Corgi Kits

 

I was fortunate to find four #602 Corgi Kits last week. All are complete and probably had never been opened, with instructions, a membership form and unopened bag of pieces inside the original boxes. Whilst the contents are the same in each case, each box has some faults but nevertheless I would be happy to have any of them in my own collection and I'll keep whichever one remains.

The one above has creasing at one end.

This second one is the best and nearest to what we'd describe as 'excellent' with just very slight creasing at the bottom left.

The third box has one edge on which the glue has dried and a small piece of clear tape has been applied. There are creases on the two long sides and one crushed corner, with some marks on one side, maybe where a pen line has been rubbed off. 

The fourth box has one edge on which the glue has dried (but no repairs attempted) and there is a small crease where one corner has been slightly crushed.

Original instruction sheets can be hard to find now as they tend to get lost and I think I may make some copies. The paper may be hard to match but I will have a go and they may be useful to someone one day.

I can resist the temptation to keep one and make up the telephone boxes because I already have two excellent examples as part of my Garage Set. That reminds me - ever since I received the lovely layout mats for the Silverstone and Garage Sets I have not managed to find time to recreate the Garage Set display with all the pieces that I do have. Now that my wife is away in Ukraine and, even if she wanted to, couldn't get back very soon, it could be a good opportunity to do so without it being in anybody's way. So that will keep me occupied for a week or two - including finding the correct cars and building a couple of the garages - Model Club issues, of course, which are a perfectly acceptable substitute in my opinion.

Writing this has also highlighted the fact that I have not listed the Corgi Kits in the Catalogue at all! That's very remiss of me. I know that it took me a long time to get them all, and I never did get built examples of the Timekeeper's Building or complete Pit Buildings. However, I did have nice examples of complete sets in original boxes and should be able to find the pictures. Adding a section to the Catalogue should be easy enough as there were not any variations to worry about, or, at least, none that I am aware of and I can't imagine much that could have changed anyway.

The kits are great and original complete examples are expensive. You'll find my prices in the shop or just get in touch.

These AA and RAC Telephone Box sets that I have for sale are not cheap but the proceeds will go towards the money I am trying to save up for the any Silverstone Set buildings which I need to find again now I have the layout mat to display them on. Sets do appear occasionally but made-up buildings seem very scarce and, of course, not every owner was careful with the construction. It is a bit of a dilemma as I would probably prefer to make one myself and have my artist wife add any paint or decoration required. That does mean, however, spoiling a valuable original set, which bothers me. Now, if the Model Club were to reproduce all the Kits then that would be a marvellous thing! When you think about it, they have tended to want to reproduce the less common model variations on the basis that people would be happy to have a copy for £30 or so when the real thing maybe several hundred. (Let us let lie the matter of their seldom actually getting the specification right for these variations.) Reproducing Corgi Kits follows the same logic but with the bonus that the parts would be dead simple to make, being mere cheap plastic and they only need to pay some children in China or Bangladesh to put the pieces in a plastic bag, not build, paint and decorate as they have to do with model vehicles. They did the Batley Leofric Garage brilliantly. I wonder how sales went?

These mats incidentally, were produced for me by a chap called Wolfgang who regularly contributes quite authoritatively on various Corgi online groups. They're heavy duty plastic rather than fabric but have the advantage of laying flat and without any creases. Having said that they have been rolled up for a few years so I may have to encourage them to lay flat again. If he happens to read this perhaps he could let me know whether he can still get these made and I will provide a link for anyone who might like one. I should have an email address somewhere and will get in touch with him, if he doesn't respond to this, once it comes to light.

Now I appear to have given myself quite a few tasks. More news on how I get on to follow. What we really need are illustrations of the completed models and the layouts which I'll try and dig out or prepare.

Corgi Model Club: RAC Radio Rescue Land Rover

My RAC Radio Rescue Land Rover has finally arrived and it really does look good. I have many of these but they are all somewhat worn so it was quite a dramatic model to see when I opened the box. You get the model wrapped in some tissue paper with a square chunk of polystyrene protecting the aerial. I have never seen such a straight aerial! There's also another square protecting the box from the hook and a long piece of thicker card which I think protects the top of everything.

There is also the Certificate of Authenticity, although the text is so poor and, in places, simply wrong that it is best viewed from the one side only. It does strike me as remarkable that the people at the Club who are responsible for quality control are not particularly good at their jobs. Maybe they're descendants from the original Corgi Quality Controllers! As I will refer to later, little things do matter but the text on this certificate is no small mistake - more like a number of howlers someone should be sacked for missing.

