Corgi Tourist

 

A delightful product arrived this week from an auction in Kent. This would appear to date from late 1967, maybe more like 1968, as the Commer Camera Van seen in the image was not issued until December 1967 and the Lancia Fulvia only a few months earlier. It is a case which, as well as carrying up to 18 models, opens up to a garage service station and car park scene so that we could play with our Corgi Toys while away from home

 

It's made of strong card covered with Corgi-blue vinyl with a black plastic carrying handle.

I have only just realised that the 'Corgi toys' label on the right shown above is not just a label but a sign that can be placed on the roof of the service station. There is also an interesting reference to Corgi Cards which sound like something I would very much like to try and find if, indeed, they were, in fact, ever issued. I have found some issued in 1971 by Devlin which were included in packs of Sweet Cigarettes but, so far, none that might have been available in 1968. That might explain why I have yet to see one of these cases with any of the cards of the type described included

This case appears never to have been used at all, with the original stickers still in the John Dickinson & Co Ltd semi-transparent envelope they were supplied in.

The fuel pumps still have their display stickers.

Of course, I couldn't resist adding a few of my models to the display!

Of particular fascination for me, and the reason I hoped to acquire this item, is something extra that was included in the sale. It looks like an announcement or a draft Press Release maybe from Woolf Christie Laing & Partners to Mettoy Playcraft (Sales) Ltd in Euston Road, London. It has to be some sort of draft advertisement. The firm were, at around that time, agents for Fiat promotional work in the UK but I have been unable to find much more about them so far. It would seem reasonable to assume that Corgi, or Mettoy, were clients and this was an example of some early thoughts on how to promote the Corgi Tourist pack.

The text has a reference which, to my mind, suggests a date of March 1969. That seems quite a bit later than most other sellers say this might have been made available so maybe I'm wrong about that - or perhaps this is a later effort to improve sales. It certainly was not a big seller as few are now around on the market.

On the back of the draft press release is a photograph of the product. This is, however, missing a red 'bridge' which I have in mine. I am guessing that this fits over one edge of the box and allows us to drive our cars onto this layout.

At about 18" by 10" by 4" this is quite a big item - bigger than I had expected from the pictures I had seen before. With a full compliment of cars it would have been quite a weight too!

The price quoted 39/11d is one old penny short of £2, which is quite reasonable for a parent but beyond most of us receiving only pocket money at the time. I do not recall seeing any advertisements for this, and certainly not the item itself being clutched in any little hands that I saw on my holidays or outings and it does seem to be quite a scarce item.

Prices seem to range from around £100 for a slightly worn example to £400+ for something like new. If anyone is interested in acquiring this one, with the correspondence, get in touch. I can also fill it with the Corgis of your choice - for a fee, of course!

If you'd like a challenge, see if you can identify all the models illustrated, including those in the box!

Artificial lack of intelligence

Have you noticed the spread of flowery language across sites like Ebay? Take this example:

This Corgi Jenson's Blue Morris Mini Minor Scale 1:43 diecast car is a must-have for collectors and fans of vintage vehicles. The car is beautifully crafted with intricate details and a stunning blue colour that is sure to catch the eye. The 1:43 scale makes it a perfect addition to any collection, and the code 3 ensures that it is a rare find.

The car is made by the well-known brand Corgi, and features the Morris vehicle make. It is a contemporary manufacture and falls under the category of toys and games, diecast and vehicles, and cars, trucks and vans. Add this unique and charming diecast car to your collection today.

As well as the model being artificial, which, to his or her credit, the seller does acknowledge may be a possibility, although it would have been better if they'd said certainty rather than possibility, the whole impression given by the phrasing of this advertisement is bizarre.

On the one hand it is grammatically correct and seems quite uplifting. But it has that unworldly quality, as if spoken by one of the androids featured in the Humans TV series or the film Ex Machina. It's almost unnerving.

Not being able to spell Jensen's made me smile, though, which just goes to show that AI can't do much about human low intelligence!

I do hope that it is now clear that these Jensen's Minis are all just normal Minis with some transfers added by a dealer or, indeed, anyone, as they reproduction transfers are easy to get hold of now (and there even used to be sheets of originals doing the rounds). There is just one Jensen's special issue and that's the light blue Hillman Imp.

Corgi toys @ 60: A bus, a Buick, two giraffes and a Driving School car

 

June 1964 was a busy month for your local Corgi toy store.

Chipperfields Circus fans had something they'd need to collect when Corgi found yet another use for the Bedford cab casting and added a large and small giraffe to the box as well. This would later appear with the bigger truck-type wheels as well as getting a change of colour for the Big Daktari set many many years later. An odd little model that would stick around for ages, #508 Bedford Giraffe Transporter.

