Corgi Toys @ 60: A Ford, Monte Carlo and The Avengers

 January 1966 and Corgi bring three new models to your local toy shop, although only one is completely new.

The lovely Ford Consul Cortina Super Estate Car is all new and a delightful model in rich metallic blue with a bright, almost white interior. The rear door opens and it originally appears on a tray insert with a golfer and boy caddy with the golf trolley which you will recognise from the 'surprise in the boot' of the Chrysler Imperial issued a few months earlier in August 1965.

This model will be released later as #491 on its own in September 1966, when it will appear also in metallic red and metallic grey, with cast wheels being fitted towards the end of production but very seldom will you see these on a blue model.

It appears likely that only the blue model was used for the first issues of #440 but, of course, now it is impossible to know whether a red or grey has been substituted or if they really were in the box when bought.

Perhaps the 'star' attraction for this month will have been The Avengers Gift Set 40.

This set helped sell some more of the old Bentleys that had not been very popular as well as bringing new life to the sales of the Lotus Elan, previously in metallic blue as #318 in July 1965. Now with the "I've got a tiger in my tank" transfer removed and in white the Lotus is a good representation of the car driven by Emma Peel in the first series of the TV programme. The red Bentley, however, is not so accurate!

Early sets featured a green Bentley which would have been a preferable colour for Steed (albeit somewhat bright, I feel) but on no account would he have driven anything with red wheels! 

The set has plastic figures for Steed and Mrs Peel, neither looking very attractive when viewed closely but acceptable at a distance, and three brollies. Original brollies are very hard to find now and most sets you will find have replacements which can be identified with a magnifying glass (see a recent article on this subject).

Beware the many, many reproduction sets of poor quality or downright incorrect composition. Many dealers use a reproduction Steed that is actually from a mould of Jeeves from the #9004 World of Wooster set. The figure supplied by a major 'spare parts' company in Leicestershire was Jeeves in a grey suit and may still be, although I have not ordered any for some time. They may have mended their ways in this respect since. Original Emmas usually have two or more black stripes at the bottom of her trousers but I have also seen what may well be originals with just the single stripe so it is not so easy to tell with her. Some have very poor facial definition and painting, however, and these are likely to be reproductions.

Most reproduction boxes are poor copies too, with colours that are too bright, the wrong quality card and, of course, there are many produced with printers at home on white card as well. I sell many sets and use a particularly fine reproduction box but most I see are nothing like as good, even from those better-known repro box people.

Although you will encounter many variations of the composition, there really are just the two original sets as illustrated here. You will find gold wheels instead of steel colour on the red Bentley, but seldom will all five be the same shade. The Lotus may get cast wheels towards the end of its production run too. That is all, however, apart from the factory one-off samples. I know of a green Bentley with black mudguards and steel wheels, for instance, which is a much better match for those in the series but this would have been a sample for marketing consideration.

Although Mrs Peel drove a powder blue Elan in the second series, the issued sets only ever feature a white car. Some made-up sets show a green #9001 Bentley with the Union flag and RN3 transfers removed and a folded hood replacing the original type alongside a white or metallic blue Elan. These can be nice displays and maybe slightly more accurate but are not original. A green Bentley in the original set always had red wheels and was a slightly different shade to the #9002 model too so any attempt to switch wheels can be identified and needs to be looked out for.

The other not so new model is a 1966 edition of the Monte Carlo BMC Mini-Cooper. Corgi retained the #321 catalogue number for this but it is completely different to the 1965 #321 in several ways. Obviously this one has RN2 on the doors and a transfer of two drivers' signatures on the roof. You will also see that the Mini is a quite different casting, with no fog lights in the metal and this has just the two jewelled fog lights instead of the three before.

The first issues came in the #321 box with an illustration of the RN52 model and a sticker added to distinguish it. Later a box is produced with the RN2 model illustrated.

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.

 

The Avengers: Toy Trap

As well as being the title of a 1961 episode of the classic TV series, there are certainly traps that some people may lure you into in connection with these toys. The Gift Set 40 is a wonderful presentation of John Steed in a 3 Litre 1927 Bentley and Mrs Emma Peel standing next to a Lotus Elan S2.

Three black folded brollies complete the scene with which I am sure all collectors are very familiar.

Above are illustrated two sets which I can vouch for as being totally original and unchanged since they were first bought in 1966 when they were first sold. They came out a couple of years after the 9001/2 Bentleys and I have often wondered whether their conception had been at a committee meeting to decide what to do with what might have been a large stock of unsold classic Bentleys.

