david_scrivener

British Pathe newsreel archive, this one form Brighton Toy (trade) Fair 1958 Very short film (only about 3 minutes in total), the Britains bit about half way through - but nice to see their old displays. http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=771 Enjoy..... ED: Fixed, link works now.......... I hope

A lot, probably most, buy a lot when they start collecting, but it usually slows down as they learn which items they will probably see again, perhaps many times - and much cheaper, and which items are 'once in a lifetime' chances. You clearly have priorities and a plan for your collection, which is excellent, and should help slow down your rate of spending. You also seem to be collecting what I regard as new(ish) models, which also should generally come up for sale again. You're in an easier position than I am in that respect, as I only collect items made before about 1970, a lot of my collection being pre-1939 vintage, so the 'once in a lifetime' situation applies all too often. :'(

Plus, of course, the other two in the same set, one on other UK makes of non-military lead figures, and the one on US Dimestore figures, military and farm, etc. I don't much like US Dimestore, too 'cartoony', but an interesting book nevertheless. I've never understood why there wasn't any zoo ranges in US Dimestore; after all, they have zoos in America.

Shh, don't tell everyone!

The sun shade was indeed the same item as the flying trapeze parasol, and it was a cocktail umbrella bought in for both purposes (a lot cheaper and easier for them than making some specially). I made a mistake of one year re the buildings 158F to 170F, which indeed Joe Wallis apparently didn't know about (I've got his books too, excellent, but a few things have come to light since). These buildings were in the 1959 Crown Range (2nd qual soldiers etc) leaflet only (I have a photocopy of it), and never made it to the 1959 or 1960 catalogues. James Opie gives details in his Great Book of Britains, a list on pages 483-484, and a photo of Britains Showroom on page 497, with some of them ( top row: 165, 160 & 159, 166, 2nd row:163, 164, 168, 2 more laying flat not clearly visible, 3rd 167) displayed on the wall in the background. I am, of course, aware of the 1962 numbering change, so was only referring to items before then.

As some of you will know, Britains Ltd produced special sets to order, say for specific major retailers such as Hamleys, which were allotted catalogue numbers even though they never appeared in their catalogues, probably because Britains thought they might want to produce them for their main range sometime in the future. There were also some individual items which were either never given numbers, as far as is known, such as the fixed arm lead farmer's wife and the walking donkey, or were listed, but were so short lived they only appeared in a 'New Lines' leaflet (have all these leaflets been discovered by Joplin, Opie, at al?), such as #663, the 1938 only folding table (as #617 + hole in centre of table top) with sunshade (paper cocktail umbrella), and the 1958 only range of farm buildings, 158F to 170F. So, the question is, were Britains intending something for any/many/all of the 'unknown' catalogue numbers (limiting the question as far as this forum is concerned to the farm range), which never happened for whatever reason? In the hope that others here will either be able to provide some concrete info on those missing numbers, or can add to 'what if' speculation, I'll kick off with a couple of suggestions: (1) Was the big post-war farm number gap, #716-743, intended for new figures designed for the US market, as Britains Ltd was under government pressure to export as much as possible? Some American style farm people, like those made at the same period by Crescent, might have sold well there. (2) Was the fixed arm Farmer's Wife from an intended range of cheapy 2nd grade lead farm figures circa 1950 (filling in #759 to #768), when the 2nd grade soldier ranges were being relaunched?

I went to 2 car boot sales today, and bought a few good books cheap, including: 2 books of the scripts of Fawlty Towers Robert Rankin's comic novel 'The DA-DA-DE-DA-DA CODE' (no prizes for guessing what that's a spoof of) A biography of Eva Braun (very briefly 'Mrs Hitler') 'The Great Unfrocked' by well known columnist & ex-MP, Matthew Parris (history of church scandals) and the one I've started reading first, 'A Way of Life', an autobiography by Reg Kray (as in Reggie & Ronnie Kray) covering his years in prison. Fascinating but grim. A couple of weeks ago I bought another fascinating book, 'The Nazi Connection', an autobiography by F.W.Winterbotham of his years as a British spy in pre-war Germany trying to keep track of the build up of the Luftwaffe. Group Captain Winterbotham is perhaps better known for his earlier book, 'The Ultra Secret', the first of the books published about the WW2 decoding at Bletchley Park - a subject I've been reading about for years because my mum was there.

