The World of Diecast Cars

Picking up some Dinky diecasts got me wondering this morning about these little cars.

One of my favorite toys as a kid were Matchbox vehicles. I had a hundred or so probably, mostly hand me downs from an uncle near my age, 6 years.

So, most of the good ones came from the UK, and I didn't know about most until I was an adult.

Matchbox, Corgi, Dinky, Budgie, Ledo.

What did we have in the US? Tootsietoy, Midge Toy which are crap in comparison. Johnny Lightning and Hot Wheels later but I never cared for them much because they were mostly fantasy cars, not the real ones people drove.

Today, in horror, I discover the Soviet Union had better diecast cars than we did.

I know France had a company also but don't recall the name.

I wonder why this is. We had BIG toys, Tonka's, Buddy L's, Structo's and maybe that's why the little ones were neglected. Matchbox obviously filled the void. I expect the vast bulk of their sales was to the US market.

Is this a situation of the US having to be big with everything? Did kids in Europe have large toy trucks to play with?

I have a pristine Corgi Mercedes Pullman in original box is also smiko with the instructions it still has the hood ornament attached which ultimately gets snapped off on allot of them, it belonged to my dad and I was never allowed to touch it.
I have some of his other ones small ones in boxes that appear to be like trunks think they are French made, the circa of the cars they are depicting are I think around the 20-30's.

I still have my slot car and controller from when I was racing it a Ruskit Chaparral 2D around the time when the sidewinder motor placement came in they were so much faster.
So much fun with the toy soldiers and a bag of marbles out my back yard when a child pity the grey soldiers always lost to the green ones, then making billy carts with my friends remember losing lots of bark with the resultant prangs and failures but heck you could be a child back then.
Now its a case of prying their fingers from an I-Pad or comp screen I said to my son a while ago future generations of children will have fingers 2" long and thumbs 5" long due to to much X-Box and Nintendo gaming and so on....
So glad I grew up in the era I did when kids could be kids with the streets being relatively safe.

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

…with the streets being relatively safe.

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Don’t look up crime statistics over the years if you’d like to continue believing that haha.

I’m younger than most here but, for example, the iPhone wasn’t pervasive until I was in college. This next generation, it’s all they know. I’ve attempted to work with a couple at my day job in manufacturing and it’s very obvious their hands-on skills are lacking.

I feel thankful for growing up in the last generation to not be raised by smart phones and iPads. I doubt the hobbies that brought me here or led me into my career could’ve survived a series of touchscreen babysitters.

I still have my Farnborough-Measham Car Auction Collection car transporter.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...c3882bdb-1.jpg

Obviously I was a collector. I still mourn the loss of my wine-colored XKE Jag in the seat back of a Trailways bus somewhere around 1964. Then there was Joseph.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...09/joesm-1.jpg


Bob

Is that a GI Joe Bob I had one of those as well but after @15 WW's he had lost an arm and most of his kit.

Never did comics, baseball cards, matchbox cars or gi joes but had plenty of those little green army men. My absolutely most favorite toy was an Erector Set with the electric motor. I would build stuff with it until my fingers hurt with all those little screws and nuts. When I got a little older I started building AMT and Monogram models with my buddy.

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

Is that a GI Joe Bob I had one of those as well but after @15 WW's he had lost an arm and most of his kit.

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Yep, hat is G.I. Joe with his Garand. I had one. I went to visit a friend in another town. This guys had probably twenty of them. He got bored with them and started gluing Estes rocket motors onto them and shooting them into the next neighborhood. I said to him, "If you are just going to blow 'em away, give some to me." I now have eleven G.I. Joes including the German, Australian, Russian, Japanese, Marine, you name it.

Bob

Went from the battle fields of my back yard to building and flying control line aircraft with glow plug & Diesel engine planes flying wings etc biggest I had was a Spectre low wing 42" wing span and no collections complete without a Spitfire which we built from scratch from plans a friend had that was a great job fabricating all the parts.
We put an extra large fuel tank, a 2.5cc Enya glowplug engine on it and it did from memory 100+ laps we got bored one day with the whole lot after a few years of it and being young chaps every plane we had did wingovers that we did not pull out of.