Having said that, the green Bentley issued was a distinctly different shade to that of the 9001 issue. Both the red and green also had a change of wheel, the red 9002 getting steel or slightly gold-tinted wheels and the green sporting extraordinary red wheels. Now, you might be tempted to assume that Corgi simply put the steel wheels from the 9001 on the red set Bentley and the red ones from the 9002 on the green one. The steel wheels were pretty ubiquitous, accepted, but the red ones are a different, brighter colour and that still doesn't account for the noticeably gold-tinted wheels. Furthermore, the 9002 model invariably seems to have a quite gold-coloured radiator surround and lights which does not seem to have made its way through to sets which I believe are all showing the silver colour, whether red or green Bentley body.

There is a third and very scarce Bentley.

This time it is green but with black mudguards and running board. I have only just acquired this one (and the box illustrated here is a reproduction that I have put the original models in) but I have been aware of its existence for many years.

original rivets intact

Side by side with a 9001 - interior identical

This is not, as many people will think, the 9004 World of Wooster edition. That has a dark grey, not black section that provides the running boards and mudguards. It is also a quite different shade of green and the most obvious difference if those are missed will be the fact that the 9004 has a red interior, not brown as all the Gift Set 40 models do. Amusingly, someone had moaned at the seller of this model and said that it was a 9004 and this had led the seller to include the other person's remarks! This seems to have put off other bidders and I was able to win this at quite a modest price, thanks to the person who likes to criticise listings.

It may have been the same person who wrote to me about a set I had for sale last week. It was clearly described as featuring an adapted green Bentley and not an original component but I guess he had just seen the pictures and fired off the missive telling me that the green Bentley could only have red wheels. I replied to the effect that, whilst the vast majority of Gift Set 40 green Bentleys will have had red wheels, I was selling a set that I knew Avengers fans liked and was not trying to pretend it was original. I also made the point that on a Friday afternoon shift we could never be sure, and Corgi production managers could never be sure, quite what may have been popped into the box! I am sure there will have been occasions when the supply of the 'correct' green / red or red/ gold Bentleys dried up some green/steel or even red/red that happened to be lying around may have been used to make up the numbers. Speaking to a lady who did work there in the 1960s and remembers some of the antics that they got up to and the lack of quality control some evenings, I am surprised these sets and others had such consistent contents as they did!

Incidentally, that set had been sold by the time I replied and the new owner has taken the trouble to say how delighted he is with it.

This latest set, however, will probably not find a buyer just yet as the Bentley has a chunk missing from the end of the offside front mudguard. I have a piece that can be used but need to figure out how to attach it as neatly as possible. I did want to bring this to the attention of collectors, though, so in the meantime, some black tape is holding it together! It will appear in my store but at a pretty silly price as I'd like to hang on to this one until another with an intact mudguard appears.

The rest of the car is excellent and unmarked. The rivet has not been tampered with and the rest is entirely as it should be. The Lotus is very good but has a few chips at one corner. I added HNK 999C registration plates to it. Steed and Mrs Peel are, of course, both original as I felt they should be to accompany such an unusual set.

As I write this it occurs to me that I mentioned an episode title from 1961. But a C registration Elan would have been from 1965. Mrs Peel did not appear until late 1965, when Diana Rigg entered our screens. That explains that. I have no idea what her predecessors drove. That's something else I shall research one day - and whether there are relevant Corgi models.

New arrivals last month

I am pleased to have available another all original Gift Set 40 for The Avengers. Apart from the brollies. The outer box is missing a small flap but is otherwise good and with little damage.

Acquired for a friend, this Fiat 1800 in mustard was thought by the seller to have been a repaint! It's actually one of the best examples of this harder to find colour that I've seen.

The Mustang with a red stripe on the sills is quite scarce. Someone with a red felt tip pen can make a pretty good effort at replicating it but this one is genuine.

  

Again something acquired for a friend, the little blue Mini Magnifique looks lovely when it has all its paint and chrome intact. This one is also the edition with a wider bands on the  sliding roof section. From my observations, the narrow bands are the far more common.

Another late edition Citroen with fog lamps in the casting but also another with poor paintwork. This also has the free-spinning shaped wheels, the model being one of only a few which can be found with all three of the earlier types of wheel - smooth fixed, shaped fixed and the free-spinning type.

The scarce Whizzwheels Rover does look glorious in its deep purple finish but the paint seems to chip off so easily that examples like this one are really few and far between. I have some others in stock but all have a chunk of paint missing at some place or another which does spoil the overall appearance considerably. This one, however, is the first I've seen outside auction web sites with no damage at all. 

