi catalogues included illustrations of 9022, a 1910 Daimler 38 with a hood, marked as AVAILABLE LATER. To all intents and purposes this looked like 9021, a red Daimler 38 with folded back hood and driver plus a full load of passengers, but painted blue with a red-brown closed hood.

Corgi were good at making one casting do several things. This one, however, never got into production. What I have here is a sample, looking almost complete but lacking a steering wheel.

A full selection of images of this unique item can be seen here.

It is in excellent condition with no chips or scratches, the screen has survived and so too has the vulnerable radiator emblem.

I also have the 9021 Daimler which may also have been a sample but it appears indistinguishable from examples of issued models that I have. I would, nevertheless, prefer to see these kept together in case, at some point, someone does spot some differences. Shown above is a production model and, below, the model in the Wilford Collection.

What is quite different, however, is one of the 1927 Bentley 3 Litres in the collection. This clearly was intended to be an example of a model with the hood down by the look of the windscreen(s) which would not have supported the full length hood. The horn on the side is painted bright silver, as opposed to the black on issued models, and there is a very detailed dashboard with a tremendously realistic-looking (albeit rather small) steering wheel. This needs a rear folded hood, in my view, but they are simple enough to obtain and I may well supply one with this when sold.

You can see where the idea for this style of screen came from.

Whether this was an early sample for what would become 9001 I do not know. It may also have been the older Mr Wilford's team working with an existing 9001/2 body to create a different edition, perhaps even an idea for Steed's Bentley in the Avengers Gift Set. It would have been in keeping with the Bentley they might have seen in the instalment this screenshot came from:

However, here's John Steed again in a Bentley with the same registration - but it's  on a 3 litre car now not the 4½ litre! 

I have visions of some confusion in the office as the series progressed! Do they re-brand the model 4½ litre? Do they move the spare wheel, not just from left to right but maybe to the rear? That might explain the odd editions that they did include, none of which bear more than passing resemblance to any of the Steed vehicles. 

Another Bentley was in the Wilford office drawer. It looks like a standard 9001 at first glance.

The wheels, radiator and headlamp unit and handbrake are all in a gold-coloured metal rather than the usual grey or silver colour. We know that this gold colour appears on the 9004 Jeeves & Wooster Bentley and, reportedly, in some Avengers Sets but this one has a RN3 on the back and the Union flag on the passenger door à la 9001.

The screen has a chunk missing and this also needs a hood of some type but is otherwise complete and in very good condition. It is certainly another unusual edition and will be made available soon, possibly paired with the small twin screen edition and a complete 9002 from the same source that does seem totally standard.

More images of the small screen Bentley, the gold wheel 9001 and this red 9002 are available.

From The Great Book of Corgi. "Some very near Misses".

From the 1966 Catalogue

Still shown in the 1967 Catalogue

I do believe that the 9022 Daimler is unique in being the only proposed model that remained AVAILABLE LATER across two catalogue printings.

These items are available to purchase. Contact me if you would like more information.

Samples from the Corgi Factory!

It's funny what can happen when you're in a hotel car park in Towcester. I had arranged to meet a young Mr Wilford, recently flown in from New Zealand to help his mother with some things, whose father had been a Designer at Corgi and whose grandfather had been Percy Wilford, one of Corgi's Chief Designers. He said he had a few odd items lying around at his mother's house and wondered if I could advise him. 

First of all he gets out a box of pretty tedious-looking Corgi Classics and they're all familiar apart from one that catches my eye. Yes, it's the 9022 Daimler 1910 38 'Available Later' in the Corgi Catalogue. It's missing a steering wheel and dashboard but looked otherwise finished and ready to put on the market.

I took another look also at a Bentley 1927 3½ litre. Initially the silver horn had caught my eye but then I noticed the very detailed dashboard and steering wheel! Marvellous work by someone there.

There are also some motorcycles that I do not recognise but which seem to be Corgi proptotypes. Perhaps there might have been a series of bikes in someone's plans at the time?

In another box were some Whizzwheel models and amongst them some strangely coloured Alfa Romeo P33s. 