I got back into them 9 years ago with a control line Spitfire and a Hi wing remote but did not like the attitude of some of the members of the flying club every club has them those that their stuff don't stink and don't get in my way or ask any stoopid questions.
All my planes have been stored for years, I'm back into my childhood now building models here's my attempt after 30 years since I built my 1/35 Tiger mid-production a 1/35 Panther completed with figures and ammo I painted up even airbbrushed the clean empties to look fired plus just finished a 1/35 Russian T34/76.
I'm building a late production 1/35 Crusader now

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Originally Posted by baltimoreed

My absolutely most favorite toy was an Erector Set with the electric motor. I would build stuff with it until my fingers hurt with all those little screws and nuts.

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Hey, me too! I still have mine - a No. 4-1/2 I think, but only has the wind-up motor. Also, still have my OK Cub .049B model airplane motor from the mid 50's - Bob

We were pretty poor financially when I was a kid so I didn't get a lot of new things. My uncle however was an only son and the youngest with four older sisters and he got everything. And as he got older, I got a lot of the common stuff but he kept a lot of the better things. I can't complain, I had plenty of matchboxes, structos, army men and one GI Joe. I had a lot of the matchboxes stolen when I was in my early teens. Probably have them all back now. I never did grow up when it came to toys, never got rid of them, continue buying them to this day.

I'm not sure you folks are aware but a few years ago Atlas launched its Ultimate Tank Series of Diecast models in 1/72. They were discontinued but an Intrepid Internet Warrior can still find his favorite tanks in:

Atlas Ultimate Tank SeriesPanzer VI Ausf E (Tiger I)
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...Ultimate-1.jpg

De Agostini 1:72 M4A3(76)W Sherman US Army 756th Tank Btn Houston-Kid II

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...07/sl500-1.jpg

There were three different Shermans and probably three or four Tigers. Virtually every tank involved in WWII and many from WWI were available. They are still around. Each came in a lovely display case.

Bob

I started this collection of tanks some time ago and was just going along nicely until I got to my 85th one as each one came with its own booklet which you purchased folders for and decided to contact the vendor to see just how many were in the complete collection.
Well they replied there was 150 units in the collection as I have very limited space I decided to cancel my subscription they are all in sealed plastic display settings with the type of tank its handy as a quick reference for the King Tiger, Jagdtiger, Sturm Tiger & Tiger 1 I can pretty much build & mark up most Tiger camo patterns of the era.
So now with all my 15 hard cover books on the Tiger I can accurately model a particular one say like Wittmanns or Carius's or Von Rosen, I have a 1/35 early production Tiger that I am going to do up in winter camo from the Russian front this is after I build the 1/35 King Tiger.

Your problem Cinders, is you need a bigger house.

Truly, you are a collector! The two I show above are all I have. My problem is that I am multi-disciplinary and tend to collect in all disciplines. For example, my house is covered in WWII history books.

Bob

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Originally Posted by Bob Womack

My problem is that I am multi-disciplinary and tend to collect in all disciplines.

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You are not alone.

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Originally Posted by muffett.2008

Your problem Cinders, is you need a bigger house

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Yeah love to Muffett but then I'd just start whim collecting something else and I am a bit like Bob and HOH there are all different facets to my collecting but mainly books on WWI - WWII, I have about another lifetimes of reading just the Bean WWI AIF series is 12 volumes each @8-900 pages.
Still you guys share allot of stuff you have which I find very interesting, I've collected the stuff since 2nd year high school.

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Originally Posted by HOOKED ON HISTORY

Originally Posted by Bob Womack
My problem is that I am multi-disciplinary and tend to collect in all disciplines.
You are not alone.

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I like the way you characterize the affliction. It sounds almost noble. Much better than I have a compulsion to hoard stuff.