A VW Military Personnel Carrier came along in really bad condition so it got the same treatment as an International Truck did earlier last month. This one isn't finished, though. The flowers around the headlights need more definition and I've just noticed that the interior has not been fitted correctly.

Another wreck got the white paint treatment but I decided against covering this one with flowers and just added transfers instead.

More stock for The Avengers

That's ridiculous, Steed.

I saw this Avengers Set advertised recently and, coupled with a conversation with a correspondent who is far more expert than I am in matters of the TV series, decided that I needed to write something on the subject of reproduction models of John Steed and Mrs Emma Peel.

Just look at the stupid expression on Mrs Peel's face and there is something decidedly strange about Steed which could even get him a part in a Dr Who episode requiring Cybermen. These are dreadful, really quite bad and we need to stop buying them. Now, let's take a closer look at Steed.

In the image above the same reproduction character is in the driving seat of Bertie Wooster's Bentley, sitting next to Jeeves. Look carefully and you'll see that these are both from the same cast. Jeeves is an original, by the way, so looks better anyway but the jacket style, bowler inclination and arm positions are the same. It seems that these idiot suppliers of spare parts couldn't be bothered to find a real Steed to copy and just reckoned we would all be happy with Jeeves in a brown suit. Well, we shouldn't be.

Here is Steed as he should be, albeit in need of a wash and brush-up perhaps. This and the one below are originals and you'll see the distinctly different clothes - there's a waistcoat, no flower in the lapel, an angled bowler and a quite different expression on his face. Not visible here are his hands which are closed and not well detailed, whereas Jeeves' are more slender.

Steed can be found in both the sage-brown and grey shades. I suspect that the sage-brown is the older of the two but I have no evidence for this. Below are some more pictures that emphasis the differences and which may help you to avoid the reproductions for years to come. They also show something else that I am not sure about - the screens on Bentleys have pips at each top corner, presumably to help keep the hood in position on the 9001 and 9002 models. On the Gift Set 40 Bentleys and the 9004 Jeeves & Wooster Bentley they seem to be missing in many cases - but not all. The reproduction screens are quite easy to spot. They're not bad but are less well-finished and have more rounded corners and no pips. An example can be seen on the red Bentley below.

And here is Steed in a 9001 Bentley that didn't have racing numbers or a flag on the passenger door. This made it a good candidate for a set but the tell-tale pip remains on one corner! Of course, the sets would only have had a green Bentley with red wheels but I do feel the green one with normal steel wheels is an acceptable alternative for display.

Generally, reproductions of Mrs Peel that I have had myself have been pretty good. In fact, I am not sure I can tell which of these three is a reproduction. I used to think that it was only those with the triple line on the flared trousers that were original but now I am pretty sure that those with a single line could also be original. Sometimes she can seem to be just a little too white and that makes me suspicious but most are not at all obvious.

However, the dreadful attempt at painting illustrated at the beginning of this piece is, indeed, obvious and we need to avoid those like the plague. Another problem is that of size. Below you'll see a range of five Emmas: the two at each end being reproductions made the incorrect size. At least they were reasonably well-painted, though.

Whilst on the topic of characters, my correspondent also told  me that several characters were, indeed, recycled by Corgi and that was something I had not realised before. He tells me that the 215S Ford Thunderbird convertible driver was later chopped and fitted without legs in The Saint's Volvo P1800. I doubt that Sir Roger Moore would have been happy with that.

I also looked the 303S Mercedes-Benz300 Open Tourer and reckon that has the same chap driving too. There may well be several others where Corgi have used the same mould for more than one character. One thing is certain, however, and I hope suppliers will now take note - Steed and Jeeves are most definitely not the same character!

A tale of two Emmas.

This is the first totally original The Avengers Gift Set 40 that I have had, I probably won't see another for a long time so I shall make the most of this while it's here. It is also a good opportunity to revisit the bits and pieces to watch out for.

The outer box is not particularly bright but it is complete and has no significant signs of wear. the flaps and edges are sound. As a reminder to anyone thinking about posting this set to anyone, the box does have two sharp dents on one side where the Bentley seems to have taken a run at the inside of the box somewhere between an auctioneers in Bury St Edmunds and Astcote. Such careless packing may also account for the small tear in the front offside wheel cut-out on the inner tray, which looks quite fresh.