I knew this car in white rather than metallic light pink, blue or rhododendron!

The Porsche 911 Targa also looked different. The wheels. Now they suited the car so much better than the ubiquitous Whizzwheels it came out with. I also know the car with a black interior for this shade, not the bright orange.

Turning the cars over, revealed an explanation.

These were all samples, with bases screwed on rather than riveted. How much easier our lives would be now had Corgi used screws throughout!

Now, imagine the scene. You'll see that we were using a table outside the hotel and had Corgi Toys spread here and there. An older chap walks by with his wife and remarks something to the effect of 'That's a nice display. I recognise some of those.'

We tell him who we are and what we're doing and he tells us that he also worked at Corgi Toys in Northampton. Mr Hancock was another Designer there. Quite an extraordinary coincidence. he proceeds to tell the young Mr Wilford that he is very much like his father, who Mr Hancock had known well and worked with in the later 1960s and he tells us that his picture is in The Great Book Of Corgi. and the young Mr. Wilford just happens to have that in the boot of his car! After some shuffling through the pages, Mr Hancock finds himself in one of the pictures again.

Mr Hancock did say that his specialist area was 'wheels'. Apparently he had the best set of compasses there at the time. I did briefly wonder whether we had met the man responsible for Whizzwheels but I decided not to pursue that subject. Another day, perhaps.

We move on to look at another box. This one contains gold-plated models. The Batmobile and Jaguar show signs of tarnishing that I presume would imply that it's not real gold plating but some other compound that looks nice and shiny and gold but reacts more to the air.

Looking much brighter are a Ferrari Berlinetta, a Rover 2000 (252 type) and Jaguar Mk X.

These show no signs of tarnishing and are all pretty much immaculate, just in need of a careful clean. there is also a lovely Land Rover (438 type) with some nice black paint detailing on top of the plating.

I believe that these gold-plated items would have been examples of maybe a dozen or so made as gifts for important visitors or people Corgi executives visited. These are just some that were not used or, perhaps, were samples as many of the items gave me the impression that they came from a Samples Department which was referred to in some paperwork.

The young Mr Wilford also had piles of books and catalogues. The two Great Books Of Corgi had been signed by Marcel Van Cleemput.

A nice collection of original catalogues were there too, most pretty much as new, with Canada or New Zealand and dates written on them. again, I am assuming these were samples from a print run.

Although featured here at the end, the first thing I actually had spotted was this metallic lime green Chevrolet Camaro, the 304 edition with Whizzwheels. 

The solid blue edition is scarce as it is, so to find another colour was a great surprise and, for me, one of the most exciting items there.

For others it may be the gold-plated Batmobile or the never- issued Daimler but I think my personal favourite out of all is the gold-plated Rover 2000. It's just the standard 252 car, plated. Wonderful.

All in all, a pleasant and fascinating afternoon with the remarkable coincidence of a chap wandering in to a hotel in Towcester meeting someone from New Zealand who had his photo in a book in his boot! But I find my life is full of surprises anyway. 

Now, I need help from you people out there as to what that plating may or may not be. I need to suggest to the young Mr Wilford how we should go about disposing or these items, or not, as the case may be. Whilst I cannot say that all or any of these will be available to purchase in the near future or, indeed, that I will get the task of arranging identification and sale, if you do wish to express an interest in any of them or are aware of similar items that had been sold in the past, then do please get in touch.

I am confident that, with a bit of help, I will be able to make as good a job of finding good new homes at worthwhile prices as the big auction houses.

The Classics

Often overlooked in listings of Corgi Toys from the era before things went wrong are the Classics that they produced from around 1964. These were beautifully detailed models of jalopies from yesteryear and that, of course, may have been one of the terms they had in mind at the time as Matchbox had established a good name in this field already with their 'Yesteryear' brand.

These were not models that kids would zoom around the floor, though, and were, perhaps, the first that may really have been aimed at older collectors, not just because they were a bit staid in comparison to Oldsmobile Toronados or Buick Rivieras but they had bits that might break off more easily. I remember that I had no interest in them at all and only had the Steed Bentley because I had been a huge fan of The Avengers and my parents bought me the Gift Set. The Lotus was well played with but the Bentley, to this day, stayed virtually unmarked.