The first Series I Land Rover was issued in August 1957, not 1959. That first sentence may be correct but it is misleading and it would have been far better rephrased. In any event the 416 is no more a re-liveried version of 351 than it is of a 406, which also had a tin canopy in Gift Set 2. They go on to say that 'a small number didn't have the roof-mounted sign' but we have no evidence as to the split. Some years ago, I spent many hours trying to figure out how the four editions of 416 might have shared the 209000 sold (sold, not produced, note) and gave up. These, incidentally, are the editions with a headboard and smooth wheels, a headboard and shaped wheels, no headboard and smooth wheels and no headboard with shaped wheels. Then they say that 'others included 'Radio Rescue' lettering on the tilt'. The fact is that all the 'no headboard' models had the extra text on the tilt, not some other edition. The big howler is comparing sales to '436, introduced at the same time'. They mean 438. But it is hardly surprising that there will have been rather fewer sales of an RAC model available for just a few years in comparison the the basic model which was available for ten years in one form or another.

So, to the model itself. That is very impressive at first glance, maybe second glance too.

All looks very good - until you look more closely at the grille.

The original has16 squares at the widest part, 8 at the top. The Chinese one has 13 and 7. The vertical divisions are different too. Now, unless I have missed a variation and the Chinese numbers do match an original, this is simply not good enough. You may say that it is just a tiny detail - but look at how many of the other tiny details they have got right on models galore to date. This is plain wrong and the more you look at it the plainer it becomes. I had assumed two things - one was that the production of these copies started with a mould being made from a good original. The other was that CMC staff would very carefully inspect samples when received. I appear to be wrong on both counts.

Someone might also have spotted that original 416 models only had silver paint applied to the vertical face of the front bumper, not the whole thing. That's more obvious than the grille, too.

So my initial excitement at seeing what I perceived as a wonderfully fresh example of a model hard to find in such condition has waned rather. 

I have just noticed that the 406 re-issue had the same grille and bumper paint error. I admit that I missed these things at the time and allowed CMC to get away with it. Not this time!

 

Interesting New Arrivals

Here are some of the recent arrivals. An interesting bunch of models, starting with this nice old RAC Radio Rescue Land Rover. Those who have been reading these articles for a few years may well remember the trouble I had in trying to decide the order in which the variations on this theme arrived and how I attempted to get some clue as to the relative scarcity of each. 

This is the first type with a headboard but, with shaped wheels, it will have been produced in late 1960. The weird thing is that you'll find the second type, without a headboard, with smooth wheels too! I had to give up putting dates on these and concluded that the period covering the switch from headboard to no headboard coincided with the switch from smooth to shaped fixed wheels and that there will have been days when the ladies on the production line were getting old models with new wheel supplies or new models with old wheel supplies.

I can even imagine a production line where there were several ladies working and they may have had boxes of various bits and pieces to fit. In those days there wouldn't have been many choices; window units, drivers maybe, wheels, tyres, aerials. Maybe one lady had been away for a while and her boxes remained untouched so that when she returned to work she had some old wheels to use up whereas everyone else had moved on to the new type.

Whatever the case, this model is not at all common, with production I estimate to be in thousands not tens of thousands.

Two very nice Buick Rivieras arrived last week. One is missing a tow bar but that actually improves this car in my view! However, as I tend to use these for the Riviera Gift Sets, I shall have to fit a replacement some time. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share the different colours of the two models.

Now, you might wish to put this down to smoking and the fact that kids grew up in rooms that you could barely see from one end to the other when father was home and, even if you could, at one end would be a fire belching out smoke when it started or some damp fuel was added and not all the smoke went up the chimney either. There is, I agree, a tobacco hue to the blue but my bet is that there are two different shades of blue and the brighter, lighter shade is the earlier of the two. My logic for this is that the hook type on the Buick is the weird grab type which I am pretty sure was the earlier variety.

A model I was particular relieved to see arrive undamaged after a trip from Spain is this Fiat 600 Ghia 'Jolly'. This is the 242 model, issued in 1965 but only for a very short period. It had superseded 240, a similar model that came in shades of blue and had the silly plastic roof which I can only assume Corgi had too many of, still lying around after not selling with the Bermuda Taxi, which itself had been a desperate attempt to get more mileage out of the old Ford Thunderbird.