Well, that's a puzzler! It's not any of the known Britains farm buildings, and I'm pretty sure by the style its earlier than 158F to 170F, could even be before the better known 1939-40 range, 94F to 103F. So is there yet another short lived, hitherto unknown short lived range which never made it to the main catalogues? There are a few 'unknowns' in the F number sequence, such as 81F to 89F and 114F to 119F, which this might have been alloted. I have 2 almost, but not quite, identical cottages which are unmarked. I've been wondering for years who made them.Hugar? or someone else? Here is a list of the 158F to 170F: all roofs on the first few, 158F to 165F, are roughcast red, like that on Cowshed 501F 158F Chicken House & run on base 7 x 5 inches 159F Pigsty on base 7 x 5 inches 160F Double Pigsty with door for attendant, on base 9 x 7 inches 161F 'Farm House with walled paddock', on base 9 x 7 inches (cottage with garden would be more accurate description) 162F Stable and Paddock, on base 9 x 7 inches 163F 'Farm House with outbuilt stable', on base 12 x 8 inches (same cottage & stable as previous 2 items) 164F 'Farmhouse with adjoining outbuildings, on base 16 x 9 inches (cottage as 163F + stable & shed each side) 165F Farm House, chicken house, stable & shed on base 16 x 16 inches. 166F Thatched cottage, chicken house & stable/shed on base 20 x 14 inches 167F 'Complete Model Home Farm' on base 21 x 14 inches (cottage is same as onein photo from you at the top of this page, but with window on left, door on right) 168FThatched Cottage (exactly same as yours above), pigsty & double stable on base 16 x 12 inches 169F Thatched Barn (with hayloft) & outbuildings (open sheds for winter accom of cattle) in walled yard. A super item 170F Thatched farmhouse (this one & 166F have door & window at gable end), double stable, pigsty & pond with bridge over on base 18 x 20 inches. (I have 2 different variations of this, presumably made by whoever it was (for Hugh Gardiner??) to sell independently of Britains.)

Not collecting the earlier plastic people & animals from the 1950s & '60s then Dwayne?

You called? Start by meeting all the folks at this, probably the best poultry forum on the net, http://www.bluelaced.co.uk Lots of breeders there, between them with most varieties available in the UK, and we know folks with other breeds. However, you may have a problem finding someone prepared to do the necessary health/quarantine procedures for exporting to Canada, but we do have a member (also named Scott) in the north of the US (near Buffalo, upper New York state) who might be able to help you locate breeds rather closer to home. See you at bluelaced (I'm DaveScriv there)

I suppose you could do something with them, perhaps along the lines of the old (country & western?) song, "I've got a 1957, '58, '59....... Chevrolet" (or something like that, I've forgotten exactly. Was it Johnny Cash?)

I think I might be getting close to solving the mystery of these 1950s Britains, Ready Brek, & other unknown farm buildings. Not quite there yet, but 'an expert' has told me that Hugh Gardiner Of Hugar more or less closed his factory at Epsom in the late 1940s and moved down to Hove. However he continued selling toy buildings, farm scale & smaller scales for train layouts, which he had made up by several 'backyard outfits' in the area (so probably mostly near Brighton/Hove, but maybe others all over Sussex, Kent, Surrey & south London). Gardiner died in 1971, and was still doing deals, but obviously not manufacturing anything, up to sometime during the 1960s, possible as late as '67 or '68. One possible (but still very much only 'possible') candidate for our unknown manufacturer was the 'Dudley Toy Co'. Dudley Road, Brighton (or Dudley Road, eastbourne?). Apparantly a carpentry workshop only the size of a double garage or so. If I get any more info (to borrow the line from The Terminator) I'll be back......

This story from Guatamala, here reported on an excellent US news site, puts complaints here about potholes in the roads into perspective....... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/01/guatamala-sinkhole-is-mas_n_595877.html

Clear evidence! Excellent! Can you confirm that it was just the 4 buildings. I'd like to see a pictue of the baseboard, & a list of the awful Charbens animals/people. Charbens also supplied cowboys & indians (equally awful) for a promotion for Cow & Gate Creamed Rice Pudding, details & pictures of which are in the Plastic Warrior Charbens 'Special'. Will we ever discover who made those buildings??

There was another promotion which I had about 1960-61, and have also still got, Britains plastic zoo animals from Birds Eye fish fingers. They came with a leaflet with instructions to make cages, enclosures, etc. All very much in the Blue Peter style

I've just bought 3 of these buildings, so emailed him a few days ago with the same question. He has all 4 buildings, which he emailed me photos of a year ago, so I know exactly which buildings we're talking about. He hasn't replied yet, but I guess he soon will when he reads this. The 3 I've just bought came with some plastic Charbens animals & farmer (horrible things really, unlike the buildings which are excellent), and when I was a kid (circa 1960) my granny got some Charbens animals & people (I've still got them) from an offer with something. I've long forgotten what the product was, but putting 2 & 2 together now, it might have been part of the same promotion. Presumably there were several options depending on how much money & box tops you sent off.

I think that was a mistake by Joplin. The cottage on the previous page is 97F. The cottage you've illustrated was made by the unknown company who made the Britains buildings in 1958 (158F to 170F) and 1960-62 (500F to 505F), a range of their own (this cottage is one of those) and a small range (of 4, cottage, stable, open barn & pig sty) for a promotion offer for Ready Brek (so I'm told by our Cornish expert). Might be in the same range as the Crescent hen house in Joplin's blue book?