Otherwise, the inner plinth is nice an clean and the colours are fresh and bright. The inner card to support the base from bowing towards the centre is missing. It nearly always is but it is a good idea to put something in there to prevent any further wear. Ideally, make some indents for the wheels too. You can do that by simply inserting the card and drawing round the inside of the holes and using a sharp knife for the cut-outs. They don't need to be too tidy as no-one will see them.

This set has the green Bentley with red wheels. That seems to be the one that gets the highest prices in the main and I think it is quite a lot less common than the red one. Whilst Steed did always have the green Bentley, his didn't have red wheels but it is as close to being accurate as you'll get in the originals.

Some commentators refer to this as the 'first edition' of the set but I am not sure about this. Yes, the box has a green Bentley illustrated but all the publicity material I have seen featured the red one in 1966. So I tend to think there were probably several variations used from the start - certainly in the first year or two. From what I can tell, the variations that were issued in sets would be the green with red wheels, red with red or silver wheels and an unusual red with gold wheels. Interestingly, the green Bentley only seems to appear with red wheels in original sets.

Mrs Peel's Lotus, of course, is always white which makes life a bit simpler. You will find late sets with cast wheels on the Lotus but I think that is the only variation.

I believe the umbrellas are original. It is not so easy to tell now, though, as some reproductions are excellent. In my view, if they're that good then it doesn't matter - we can never know without carbon dating or something! The things to look for are the lines where the brolly has been rolled up (furled) which should be clear all the way round, the handle should be evenly blobby without any furry bits and the point sharp and not with surplus plastic attached. Another simple check is to lay them next to each other and they need to look identical in size and design. Obviously that last check doesn't distinguish the reproductions but you'll get the idea.

This Lotus is very good. I have spotted small chips at the back and two very small nicks on the driver's side; one on the door and another on the rear wing. I wonder whether these, and the rear chips, had in fact been caused by the movement inside the box when in transit. Those auctioneer packers have a lot to answer for - especially as I had made it very clear to the owner and them how important it was to wrap the cars carefully (and ideally separately to the box as there was no packing card with this set).

The suspension is sound. Phew! The screen and windows are good too and the interior cleaned up well as it had been a bit dusty. The paintwork had also been quite grubby. It has cleaned up very nicely and it is possible that another go will bring it up a little more white as it has a definite creamy shade. I am assuming this is mere age and not tobacco! I am also suspicious of the very pure white examples as I am pretty sure the car should be slightly cream.

Keeping this set original, I haven't added the HNK 999C number plates but I have offered to do so if a new owner would like them.

There was a problem with the Lotus, however. The steering wheel had become detached. Again, that may have been as a result of crashing around in transit but I can't be sure. I have re-affixed it and it would be extremely hard for anyone to spot this but, nevertheless, I have to own up to this. There are too many false 'originals' being advertised and that annoys me a bit. I am looking for another Lotus Elan to provide in this set but they are not easy to find in as good condition. So until something better comes along that's how it has to be.

The Bentley is super. There are usually some chips on the side of the rails but this one has none. The hood is original, as is the screen and the vulnerable horn on the driver's side. Although it is possible to replace wheels, there are no signs that these are not as originally fitted.

Steed always needs to be looked at carefully. He is less likely to go missing than Mrs Peel and is not that easy to take out so the chances are that he will be genuine if everything else is good. His suit and hat should be grey and not a brown shade of grey and definitely not glossy as some reproduction figures can be. This has some wear on top of the hat, leaving a pink patch beneath, which I have seen before on several sets. Some people have been known to drop Jeeves in the seat and say it's John Steed but they're just stupid and you'll spot that easily!

Mrs Peel, however, can be a problem. This set arrived with the character on the right. I have my suspicions that she was a reproduction. The base is quite a bright green and the trousers have a single black decoration. All the replacements I have used have had similar features to that one. The one or two characters that I have had that I have had good reason to believe were originals, and by far the majority of sets auctioned by professionals like QDT, have a darker, more drab, green base and three fine black lines on Mrs Peel's trousers.

The one I prefer as original is also slightly taller. They each have very similar finish, though, with identical buttons, jacket folds, hands, hats etc. So I don't know. I would be surprised if they are both original but I suppose it is possible. I am going to settle for the one with one band being a very good reproduction, though, and have donated my original to this set in its place.

I also removed the CRI 479 number plate!

So this set has been quite a challenge to document and prepare in many aspects. I will continue to seek a good Lotus Elan but do feel that I can sell this as one of the very genuinely original sets out there. It isn't cheap though.

I should soon be able to put together some non-original sets which will be rather more affordable! One thing I have realised is just how good the reproduction boxes can be! If this one had been any cleaner it really would have been difficult to tell the difference.