This was the month when a double decker bus would appear on many of our layouts and displays. #468 would be around about as long as the Giraffe Transporter. The first issue was the one with the Corgi banners and normal shaped free-spinning wheels. Whilst most of the world got the red London bus, Australians got a three-coloured #468, a very hard to find model now on this side of the planet, and probably there too.

In future years the red edition would get cast wheels and a whole host of other banners, the most common one being Outspan Oranges. It would retain the two jewelled lights for many years too, losing them at around the time that Whizzwheels get fitted but you will find editions with and without them but still with cast wheels. The lady conductor stays until the later Whizzwheels days too. 

A big favourite at the time was the Austin A60 Driving School motor, #236. You could steer this, with proper steering as on the Bentley and Mercedes, far superior to the swivelling axle affair that Dinky made, and it made a great toy. You really could 'drive' it, although preferably on hard surfaces rather than thick carpet as it had one of the smallest ground clearance of any Corgi Toy! The small wheels and the room needed to house the steering mechanism meant that the bottom of the car more or less scraped along the road and the poor suspension at the front didn't help.

That big red thing on the roof did look a bit ridiculous but worse was to come in future years with Corgi's Driving School motors.

Here in the UK we got the RHD version in pale blue and it was some considerable time later that I discovered that most of the rest of the world were getting a darker blue edition, #255, with left hand drive!

Lastly, June 1964 sees a real classic Corgi issue - the beautiful Buick Riviera. The previous American motor had been the Chevrolet Sting Ray in August 1963 so it was a big thing to have another remarkable looking model on the shelves. We also get those lovely spoked wheels again and lots of chrome and wonderful lights! Well, Trans-o-lite lights, that is. This time we get them not only at the front but red ones at the back too with the inside of the car hidden by the interior probably filled with pieces of plastic tubing. This was such a cool idea and we would spend ages hold our fingers over the panels back or front to turn off then on the lights. Nothing opened on the car but we didn't mind. It had nice soft suspension and felt like it was going really fast as it was pushed along.

First #245 issues were in pale solid blue and metallic gold. Later we would see metallic blue, all with spoked wheels until the later 1960s when cast wheels started to be fitted. It will be mostly the metallic blue or a more turquoise shade that gets the cast wheels. Gold models with cast wheels are to be found too, although not as common but the real surprise for me was to find some pale blue models with them too. They are definitely scarce.

All the Buicks had a grey plastic towbar. The first issues had a complex-looking 'grab' type which, in theory, could attach itself to tow something by reversing up to it. That was replaced at some fairly early point with a button style, used on several other models too, and less prone to getting damaged. Many models lose their hooks as there was not a great deal that the Buick could tow at the time. There would be a Riviera Gift Set in December but if you only wanted the boat and trailer you'd have to wait until this time next year! As a consequence, many hooks got bent, broken or deliberately removed as the car looked so much nicer without one!

There are also a few around with gold grille and bumpers and, in this instance, probably a factory sample in a much deeper metallic shade.

Corgi Model Club: Chrysler Imperial

 Here's the latest issue from the Corgi Model Club, the Chrysler Imperial, #246 with the surprise in the boot.

I don't have an original to hand to compare it with but I do remember the model well as I bought one for myself in August 1965 when it came out and remember being a bit disappointed with the 'surprise'. OK, so you could open the boot and take out the golf caddy. You could put it back again. But that was it, the wheels on the caddy didn't turn and it just sort of sat there. I have also very little recollection of the two figures, possibly because the small lady may have fallen out shortly after opening the box never to be seen again after mum hoovered the carpet.

This was a big model, heavy and very, very square-looking. Some huge two-door vehicle, for sure. It didn't have the charm of the Chevrolet Impala which was issued at the same time in classic coffee and cream two-tone finish with sparkling chrome of the old sort, The Imperial was the first, I think, to have the front grille and both bumpers made of solid bright metal as opposed to chrome plated plastic. The Jaguar Mk X had a similar idea but the metal was not as shiny like this one.

I didn't try pressing down on the front to open the bonnet. A little pressure at the back of the bonnet near the screen lifts the front edge slightly. Whilst suspension does seem to have survived on these models in original form I am not going to take any risks!

It really is very well-finished and looks just like I remember the original, with the chalky blue interior. Mine was a chalky-green colour but I know both were available.

The cast wheels are good. Early releases did have normal shaped wheels and can be valuable so I was hoping they might do that version and, of course, we all hoped there might be a kingfisher blue edition! To be fair, that was supposed to be a Bermuda Taxi replacement and had a hole in the rear to take the roof thing so the few that did make it to dealers were really a different model and the club probably did the right thing by reproducing this first. I am pretty sure we'll see the other one in due course now that the investment's been made and the casting is all done. The addition of a small hole and tweaking the interior is no big cost, assuming Corgi decide to get it right.

