ploughmaster

Not all the 5000's had 'Steer-o-Matic'. From the introduction of the Super Major 5000 in 1965 to 1969, the farm version was not fitted with a cab and so was easily steerable from the steering wheel. From 1970 to 1973, it was fitted with the industrial type cab from the Shawnee Poole Dumper set. That set, and the Dump trailer on its own included a plastic clip which fitted onto the steering wheel through the front of the cab. A string was attached to this with the other end being attached to a plastic spade which was also included which could be used to tow and steer the tractor. This attachment wasn't included with the farm version however. The Steer-o-Matic only came in with the fitting of the FIECo safety cab in 1973, on which the steering wheel was completely inaccessible. The exhaust was always in the same place on the 5000, although the Super Major 5000 had a short oval silencer, the uncabbed Force 5000 had a round silencer. The cabbed 5000's had the same silencer, but a shorter top pipe. The exhaust position was moved nearer the front of the bonnet with the introduction of the 6600.

1960 to 1964 there was an annual large size (A4ish) landscape format full trade catalogue, and a similar sized 'New Lines' catalogue. There were no customer catalogues at that time, although in both 1963 and 1964 4 smaller sized single sheet leaflets were produced for retailers to pass on to the customer- one had Farm and Tree models on it, one had Zoo and Tree models on it, one had Floral Garden and (you've guessed it!) Tree Models on it, and the fourth had Swoppets, Gun Models, Eyes Right, Motor Cycles, Petrol pumps and the Industrial Major with Shawnee Poole Dumper. From 1965 to 1971 there was an annual joint Trade/Customer catalogue about half the size of the early 60's ones. They were priced at sixpence (the customer catalogues were free from 1973 on). I believe the ones issued for the trade had a card enclosure with details of new models and point of sale material on them (I am a bit vague on this as they are unbelievably rare and I have not seen one). I assume by 'prizes', you mean prices. The early 60's trade catalogues sell for anything from £50 to £150 depending on condition (though I have known exceptional ones sell for over £200). The 1963 and 1964 leaflets in good to mint condition should be about £20+ (bit more for the Farm ones) and the smaller late 60's ones (without the card outer) vary from £15 to £40 depending on condition.

Your post has prompted a bit more research, and you are correct about the (non)Taarup link and the Kverneland history. I came across this link to a patent for a stand for an Underhaug wrapper though : http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP0426308.html. About three quarters of the way down (if you can wade through it that far!) it has this: The machine in question was undoubtedly an Underhaug design (they were one of the first, if not the first wrapper maker) - Volac were (and still are) feed/diet specialists not machinery manufacturers so perhaps Dowdeswell built it on their behalf under licence from Underhaug. I remain convinced that the Britains model was redecalled after the Underhaug brand name was abandoned, and they were sold as Kverneland. What was manufactured in Norfolk after that I don't know, but the Underhaug machine was marketed and sold as a Kverneland in the UK.

If you look carefully I think you might find he knows exactly what he's doing - it looks to me as though the cab front cross member is missing!!

Well if you let a young goat loose with it.... To be fair to them. Whilst it may be rated for 3 year olds, it is probably aimed more at 7 years and upwards. I certainly wouldn't let a 3 year old have one, or the Siku for that matter. It is up to parents to judge what is suitable for their child, and that doesn't necessarily tally with the manufacturers rating! At under £50 it will sell in its own right. Yes, Britains could have made it stronger and more detailed. Trouble then is that it would have to be priced the same as, and compete directly with the Siku, and it is doubtful nif there is room for both manufacturers to sell in the same sector. We will have to wait and see how it stands up, but I would think the protoypes have been given a fairly hard testing already.

What is wrong with you lot. This is a TOY. It was designed to be a TOY. It is not a collectors model. There wouldn't be much point in making a radio controlled model simply to stand on a collectors shelf (though I imagine a fair few will! I don't see the aerial as a problem (and at the Toyfair they said it would be altered, and it has been - the one on the show version was like an upturned parsnip. The new one doesn't really show up badly enough to detract too much from the look of the thing). The battery is that size to give it a longer running time. Viewed as a toy, I see no problem with this. It may be all plastic, but still seems pretty robust nonetheless. My only concern is that with a limited warranty of only 60 days, it gives the impression that Ertl/Britains don't expect them to work for long! I agree that when viewed in comparison with the Siku one, it falls short in some respects, including the price. At about two thirds of the price of the Siku one, I think this will sell very well. I feel the Siku one has always been limited by the price. The one big disappointment is that such a thing was not available to me when I was a child and could make best use of it

If memory serves correctly, the wrapper in question was built by Taarup and imported and sold by Dowdeswell in association with feed specialists Volac (who still exist near Royston in Hertfordshire). Taarup were part of the Greenland Group (as were Vicon), and were taken over by Kverneland in 1998. Kverneland then took over the marketing of Greenland products in the UK, and so the marketing tie up between Dowdeswell and Volac ended and the machine was subsequently sold as a Kverneland. The change of decal on the Britains model simply reflected this.