It was a fussy and easily damaged model, with its vulnerable screen, people who fell out on every turn and delicate chrome detailing. Not one for the boys, really. Now really sought-after and this one will make over £200.

An earlier project had been to build that mysterious Aston Martin Competition model with wire wheels, supposedly issued in late 1964. I had completed one a while ago for my own display cabinet but a nice American chap, with a massive house in Maine, bought that one. Unfortunately, it was damaged in the post but, whilst that might have been easily repaired, the chap tried to do it himself and caused more damage. Distraught, as he'd really been pleased with it, he ordered and paid handsomely for another.

I duly obliged, having a nice 309 late model in stock. It needed to be the one with the closed bonnet vent. Illustrated here is the finished job with original Corgi wheels too, not replacements, acquired from someone who happened to find a few in his pocket in the 1960s when he retired from the factory.

After all my efforts, though, the original buyer decided to keep the first one as he had decided, as he said, that 'the damage wasn't too bad after all'. So I have this one available if anyone is interested. In the meantime it will be in my cabinet.

Aston Martins are almost permanently on my desk these days. A recent post talked about how difficult to find are the 218 models with fixed shaped wheels. Here is another Aston Martin that is easier to find but not if you want it complete and fully functional! It is the first edition of 270, the second 'James Bond' Aston Martin, replacing the gold one that I think just about every boy of Corgi collecting age had. The bits work on this one but it was missing the front bumper. Many are missing this piece and look pretty dreadful with the gaping space between base and body. It was far too nice to take to pieces, though, and I have fitted new sections left and right and it looks pretty reasonable now.

[I have no idea what the red is that I now notice on the front tyre!]

I made something of an icon out of the Copper Ghia L6.4 by featuring it at the top of this site and also in many other places where I needed a particularly fine illustration. The Ghia was a superb model in any colour with so many features and a gorgeous stance, even with broken suspension. In this, the rarest of the many colours used in its production time it is a truly lovely-looking model and an expensive one to boot.

So whenever I see one I want to buy it but can seldom afford it. This one I could afford as it is a bit tatty with many chips to the paintwork and, of course, absent suspension. I might be able to do something about the suspension and the paintwork I can live with but the real problem was the missing rear tyres. Take this as a warning now - do not buy a Ghia L6.4 with missing or broken rear tyres! You simply cannot replace them unless you wish to remove axles or get involved with some other drastic action.

I tried very hard but there simply is not enough of a gap between the rim and the body, made worse by the inward facing lower edges of the body panels. I resorted to cutting the tyre and wrapping it around the rim. I had thought that I might be able to glue the tyre ends together but the old original Corgi manufactured tyres that I am using are too tough and even holding them closed is too much of an effort, never mind maintaining them that way while glue sets.

So this one is not likely to be going anywhere any time soon! Another one for the cabinet maybe.

Here is another salutary tale for you. This is a pleasant enough 470 Jeep FC-150. Nice condition with only very small chips on raised edges mostly. It's missing its canopy so it isn't going to sell for very much which is disappointing as I thought I would be getting something quite different. Below is what I thought I was buying from a lady in Spain. A bright yellow edition which she had assured me had not been repainted with original rivets in place and all the warranty I wanted that it was real. Now I look again, in a different light, I can see how my error arose. The green-grey background and white surround make it appear yellow. But it's just beige like the others.

On a happier note, here's a very well looked-after NSU Sport Prinz. You don't see many of this model which didn't sell in massive numbers at the time. It was one of those few models which did nothing. Nothing opened. Not even an aerial or transfer.

The interesting thing about this 316 NSU Sport Prinz is its colour; a sort of deep metallic red, distinctly different and a lot scarcer than the very pink cerise that you will usually find this appears in.

That got me thinking. Not many Corgis with suspension and interiors had nothing else by way of features. See if you can think of any others that weren't merely S versions of the earlier no suspension models or the A edition of the Lotus XI. I'll publish the answers in my next article.

And what was the last car issued without suspension (other than the Bluebird).

Corgi Kits from Batley to Chalet

I have been looking at the kits that were available, mostly between 1961 and 1969. As well as being components of the two big Gift Sets that every collector would love to acquire but which few will ever even see, the Silverstone Racing Layout and the Garage Layout, they were sold individually.

