THE GREEN HORNET LIVES!

 Junior gave his new Green Hornet Black Beauty the Sharpie treatment yesterday.

Not finished yet but Kato looks happy!

Groan Hornet

 Fixing up Junior' Green Hornet scrapper, before he colours it in in two weeks, has been as fiddly as Kato's cap.

The scanner and missile ejector mechanisms are groaningly temperamental and may yet spoil it for Junior. They do work now and then and when they do they fly! I just hope they work when he has a bash! 

Still, my part of the job is nearly done now.

I bought some plastic half-jewels for a squid and filed two down for the green headlights. Some of the Missus's red wire made the trim. 

I also re-chromed the grille.

Kato was missing so a small figure was cut to size, cap heat-flattened and painted.

A new windscreen was added using an old polypocket folder.

The Green Hornet was twisted inwards so some pliers dragged him round to the window again. He's lost his gun but that's life.

I just need to glue Kato in now if Bruce will let me! 

He did!

LIGHT UP THE CLOWN! WATCHING MY CORGI LINCOLN CONTINENTAL TV

 I adored my Corgi Lincoln Continental die-cast as a kid in the 60's.

Everything about it was just the best. The atom symbol on the rear window frames were just fantastic.

The bestest of all though was the TV screen at the back! Yes!

Mine was the clown picture - at least that's the one I remember [I must have had them all though!]. 

You could illuminate the lenticular picture and I would have loved to have sat in the back and watched it as a little Woodsy!

I liked my own 'clown' TV screen so much that I melded it into a radio story about ten years ago called Sarge, which was brilliantly produced and aired by Bill Everett and Dave Carrington over at Celtica Radio [were you a listener?]

Looking further into that TV screen I thought I'd change channels and see what the six pictures were in the Corgi Continental.

Despite reading they were everywhere on the net, I found finding pictures of the whole lenticular strip of six not easy to find.

Here's what I did find, courtesy of Ebay, Worthpointt, various auctions and Planet Diecast.

Here you can see the uncut strip of five mini TV screens resting on the front blister plinth, with one already in the rear of the car; the boxers.

All six were: clown, racing car, Mexican [or is it a US General?], rocket, galleon and boxers.

Here's a similar strip placed in the screen aperture [Image: Planet Diecast]. Again, the boxer is in the hole.

Here are three of the screens cut from the strip; boxers, rocket and Mexican/ US General.

The best thing though is seeing the screens in situ and ideally illuminated as they were meant to be seen when we were nippers.

Which was your favourite?

Clown [my own fave!]

Rocket

Racing Car

Boxers

I've been unable to find any images of the galleon or the Mexican/ US General in the TV screens. Can you help?

My final shot was one I saw on auction recently and captures for me the fabulous simplicity of play;

some of the TV screens cut and stowed in the boot of the car!

How cool is that!

Is this a car that you had? Which lenticular screen was in your TV?

BEEN HORNET

 I recently bagged this battered die-cast Green Hornet Black Beauty for 99p on the Bay [postage £4].

I adored mine as a kid.

This one is a joint project for Junior and me to do up.

My jobs are the headlights, windscreen and missiles. Junior will colour it back to black when he's back on Moonbase. 

I ordered a cheap repro scanner offa Ebay too ...

... and a front missile.

Fortunately the rear scanner ejector works fine. The front one is temperamental.

No figures; Kato and the Hornet have left the scene.

Next, home made headlights.

Are you doing up a die-cast?

Sill Life

 A few snaps of a couple of Junior's toy cars on his windowsill before getting him from school.

THE REAL DINKY SNORKEL: BILL EV'S 1965 FIRE ENGINE

Hi Woodsy

Here's a photo of a 1965 (I think) Dinky from my collection. My godmother bought my first one in 1968, but this was played with literally to bits.

A couple of years ago I managed to track this identical one down, complete with mint box and leaflet.

We even had a real.one of these at our main fire station. It was absolutely huge!

Bill Ev

UK

PS. Yours looks like the American version.

Gone Snorkeling!

 Picked up this lovely die-cast Simon Snorkel fire engine at a boot sale today. One pound. A Yorkshire bargain!

Just a little grime and dust to clean off.

And presto! 

I had a snorkel as a kid in the Sixties.

This one's in such good shape I'm wondering if it's a re-issue?

I remember all the super detailing on this toy as if it was yesterday. The fantastic long shape always stuck in my mind.

I always loved how the cab detached and the trailer was made level with the pull-out stabilisers.

And those cool firemen wearing the big raincoats and blue helmets. How great are they! 

A bit of fun, here's a shocking pink sheen using the cyberpunk filter!

I also picked up a Corvette Hot Wheels. It says 1975 underneath. In my desperation for an old Hottie I didn't see the 2012 until I got home! Ah well, it only cost 40p.

Did you have a Simon Snorkel fire tender as a kid? 

Who was Simon Snorkel?

Das Haul Up Close

 Here's a closer look at yesterday's German car boot €10 bargain haul of old cars and VHS.

Lots of SIKU, some Matchbox and a Japanese Hinshei crane.

The SIKU vehicles, like the yellow tow truck and the orange trailer, are really solid. All of them say made in Germany so are post-unification in 1989. Exact dates I'm unsure of.

I love the SIKU ADAC Prufdienst trailer, in which cars drive through to be checked! The Crane to the right is Japanese, my first MINI Power vehicle.

Here's some odds n odds too. Apart from the helicopter rotor I don't recognize any of the spare parts. You?

For the old big box* VHS videos I got - one of my collecting passions -  I chose this lovely 1880 cabinet in the flat to photograph them.

Eh voila!

I had thought they were all unrated, i.e. no age limit marked on them, which in the UK is known as pre- cert or pre-certificate and typically early to mid 1980's, but these German big boxes are all age rated. 

At this point I'm sure if unrated videos exist in Germany. Do they exist in your country readers? 

* Big box refers to the much bigger boxes of early VHS video cassettes from the 1980's. They can be solid plastic/ thick card or slightly padded plastic clamshells.

Have you got any readers?

Rob's Dinky Die-Cast Memories 2024

Seeing my friend's little car collection got me to reminiscing about my own childhood die-cast collection, and I have tried to recall what I had back then. 

I only came up with some - I am sure there were more - but maybe these will jog my memory. These were all the larger toys by Dinky, including a few Dinky Supertoys.

 I was super-lucky in having a rich Aunt (!) who would take me into New York City once a year and take me shopping at F.A.O. Schwarz, the legendary toy superstore in upper Manhattan; Auntie would let me get one die-cast per visit, and most of these are thanks to her generosity.

The Dinky Air France Caravelle, my Father brought home from the Idlewild Airport gift shop upon his return from one of his frequent business trips. 

I did also have some of the smaller Matchbox cars in those great little boxes, but I have no memory of specific vehicles - they must have been purchased and played with very early!

(images from ebay.com, dinkysite.com, qualitydiecasttoys.com)

#131 Cadillac Eldorado

#257 Nash Rambler Fire Chief's Car

#263 Superior Criterion Ambulance

#280 Observation Coach

#575 French Panhard Tracteur SNCF

Supertoys #60F Air France Caravelle

Supertoys #943 Leyland Octopus Esso Petroleum Tanker

Supertoys #953 Continental Touring Coach

Did you have any of these?

Rob C

USA