I honestly cannot fault this reproduction. I do wonder about the colour on first getting it as it seems a shade deeper than my mine was but that maybe the lighting. Similarly, the rear bumper definition is slightly different in these photos of my old one but, again, that may be just the lighting.

This particular model never really made my list of favourites. It was a bit hard to drive around corners on my layout with its quite tough suspension and the fat doors were a little unattractive. For me, this seemed to have a few signs of cost-cutting, with the cast dashboard and how the screen was fitted, which always looked a bit like it had just been replaced!

This reproduction, however, will be just what fans of the Imperial will have been waiting for and it will certainly look good on display.

Corgi Model Club do the Batman

 This will please a lot of collectors and no doubt there will be double sales too as the Corgi Model Club have announced that they will be issuing a replica of the first 1966 edition of the Batmobile in matt black finish for members only in or around November 2024.

There will also be a gloss black version which can be purchased by anyone from the online store later this year.

This approach is similar to that for the next James Bond Aston Martin, due a few months later where the members will receive the 270 model with silver grille and bumpers, with the more common gold grille and bumpers variant being available from the store. No doubt the vast majority of us will be buying both each time!

I am also expecting there to be more issues promoted by Corgi directly, rather than the Club, of new variations of existing Club issues. It must surely be considerably cheaper to produce a few models in different finishes and maybe slight adaptation using existing castings than to design from the start. We have seen and will see several along these lines from the Club itself in respect of new issues: Land Rover Breakdown Truck / Land Rover, Corgi's Land Rover Breakdown Truck and the Club's Public address Vehicle,  VW 1200 East Africa Safari / European Police Car, Oldsmobile Sherriff's Car / HQ Staff Car, Chevrolet Impala Taxi / Fire Chief / Patrol Car, Walls Ice Cream Van (Musical) / Non-Musical, Mini Cooper Monte Carlo / Sun Rally and James Bond (gold) / (silver) have already appeared or are in the programme. Colour changes and some simple adaptations of some others are surely going to come too as we have seen with the four other models already issued separately by Corgi.

Later models 1969-1983

 As I started to write in my last article, I am attempting to resist starting to collect some of what I call Corgi's 'later models'. These are the issues from around 1969 through to the company going into receivership at the end of 1983. They cover a multitude of categories: lots of racing cars, aircraft, film and TV character vehicles, space and military vehicles and, of course, the 1:36 scale models, none of which I have found particularly interesting in the past.

The larger scale models always appear rather cheaply finished and lack the charm and sense of quality of so many of the earlier issues. The aircraft look quite impressive but I'm not really interested in them and I certainly have no time for the film and TV stuff. So it has been relatively easy to ignore all the issues so far.

I have, however, always wanted a decent list to consult as people do ask questions from time to time about the later issues and I cannot help being slightly intrigued when I see a range of what appear to be different Rover 3500s or some other models on Ebay. I do like variations. It all started with the British Machin definitive stamps, for which the first denominations were issued in 1967. As new values were issued and postage rates changed over time, there have been over 1000 different 'varieties' of these stamps with the Arnold Machin design of HM Queen Elizabeth II's head. I was 15 in 1967 and was able to afford to start and, once employed, able to continue, acquiring all these varieties through to the end of the series just a short time ago.

So, just as I created a list of those, I did the same for my second hobby, Corgi Toys from 1956-70s and now feel that one is needed for the later models. There is nothing that I found of much use online. Marcel Van Cleemput's Great Book of Corgi does tell us more or less what was issued when but it's not an easy reference book. The little red book that accompanied it is more readily consulted but what we really need these days is something online that appears when we need it.

By chance I have had some correspondence on another matter with a collector called Daniel Feuchtwanger who is based across The Pond in the Bronx.

Mr Feuchtwanger had built a lovely Excel spreadsheet of the whole Corgi shooting match from 1956 to 1983 and has been kind enough to permit me to work with this. It was not as vast as you might think because he has been concerned only with the different catalogue numbers, not variations of models. So there is just the one 286 Jaguar XJ12 whereas I have seen at least 3 different colours and suspect there may be more.

This is a great start for me, though, as he has been very thorough and precise and it is a far better resource for this task than anything else I have found. Firstly I extracted all the earlier items and some later issues in 1:43 scale, basically all the items that I have already listed myself. Next I put his data into the same format as I have used for my other lists just to make everything a little more consistent and added a few models that I found referred to in the Little Red Book and which I feel need to be included until I can determine that they were either not actually issued or were errors (and there are plenty in that book to watch out for!) The time-consuming part was adding months, missing from my colleague's list, but which were mostly available in the Little Red Book.

The end result is a nice clean list that may be useful to someone and it is now available to view on my Catalogue website at this link. I have listed the data in three ways, by Catalogue number, by issue date and by model name.