The plastic pieces required painting and gluing together so if we do find any that have been made up now the appearance of the product is very much down to the skills of the youngster who made it. Buildings ought to be OK but I'm not so sure about the telephone boxes. The later public and police boxes came with characters that needed to be painted and they would be quite difficult to get right for most of us. I can see very few of these kits for sale in made-up form in my early searches. I guess that those listing them on Ebay, for instance, will not necessarily know they are Corgi or even kits so perhaps by using those two search terms I wouldn't get a great many anyway now I think about it.

I would like to get hold of examples of all of them now but suspect this could take a while. I can find most of the unmade kits in nice original boxes but I wouldn't want to spoil those - and, anyway, they're extremely expensive!

My spreadsheet lists now include the kits 601 to 611. I think that's all of them. Here they are for quick reference:

601	Batley Leofric Garage
602	AA and RAC Telephone boxes
603	Silverstone Pits
604	Silverstone Press Box
605	Silverstone Club Hose and Timekeeper's Box
606	Lamp Standards
607	Chipperfields Circus Elephant Cage and elephant kit
608	Fuel Station Building
609	Fuel Forecourt Accessories
610	Public Telephone and Police telephone boxes
611	Motel Chalet

Below I include illustrations from the 1961 and 1965 catalogue pages. As and when I can find some decent complete models then I will add those too but I fear that could be some time. Of course, if anyone happens to find some reasonable models, or even part-completed items, that they can let me have at a modest price so that I can feature these things better, do get in touch.

Corgi Toys @ 60 : Combine Harvester and RAC to the rescue!

It's August so, reasonably enough, it's time to start harvesting and Corgi came out with this superb bit of equipment. Corgi Majors 1111 was a Massey Ferguson 780 Combine Harvester.

The first edition of this model has yellow wheels and the tines are metal. In the box, although not shown here, would have been a typewritten note explaining how to raise and lower the feed. When lowered, the lower wheel would turn as it was pushed along and a band would rotate the tines on the shaft above most effectively.

Later editions had plastic tines and a yellow plastic hopper feed and a driver too. The later ones also had red wheels so are easy to distinguish.

The other introduction in August 1959 was another outing for the lovely Series I Land Rover. This was an RAC Radio Rescue edition which had a roof sign bearing a 'RADIO RESCUE' transfer. There would be a matching blue tin canopy at the rear with a single RAC logo on each side.

The 1959 models would have had smooth wheels as shown in the first photo above but the canopy transfer would have been more like that in the second photo. The aerial, too, is a poor replacement there. Later models will have shaped wheels and at some point in production the headboard is removed. This necessitates the transfers being changed on the canopy to incorporate both text and logo. The 'no headboard' type can also be found with smooth or shaped wheels. I don't know when it was introduced but I shall include it sometime in 1960.

Looking at the models in my own collection, the early types with a headboard have the 'handles' at the base of the tailgate whereas those without a headboard are smooth in that area.

More about the RAC Land Rover

I had always thought that the fitting of shaped or smooth wheels to models in the times was pretty much a random thing. One lady on the production line might put them one way round and another the other.

In the now lengthy and fascinating RAC Land Rover debate I have been having with my German collector friend in Eilum, however, the advent of the fixed shaped wheel may prove to be the deciding element.

He points out that the first appearance of the shaped wheel in a Corgi catalogue was in the drawing of the Ford Consul Classic.

This was, indeed, the first model to have these fixed shaped wheels. In fact, I don't think I have seen a 234 model with smooth wheels. Investigating further, it looks like the old wheel, smooth on both sides, was not fitted to anything after the Chevrolet Corvair. So June 1961, when these two models were released looks like quite a critical time when everything changed in the Wheels Department. Just a little earlier the Bentley Continental had introduced us to the free spinning wheel. (I had wondered, in a previous article, what special hubs had meant in the 1961 catalogue description of the Bentley. The free-spinning wheel may have been what they meant!)

Returning to RAC Land Rover matters now, this information is important. We know that both versions of the model exist with each type of wheel - the old style smooth and new style shaped wheel. 

The first models were issued in Summer 1959 and will have had the old style smooth wheels. Whichever type that came first must have lasted until at least Summer 1961. The second type will have had to have been around from before Summer 1961 to Winter 1962 when the 416S replaces it.

Experience shows us that there are far more With Headboard models around than No Headboard which would indicate quite strongly that the first version was the With Headboard type. Editions With Headboard and shaped wheels would therefore be quite scarce.