Firstly, the words used were "they are and always will be, a britsh farming / euro farming toy company" You are still missing that point. They are not, it is now merely a brand name. The British end doing their own thing is pretty much what allowed us to have the Ford 5000, which you had this to say about: The JD4030 was an entirely US Ertl inspired model for which we were graced with a European spec version. The Ford was done principally from the UK end. No they didn't. they looked terrible. They were almost certainly the most appalling models of tractors ever made. The reason they are sought after is because they are old, and not so common and collectors want to fill holes in their collection. It definately doesn't make them any good as models. Britains had already done the poor models. I would like to know what models came out under Ertl ownership that were worse? I think this is unreasonable. There is a good spread of sizes, and as has been repeated before, the terms of the licence mean Ertl have to produce what the OEMs want them to. Siku do the mid range models that are licenced to them by JD Europe. Ertl don't have that licence for the tractors made in Europe.. Much as I would like to see a range of OEMs represented, the exclusive nature of the licences for CNH and JD that are held by Ertl means that those two OEMs have Ertl by the short hairs. Ertl are willing to concentrate on these brands because of the exclusivity. Other OEMs seem to grant licences to everyone and anyone, which means the toy/model makers end up competing for sales of basically the same model. I know I am in an area populated with large farms and massive machinery, so a lot of the offerings fit in with what I see every day (there is an area of around 30 miles radius in central Lincolnshire that has the highest concentration of Case Quadtracs of anywhere in the world!!!) Go to the highly arable areas of continental Europe and you will find some truly huge machines.

Apart from the last sentence, with which I agree wholeheartedly, I think you and others are completely missing the point. Britains is no longer a British company (the 'Britains' part of RC2 consists of Craig Varley and pretty well nobody else). Britains is simply a brand name which Ertl use to sell in Europe because they know that the Ertl name would struggle in Europe in the same way that Britains name struggles in the US. The licences for JD and Case New Holland held by Ertl are very lucrative ones; Big manufacturers know this and that is why the likes of Ertl have to pay a lot for them, both monetarily and in accepting instructions from the OEMs as to what they want models of. If they don't make them, they will lose the licence, simple as that. Whilst most of the newer releases are of big tackle, I suggest you have a good look at the catalogue. You will find that there is a fairly good spread of tractor sizes to go at. Admittedly the combine range are the biggest possible! Don't labour under the delusion that Ertl/Britains are seeing their market disappear and will fold - by all reports the sales of their toys go from strength to strength. Until Ertl came along, apart from Ford and MF Britains only had access to licences from fairly obscure OEMs in the main, and we had been through a period in the nineties when all Britains could afford to do was redecal existing models and use existing castings and to some extent cabs and bonnets to make an approximation of a new model (Lamborghini 1706 and Same with Ford TW casting; Fendt 615 using Ford TW casting and Deutz cab; MF3680 with the wrong cab and a badly shaped bonnet; New Holland 8560 with bodged front weight on the Renault casting, and no engine detail). Ertl have changed all that and I defy anyone to say that the range has not improved vastly both in scope and accuracy in the last 10 years. They have listened and whilst there are still improvements to be made, (that hitch and the combine headers in particular) we must acknowledge the efforts made so far. What exactly is wrong with the quality of the recent Land Rover and Ifor Williams models? The recent tractors too have, in my opinion been very good. Yes, in many ways Siku are superior, but they are also more expensive in the toyshop. This constant and unrelenting Britains bashing that goes on within this forum does nothing to help the future of Britains, even as a brand. What is required is constructive criticism, and useful suggestion, not the intemperate tantrums sprayed around these threads like projectile vomit. Constantly met with such attitudes, Ertl will simply get fed up with trying and could abandon the brand altogether, which I am sure none of us want (indeed they now appear to have stopped using the Britains name and logo altogether for US releases).

Which effectively underlines the very point I tried (and apparently failed) to make. Ertl/Britains and UH do NOT sell into the same part of the market, so stop trying to compare them.

