Currently enjoying my only real day off at Marsbase and the postman has just delivered my latest ebay finds. The main prize being a lovely model of the Dinky Command Car (from the Investigator pilot), which I won along with the Dinky 784 Goods Train set. The train was a brief release of a 'pre-school' type loco, between 1972-74. The full set has a red goods wagon, so this must be part of a pair, as it has two yellow open cars. A nice little thing for the train fan, but a bit of an oddity for Dinky collectors.
Postman Pat also delivered two space books, Patrick Moore's Moon Flight Atlas, which has been a nightmare to get hold of due to problems with stock and post and an amazing russian textbook on the soviet space shuttle programme, which is chock full of interesting information, just a shame its all in cyrillic text and I cant read a word! More on these later!
The Command Car and the Coastguard boat are a nice addendum to the Gerry Anderson Dinky collection, and relevant because of the unaired pilot episode, but like you I have absolutely no interest in 'Stripy'. Dinky did do a few models using tooling originally intended for their abandoned Starcruiser which might be of interest. The Space Zygon Patroller or the Space Battle Cruiser are two examples.
ReplyDeleteIve got some incomplete examples of those and two Trident Starfighters, which while having no relevance at all, are nice toys. Its a shame they didn't pursue the space line, as they were good original toys.
DeleteI never knew Dinky made locos. I had a matchbox one as a kid!
ReplyDeleteThis was a one off, it didnt't sell as well as the Matchbox lines, which are much better models anyway and were supported by more rolling stock and playsets.
DeleteThe Command car was green as I recall? Funny how the sticker held its colour and the paint faded! -Mark J Southcoast Base
ReplyDeleteThis is the earlier, pre-army version. The green one was marketed later as a more standard military model, dropping the 'Designed by Gerry Anderson' note on the pack, as there was nothing on tv to support it!
ReplyDeleteThis post, and its disparaging references to something called Stripey, got me intrigued, so I looked it up. Stripey the Magic Mini, from the Candy & Andy photo-comic series, is officially my new obsession! I am sure that diehard Fandersons consider Stripey the nadir of the Century 21 empire - its about as low-tech and un-Derek Meddings as one can get - but I think it/he/she is strictly adorable, and so very "60s." Looks like it could have fallen out of an Austin Powers movie. I looked up the Dinky Toy collectible online, and a decent one is way out of my price range. So one of my new "bucket list" projects is to build a plastic model kit of the Mini Cooper (Revell and Tamiya both seem to have made them) and try to paint all those weird stripes! Am I out of my mind? Probably! I know you guys won't be holding your breath for me to finish this thing either, but hey, one man's trash...
ReplyDeleteZig - you can see the mini on the earlier post 'The Die is Cast' too. I'm unsure what the Andersons were smoking when then came up with anthropormorphic panda's looking after small children, but it creeps me out no end! Good luck with the mini!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up on a Magic Mini siting on Moonbase Central - how could I have missed that?! I read a nice article on the C21 publishing empire awhile back in one of David Nightengale's great fan mags - the Candy & Andy franchise was an attempt to skew to younger female fans. And failed miserably, according to the guy interviewed, who I think was the main sales rep or production manager or something. Anyways, as you probably know by now, anything in the C21 universe - including the spectacular failures - is fascinating to a guy like me who, in the States, had to hear tantalizing tidbits about all the great stuff you fellows in the UK and Canada had free access to. I was jealous then, and I am still jealous today!
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