The corollary is that editions with No Headboard came second and those with smooth wheels should also be scarce.

Because both exist with both types of wheel the changeover must have taken place at around the same time in 1961. There cannot have been many months, therefore, when those two editions were produced! This illustration may make things clearer:

I cannot imagine that both types would have been produced at the same time for very long so those periods for Type 1 with shaped wheels or Type 2 with smooth wheels are very short!

My feeling is now that I had been wrong before and my view is now that Type 1 is the With Headboard version and Type 2 is the No Headboard version.

Or perhaps you know different?!

RAC Land Rovers. Which came first?

I am having trouble determining which came first - the 416 with a headboard or the one without. I am beginning to think it might have been simpler had I considered chickens and eggs!

Usually people like QDT can be relied on for some assistance. This time, however, they contradict themselves or even have a member of staff who seemed to think one might have been a 416S missing some elements! 

The first one they say is an early variation. The second is a late version. That was a great help, folks.

I tried another Andrew, the Little Wheels chap who is also a real Land Rover enthusiast but he merely says we can find both versions. 

Looking for images of the real thing, I didn't see as many as I'd expected. What is clear, though, is that almost all the earliest Land Rovers (judging by the registrations) don't have a headboard which only begin to appear with the early 1960s Land Rovers.

So that leads me to think that Corgi would have been looking at the 1950s Land Rovers without a headboard when they were putting the plans for the model together. This would also have been a much simpler and cheaper addition to the catalogue requiring only some different paint and a few transfers. 

At this point I was heavily leaning towards the 'No headboard' version being the first issue which would have appeared in August 1959.

Then I looked at the 1959 catalogue. This is the image that the artist drew.

Yes, it's got the headboard. Now this would have been drawn way back in 1958 sometime as catalogues invariably were drafted a long time ahead of printing so he or she would have probably been looking at a pre-production model. This is, though, pretty strong evidence for the headboard version being the first issued. If the pre-production model had it then one would assume it would have been included in the process.

The 1960 catalogue still has the headboard too and, as I don't think this is a copy of an earlier image, the new drawing would now be likely to be based on the actual model.

Wheels can be confusing, especially when people talk of 'spun' hubs. The word spun is the past participle of spin so it is reasonable to interpret that as a wheel that might spin freely on its axle. Unfortunately it relates in this instance to the production process that creates the dished and slightly more realistic-looking surface and all 416 models have fixed wheels. I call them smooth and shaped. I am pretty sure that the smooth type is the earliest but at some stage the shaped type starts to be used but I have seen examples of both variations of the RAC Land Rover with both types of fixed wheel too so that doesn't help us decide either.

The two above are mine with flat, smooth wheels. Below are a couple from QDT which each have the later shaped wheels.

Had you consulted Vectis, by the way, then you could have been completely led astray with one recent item they had up for auction, showing a 416 with headboard and a 416S box which clearly illustrates the 416!!

Maybe some other model makers can help. Here is the Budgie model that was released in 1963. So just as Corgi issue their 416S without a headboard (and, thank Heavens, it never does get one!) Budgie are issuing their version with a headboard.

I was about to give up and go back to wondering who you'd call if you broke down in Kazakhstan on a Saturday morning when I looked again at the boxes.

Scroll up again and look at the two 416 boxes. The No headboard editions all seem to have been supplied in temporary boxes with no picture and with a separately printed number and title on the end. The with headboard edition have the normal illustrated box. Looking around, all the examples of no headboard Land Rovers appear with the temporary boxes.

In my mind, this confirms my original opinion that the very first 1959 editions were those without a headboard and sometime later that year the illustrated boxes come out with the headboard edition inside.

The transition to 416S came in December 1962 and this is a simple, normal 438 type Land Rover with just a hole for an aerial and some different paintwork and blue plastic canopy. This would have been relatively easy to produce along with all the other revised Land Rovers that came out at around this time. The 1963 Catalogue shows the revised image. It isn't quite right as it shows the old style of bumper but, again. this would have been drawn sometime before the actual model was issued so was probably the artist's best guess or even just an update of his or her old image from a few years ago!

My collector friend in Eilum, Germany, has just acquired a really nice 416 without a headboard for a crazily cheap price and asked the question. I have to admit that I really don't know the answer for sure. Maybe some other reader will?

There are good cases to be made for both.