Honestly, some of you seriously need to get real here! What we have seen here is a preliminary list - and a lot more than we are usually allowed to know at this stage. In most years, even the models shown at the Toy Fairs in January are only a small proportion of what is released over the course of the year. There will undoubtedly be more as next year progresses, hopefully including certain models which were originally due this year, but have not appeared There is an ongoing problem with the (non)functionality of the hitch and quality of assembly (but UH too have a problem with their models being unbelievably flimsy). How anyone can say the standard modelling is deteriorating is beyond me - have any of you really looked at them? Recent new releases have been excellent in my opinion. And as for this total nonsense of expecting Ertl/Britains to have the same detail as UH; frankly it is risible. UH and Britains are produced for different markets. Britains are first and foremost made to be toys. UH are highly detailed models and as a result are flimsy by comparison (UH higher quality? Don't make me laugh!!!). It is difficult to extract many of the UH models from the box in one piece, and I would expect better for the money (on top of which UHs bigger scale 'models' are so inaccurate that they are a joke) They are also vastly more expensive to produce and to me, UH appear to be artificially holding down their price to sell them. If Ertl/Britains were to build to the detail level of UH, they would immediately lose most of their market because of safety related age restrictions (particularly in the US), and the prices would increase significantly. If anyone thinks Britains are doing badly and UH are doing better financially, wake up. I strongly suspect that Ertl/Britains have a much higher level of sales and are performing much better than UH. I think in the current financial climate, it is UH who will struggle to continue producing the level of detail at the price (big increase due in Jan I believe)! We will see. Britains as a brand is now American owned and operates as a subsidiary to Ertl. Basically most of the new releases are Ertl orientated, and most of the new items are dictated by the OEMs as a condition of the licence. Ertls US market will be first and foremost. I think some of you are expecting far too much. Wait and see before criticising something which hasn't been released yet. Anfield - I think the sprayer is now due early in the New Year.

MF 2620 was 95 DIN hp. Not a successful tractor and was dropped when the 699 came out. 2640 was 110 DIN hp.

The red one sounds interesting - not come across one of those. 2 articles from Warner hall - why on earth didn't Britains make the silos. I had to make my own from a 1 gallon Walls Ice Cream tin! (Mind you, by the time they were discussing them, I was supposed to have stopped playing with toys )

Can't agree with that - if that were the case, why the Keenan feeder wagon?

Might be worth you emailing the seller to ask. I do know of one example with the loader which had the 590 decal. I also remember Brian Norman having one of the big boxed tractor and implement sets with the 590 decal on one side of the tractor, and the standard 595 on the other. At the time (late 80's) he was looking for £25 for the set!!!!

Could you modify the girl off the Superfaun potato harvester?

It was indeed - released in 1949, the year after the E27N Major first saw the light of day. It wasn't the first implement af all though; that honour goes to the first version of the Timber Trailer (129F) which appeared at about the same time as the tractor in 1948. It was basically the horse drawn one with a trailer drawbar instead of the shafts.

There was indeed one in F&S (mine!), but that was unboxed. It is very rare (like the blue Muledozer), and that is the first boxed one I have seen. Actually I can count the number that I have seen on my fingers. Actually I can count them on the fingers of one hand As to a blue re-release, do you mean the 1980's era trailer(9565). If so, although obviously inspired by the earlier one(130F/9550), it was a completely different model. There were no common parts apart from the raves.

Not for long at that rate!!!!!!!!!!!

Not in the current one - it only takes the story to 1998.

There is no physical difference between this model and the previous versions of the series 1. Its merely a change of colour and number.

Perhaps there is some doubt about its authenticity - it is very easy to swap Britains plastic wheels around. Can anyone verify it (ie. bought one new from a shop at the time it was current) ?

I think so Super6, they started appearing when production went to the Far East. Ertl toys have had them for many years.

It is pointless comparing Britains/Ertl to Universal Hobbies. They are primarily aimed at totally different markets. As for profits disappearing, I would suspect that Britains/Ertl are rather more profitable than UH As we have seen for the last few years, there are likely to be other toys which will be released to dealers of which we know nothing yet. Indeed, this list tells us more than we knew at this stage last year - basically all we knew of until the toyfairs were the ones that had come new in late 2007.

The model is just the Elite Series 1 Land Rover in a different colour (light green) packed in a special 60th anniversary edition box. There are 2500 and each model is numbered underneath. There is no plinth!