We, as diecast collectors, can sometimes be somewhat blaise about our hobby and our collecting habits. I dont know whether I speak for myself here, but I think its too easy to get bogged down going along the same ‘collecting’ path.  Our pursuit of the elusive Dinky or Corgi,  etc, blinkers us to the myriad of other manufacturers out there. One such manufacturer is Kemlow. The reason I say this is because I came across the Kemlow Antar Tank Transporter (below) this week whilst cataloguing at British Toy Auctions. It stood out for several reasons. Firstly, it was in great conditio ..read more

Controversy is all the rage these days so here is my little grenade; I am not really a Ferrari fan. There I have said it, they have made a few nice looking and sounding cars over the years but they have never been top of my list. However I have just bought this rather charming example. It was made by Mercury in the mid-1960s and features opening doors and a removable rear body section. There were several variations of this casting, this is the Nürburgring model number 60, they were available boxed individually or together as a set of 5 x sold as ‘Scuderia Corse Ferrari’ with number 57 in r ..read more

I was lucky enough to purchase this gem recently. As soon as I clapped my eyes on it I was smitten. Admittedly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this ‘ancient beast’ isn’t every collector’s cup of tea, but I absolutely love it! I’ve always been enthusiastic about early diecast. I love their simplicity, and this is for a reason of course. They were made for one thing, and one thing only – and that’s to be played with. Not collected, put on a shelf and admired. They were made for children; made to race around a living room, a garden, a street, they were made with the intention to let ..read more

Nacoral SM, if you do not know what this is then carefully type it into your search engine (don’t blame me if you misspell it and end up looking at some very odd pictures). The Spanish firm made some very interesting larger scale models including the Mini, Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, Chevrolet Monza GT, Seat 850 Coupe, Ford Capri and others but they rarely turn up over here. I have just bought a rally version of their Citroen SM in a very second-hand condition, but I can’t resist an SM. As you can see from the pictures with a pink Corgi version for size reference it is a bit of a b ..read more

A thought occurred to me while inspecting a new purchase of a Norev Jet Car Chrysler 180 about its rear doors which open as do the front doors, bonnet and boot lid. That might not sound too remarkable but it actually is because I could only think of and find in my collection one other saloon car in around and about 1:43 scale with functioning rear doors which is the Dinky Ford Zodiac. Now I can see the reason for that as it adds a lot of complication to the design and makes the model either much more fragile and prone to damage as with the Chrysler or overly big and chunky as with the Zo ..read more

Let us time travel back 50 years or so! Picture it; a Woolworths store somewhere in Great Britain in the early 1970s. The clothes are a riot of colours; the hair is long and swept over and around or cascading down the shoulders and that is just the men! The snotty nosed children are in nylon shorts, long socks, and something their grandma knitted. They want a toy as compensation for being dragged out shopping when they could have been playing unattended on a bombsite with their mates or riding their bicycles miles away from home without a helmet. They could have chosen a Dinky car if mot ..read more

In the world of 12” action figures, the name that’s resonates the most with chaps my age is of course Action Man. But there is a guy who appeared on the scene around the same time as Action Man arrived on our shores – he’s Tommy Gunn. Produced by Pedigree, these figures were in only in production for brief period from 1966 – 1968 and were launched as a direct competitor to Action Man. A few figures came into British Toy Auctions lately, as part of a vast collection of vintage action figures which included Action Man, Gi Joe, Mego, Marx to name but a few. I must admit I had not come across ..read more

Whilst shopping for provisions the other day I happened upon a string of Hot Wheels which they sporadically sell in my local shop. There were two bright orange McLaren F1 models so obviously I bought them both, well you would, wouldn’t you? Upon returning home and having a closer look I noticed one of them had an unusual feature! Yeh...Great looking Mclaren...but look closer! Yuk!!! Whose hair is this? C'mon own up? Who put that there??? Now it’s not that uncommon to find a Hot Wheels with an miss matched wheel or a wonky bit of printing on it. I’ve even a few that have escaped the ..read more

Take a look at this 1970s plastic fantastic that has just come my way. Model car makers just like full size car makers need to get the most out of the tooling they have spent money on and in the model car world this results in some unlikely outcomes. The laziest is the rally version which is just means covering absolutely any model with stickers and most manufacturers have done this as its easy and cheap. I should give credit to Polistil here though as they did put a little more effort into their rally versions by misting them with a bit of brown, beige or red paint to simulate mud. The se ..read more

High up on my list of all-time favourite cars is the Lancia Flaminia Coupe. Although I wouldn’t say no to the Berlina it’s the more elegant Coupe that I really love and the best small version of it was made in period by Solido.  I have been keeping an eye out for one for ages, but they don’t come up for sale that often and when they do, they still fetch around £50 for an undamaged example with another £20 or £30 on top of that if it still has its box.  I was recently very lucky to pick up this pair of play worn but still quite smart examples. The grey car needs a couple of new ty ..read more