Now I can get back to what I started to say in the previous article. This exercise has left me needing to find those varieties. I have become intrigued and models like the Jaguar and Rover seem to have a lot of different issues that I need to add to the list. I am hoping that this will not be a massive task, and, from a first glance at what appears to be on sale, the variations are going to be colours or some promotional stickers in the main. All the cars seem to have the same wheels! I am sure I will discover that they don't really but they certainly appear that way. It's only the cars that I am going to look at first. I have a feeling that most, if not all, of the other categories will be single items, especially those issued shortly before closure of operations when there would not have been time for many changes.

What is interesting to me now is just how chaotic life appears to have got at Corgi in 1982 when, even if the staff didn't know, the managers were clearly aware that they needed to sell a lot more to try to survive and so umpteen gift sets were created and these may well have had slight variations on the previously issued model. It looks like Woolworths and Marks & Spencer also were selling packs produced specially for them and that could provide some new material too.

At the moment, many of these models are going for a song, making very low prices if selling at all. They're not popular at the moment but I remember how Whizzwheels models were cheap and cheerful not long ago until someone realised that there weren't many of some of them and most now fetch high prices, as much or more in many cases than the original model on which they were based. I don't know whether the same will apply to the 1:36 series but if I am going to take a closer look I'll need to buy some and this may be as good a time as any.

So it does look as though I shall not be able to resist the temptation and will be getting some 1:36 cars. I don't see many so it shouldn't cost a fortune unless there really are some scarce ones. 

I'm going to set a limit of £10, though, which is what I did for the British (up to 1999) Vanguards as a little much-needed discipline. It means I will not get boxes but they're pretty grotty boxes from what I can see anyway with something of a gamble as to which was actually issued in which in the later years. I am also having to contend with what look like very similar models made in the later 1980s and 1990s, just to confuse matters. And I may change my mind as I can see it will be damn difficult selling anything again unless I am very lucky and get some of the scarcer issues at that price.

Whizzwheels wheel types

 I almost bought some 1:36 models yesterday. I am still trying to convince myself that I shouldn't. It's a similar feeling to that which I had about 8 years ago when I was building my collection of what I call 'the originals' in 1:43 or thereabouts and reached 1969 and had to decide what to do about Whizzwheels. Initially I told myself that I would stop with September 1970's 513 Citroën Alpine Rescue but then I saw a Ford 5000 Tractor in January 1971 and a few months later a Citroën SM with quite attractive wheels would be issued. That looked eminently collectible, especially as there would be four to collect with the two colours and two types of wheel and I told myself that I could live with the few models with ugly Whizzwheels that I'd need to obtain as there would be little logic in excluding them.

Later I began to quite like some of the Whizzwheels models after all, especially the rare ones which seemed impossible to find at a price I could afford. And when I did find one I'd snap it up and finish up with several. I have since sold most of what I regard as the common Whizwheel editions but have kept a few scarce items. Even now I still have three pink Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays.

As can often be the case, the ones I liked the least can turn out to be the most valuable. The Mini Marcos GT850 was reasonably attractive and well-finished in metallic maroon but downright ugly in white with stickers for stripes, and doors which flopped around loosely. The white one was expensive enough too but try and find a blue one . . . So far I have managed to acquire two wrecks but, once you start collecting it is simply essential to keep going until you have everything. I'm addicted, I suppose, and now I am even looking at the different ugly wheels put on those models in the 1970s. Early models start with the pepperpot style and then we see the four crowns style. For a long time I thought there was also a quite neat eight-spoke wheel but eventually it dawned on me that this was just the four crowns with the silver and black sections appearing to create continuous spokes.

The first 'pepperpot' style

The later 'four crowns' style

An example of how the 'four crowns' can appear to be 8-spoke

A more attractive 8-spoke wheel in mid-1971

A closed 8-spoke design

The filled in 12-spoke design from around 1973

A larger 12-spoke design in gold on a Rolls Royce

Unfortunately, an ugly design returns on some late Rolls Royces and one of two other models

Late Minis get another ugly double-5 spoke design

So you can see how one can get pulled in to collecting these things. It occurred to me that I had not provided a definitive list of the different types of Whizzwheels and so I have now done that and you can see the table on my Corgi Catalogue website. It is work in progress, of course, and if you know of others that need to be added then please send me some pictures. As always, I have to warn people not to pay a fortune for red spot wheels on later models. They're very easy to change and disreputable dealers do so and then even auction houses who should know better sell them as original for vast sums.

Now, all this started because I have been working on a catalogue of the 'later models', the ones I don't collect - and still don't, as I am resisting the temptation! I have, however, been distracted into talking about Whizzwheels so I'll not complicate matters and end here. The 'later models' article will follow separately.