That set, however, was not where things started and may even have only come about as a result of sales of the Bentleys not being exactly massive. It all started with a green 'racing' edition which came with a hood and a driver clad in what looked like a pile of bandages. I didn't put the driver in the photos. 

The wheels of 9001 were always steel and it can be identified from similar models by having white Racing Number 3 on the rear and radiator grill. There is also a Union Jack on the passenger door panel.

In the first launch also was 9002, a red Bentley, just the same as 9001 but this had red wheels and no Racing Numbers. It had the same full hood. I think it also had a driver who still seemed to be wearing bandages but not as white.

The same Bentley appeared later in Gift Set 40, as Steed's vehicle from The Avengers TV series. Most were red with steel wheels but there were also green Bentleys (which would have been a more appropriate colour as Steed never actually had a red one!) which were like 9001 but with no Racing Numbers or Union Jack. In either case the full hood was replaced by a folded variety. The green Bentley would have red or steel wheels. A figure of John Steed, dressed in a grey-brown suit and tie would be at the wheel.

Much later than all the others, the same Bentley re-appeared as 9004 in green again but this time with grey-black rails and a much brighter red-brown interior. Jeeves would be at the wheel with his master, Bertie Wooster, leaning against the car in quite a remarkable tweed suit and nice reproduction of his monocle.

This would have steel wheels and, again, no Racing Numbers or flag.

After the Bentleys came the Ford Model T cars. Again, wonderfully well-made but quite vulnerable to damage. the screens on these are often broken. First was 9011 in black with a couple of figures.

9012 was the same Model T but in yellow and with the same two figures in the box. Both 9011 and 9012 were open with folded holds at the rear.

9013 was the Model T in blue and came with a fixed full hood. It also had a chap leaning down at the front, grabbing the starter handle. I have him but he isn't in the photo.

The catalogues illustrate 9014, a Lyons Tea Model T commercial vehicle but that never made it into production.

9021 is a very impressive and bright Daimler. This is packed with characters and is also a very heavy model compared to the others. The bright red paint and yellow wheels really look quite extraordinary. I totally missed this car at the time and it was only a few months ago that I became acquainted with it. There's no way I would have bought one then. Now, you'll see in the catalogues another Daimler described as 9022 with a hood, I think it is in dark blue. This never made it into production although I have seen a pre-production example from the factory and maybe some are circulating.

Next in the catalogue come two 1910 Renaults. 9031 is a sort of mauve colour and 9032 is primrose.

In other respects these are identical and had no characters with them, a cheaper option all round.

The series ends quite soon after it began with this extremely old-fashioned and rather unappealing to the young Rolls Royce Silver Cloud which is more like a bus than a car. It is, again, beautifully made, with remarkable detail, jewelled headlamps on this one and the flying lady on the radiator. I have two varieties: one with gold wheels and a grey exhaust, another with steel colour wheels and  a black exhaust. 

These are all models for older folk to display. Indeed, most came with picture boxes and some had stands included or a sort of street scene illustration inside the box. Not the Rolls, though, which came in a ubiquitous bubble pack - quite inappropriate for that class of vehicle! Cost were being cut, though, and these didn't sell well. Many were made, though, and as a consequence you can but these for really low prices, even with their boxes.

If you just want to buy the cars themselves then you'll find Rolls Royces going for £10-£20 and the Renaults and Fords seldom cost more than £30. The Bentleys can be a bit more expensive, often because people confuse them with Steed's from the Gift Set. A 9001 would be £30-£40, a 9002 £40 -£50 and the most expensive is the comparatively scarce 9004 with Jeeves and Wooster at around £60.

An original Steed's Bentley in good condition may also cost you around £60. Most green ones I encounter are adaptations of one of the others and original green Steed's Bentleys are likely to be a bit more.

If you ignore the Bentleys, though, you'll realise that you can have a complete set of the Classics, all easily found in A/A+ condition, on display for less than £100.