I'm also collecting these, especially anything (farm, zoo, soldiers, cowboys/indians) in plastic by JoHillCo. The 'Plastic Warrior' Guide to JoHillCo plastics is the best guide to which of their lead figures were also made in plastic, but even they admit there are still a lot more to be discovered. Most JoHillCo plastics are quite poor as well, and some can be found in a variety of unsuitable coloured plastics (mainly cowboys/indians). As JoHillCo seemed never to have been very interested in plastic, and this was all happening very early on in the plastic era, say from about 1955 until they went bust in 1960, with some of their moulds being passed on to Cherilea (ex JoHillCo people) they may have bought any colour raw material plastic they could get cheap. There wern't that many other UK manufacturers of plastic farm & zoo, so it's quite possible to get a good representative collection without spending a fortune. The main other ranges were Barretts (FG Taylor's former partner), Charbens, Cherilea, Crescent & Timpo, and then it gets into the fascinating (to us obsessives) topic of the minor companies such as Gemodels, Paramount, Speedwell, Trojan, UNA & VP. Some of them (and unknown others?) made pirate copies of the Britains/Herald ranges in addition to the many similar pirate copies made in Hongkong. Most of these were undersized and very poor & crudely moulded, but the best of them are almost as good as the real thing, sometimes with a few original figures.

I don't keep poultry anymore because I can't keep cockerels where I live now (have Mookee fancy pigeons instead), but I'm still a poultry show judge and have written several books about poultry. I thought this section should have a poultry thread as surely many of you have some chooks running around your places. I'll chip in if there are any posts regarding my main interests in this topic, rare breeds and histories of breeds, but apart from that I hope other members will have discussions of their own. Dave.

Which hobby? I see 3 entirely separate hobbies here: 1,Collecting 'antique' farm toys, lead (Britains, JoHillCo, Pixeyland/Kew, T&B, Heyde, etc), aluminium (Wendal, Quiralu, etc), compositon (Elastolin, Lineol, etc). 2, Collecting 'vintage' farm toys, old plastic (say 1955-80) & metal tractors etc of similar age. 3, Collecting modern models. I don't do '3', so, as the famous line goes, "I couldn't possibly comment", '2' and '3' are recession proof as they are either already widely perceived as 'antiques' or 'investment collectables' or in the case of '2', rapidly becoming so, farm, zoo and other 'civilian' figures much more so than soldiers made by the same manufacturers.

The tendency for toys to get broken isn't necessarily a bad think from the perspective of adult collectors. 99% of Britains (& their competitors) old lead figures got broken - heads off the people, rifles off the soldiers, legs, tails & horns/antlers off the farm & zoo animals. Its the 99% that got smashed that make the surviving 1% worth so much! The same applies to vehicles, whether it be Britains few pre 1970 ones or the widely collected Corgi, Dinky, etc ranges. I doubt whether many of today's models (tractors, cars, soldiers, whatever) will reach the same dizzy values (apart from the odd rarity) because so many of them have been kept in pristine condition, still in their original boxes/packaging. We know the Britains family always had adult collectors in mind as well as kids, but I imagine the owners of their more downmarket competitor companies, such as JoHillCo & Charbens, would be amazed if they could see how their 'penny toys' are collected, and their values, today.

As far as I'm concerned (but then I only collect figures, preferably lead, & buildings, preferably wood) it ceased to be 'Britains' in 1984, when the Britains family sold out - and quality had already long sunk anyway. I'm just not interested in anything much they made after 1970.

Yep, its fascinating and frustrating in equal measure trying to discover who made these old buildings. A few points to add to the discussion: (1) It is believed (by Messrs Joplin & Opie, among others) that Hugar (who certainly did make the farm, zoo & military buildings fo Britains circa 1937-40) had gone out of business before Britains' 1958 & 1960 farm buildings (158F > 170F & 500F > 505F), which must therefore have been made by someone else. Other buildings in the same style exist, and some of us have a few of them - but the identity of the company remains a mystery. (2) I think the blacksmith/wheelwright shop was made by Peacock & Co Ltd, 3 Adelaide Terrace & 2 Prebend Street, Islington, London N1, circa 1927-37. They also did a butchers shop with the name 'A. Rib', so the penchant for punning suggests a link. (source 'A to Z of Dollshouses' by Marion Osborne) (3) I think the small shed (hen house? pig sty?) '15110-E' is either Elastolin or a copy by someone else. I haven't seen this version before, but Elastolin certainly made one of similar basic design earlier, with their characteristic textured surface, which they repeated much later in plastic, also textured. This simpler wooden version could have been made in between, circa 1945-55 perhaps?

Can anyone here tell me who sells spare arms etc for Britains (& other?) farm & civilian figures? The spares suppliers I've seen so far seem to be almost all military only. The item I particularly need at present is the yoke & wires for dairyman #591. I already have some spare buckets, so don't really need them.

I started the survey, but gave up and deleted. As I only collect old farm toys (people, animals & buildings, not tractors & implements) it just didn't apply to me at all.