I have collected many things over the years starting with football cards, then baseball, then US stamps, US coins, Canadian coins, toy cars, Ertl banks and dozens of things to a lesser extent. I still have them all but I'm for the most part only still collecting milsurps, gear, bayonets, helmets and toy cars. I also tend to buy local items meaning something commemorative the local towns or fairs puts out.

Not sure if I should call it a collection but it is easily the single largest by number item I have, books. I don't really collect them, I just buy what I like and I happen to like a lot of them. Used to be close to 20 a week average in the summer, space has forced me to be more selective and the average is probably down to 2-3 a week now. I have them in every room of the house with the exception of the kitchen and bathroom. Military history, natural history, science fiction, fantasy and action type fiction making up the bulk of it. I have so many that when I'm cleaning out a room I pick up one and say what a wonderful book it is, forgot I even had it. It's really bad when there are six in a row like that. Old age perhaps. They are somewhat organized but sometimes the new ones just get stacked up somewhere and forgotten

Things are nice, collecting is fun but when it gets to the point that those things control you it’s time to get very selective and pare down. I’ve collected Woodsmans, Webleys, a few krags and ‘03s, cas guns, military reference books and military gear. Only a few primo pieces, I’m too cheap to spend big bucks so they’re mostly nice shooters. The difference between men and boys are the price of their toys.

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Originally Posted by Aragorn243

action type fiction

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Jack Reacher?

Well here's a fun little "connection" thing that happened to me: I have been reading Winston Churchill's The Second World War in six volumes and was on Volume Six: The Hinge of Fate. As we approached April 1943 in Tunisia, I stumbled across the story of Tiger 131 (Panzer VI Ausf E "Tiger I" chassis number 250122, turret number 131) on the Internet. That tank was captured towards the end of the Tunisia campaign, As I started researching, one of the videos about it happened to mention the finely detailed Atlas Ultimate Tank Series and their Tiger I in Tunisian paint. I had to have it to look at as I read Churchill and studied. I tracked down one in Poland and bought it. So, my reading of Churchill's narrative of Tunisia, my research into the tank, and the arrival of the tank model came together. Right at that point I discovered a video tour around and through Tiger 131 and pictures of Churchill climbing over a Tiger tank in Tunisia after the battle.

All of this made the history come alive for me in an exciting way.

Bob

The main point in my view is it is stewardship for bits of history , its all great fun and you meet some good folks along the journey.

Do not forget the Sun Rubber Company cars tanks and trucks. They go good with the lead Manoils and Barclays lead soldiers if you were a kid of the late 40s or early 50s:mad smile::madsmile:

see SRF Anyone collect Dimestore cast metal soldiers? - Surplus Rifle Forum - www.surplusrifleforum.org

Sun rubber toys:
Sun Toys

I always liked the Franklin Mint Tanks, but even as an old guy still too expensive for old timers.
see Shermann M4-A3 1:24 THE FRANKLIN MINT - YouTube

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Originally Posted by HOOKED ON HISTORY

Jack Reacher?

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Clive Cussler and the four or five co-writers he worked with before he died. I'm wondering how much longer his name will be the main name on the books. I've bought at least four since he died. I hope they keep writing them. I also read John Grissolm which are mostly lawyer books.

I have a few sun rubber toys. A lot of Auburn rubber toys. They made halftracks, jeeps, artillery pieces, 2 1/2 ton trucks and tanks. I have an amphibious vehicle of some type also, not a DUCK. Might just be a landing craft they put wheels on. The old ones were rubber, the later ones medium plastic.

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Originally Posted by Aragorn243

Clive Cussler and the four or five co-writers he worked with before he died. I'm wondering how much longer his name will be the main name on the books. I've bought at least four since he died. I hope they keep writing them. I also read John Grissolm which are mostly lawyer books.

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I highly recommend the Lee Child/Reacher books (far better than the movies) John Grishom lived next door to one of my friends (liked some of the books and the movies).
Tom Clancy books and movies are all quite good. I will take a look at the Cussler series based on your recommendation.