powerrabbit

No, nothing in the sellers listing description Bill, just said from the 'farm yard' collection' and sold in the gift shops for £70. When it arrives I'll be able to tell you more about it. Right, just modifying this post. The figurine has just turned up in the post, that was quick. Anyway, now I can say what it is. Titled 'Potato Picking', the cat number is A4062, series is 'Young Farmers', stamped with artists initials 'P B' and dated 2004. It's quite a big peice and talking scales the girl is roughly to 1:12 I would reckon. Actually looks better than it did in the picture I posted. Will take some more and put up if wanted.

The top 'spikes' on the haems' on the horses collar on yours Bill are more 'upright' than mine, on mine they're leaning back more but will straighten very carefully as I've discovered that these are metal. Waiting for this to arrive now, bought off eBay for £7.99 and mine was the only bid, never seen this one myself and the seller only described it as 'a girl and her Westie picking up potatoes' so haven't a clue as to it's 'title untill it comes. With its original box apparently, wouldn't have bought it otherwise.

By the look of the state of the tractor Matt in the picture of loading it on the trailer with the Loadall, you were very brave in undertaking the restoration but just shows that with time and dedication what can be achived. Well done.

Buff Orpington I reckon for the chicken, Ransomes plough although it's a bit 'non-descript' and the little pony is a Shetland. Your pictures are better than those in the listings Bill and does it more justice. Will have to consider one for myself me thinks.

Look on the Club site, www.dbtc.co.uk look in the main menu 'tractor range' and you'll find some.

Perhaps the Duncan cab was too heavy for the 135 Mark and would compromise the performance of the tractor. Good bit of work though Mark and nice to be able to read an article backed up by illustrations written by someone who knows what they're talking about and not think they know what they're talking about. There are so many articles in all these publications that have slight discrepancies that could be better researched.

Just read this article, not just because Mark submitted it, but can honestly say that to date it's one of the most comprehensive descriptive and informative articles on a single tractor that I have read. With the additions of the brochures and sales literature included makes it a lot more interesting which on other tractor models have in the past I have found lacking. Praise be to the Lord!

The seller of these on eBay has 5 of them listed, go on, you know you want one!

Read the 'Buyers Guide' for the D.B. 885 and found the pictures more interesting than the text. A bit vague in advice to buyers what to look for and could have gone into more detail on fault-finding although knowing this model well and that there are no inherent faults other than maintainence from previous owners and general wear of use. 'Model Corner' concentrating on the 2010 releases from Britains and again no more than we already know and only 2 pages with little amount of text. An extra page on other 2010 releases from other producers would have made things a bit more interesting. Still picking through other articles.

Have to keep an eye on the competition Rory, they might miss something!

Had my copy arrive yesterday but have only scanned it over and not had time to read any of the articles yet. Had a copy of Kelsey's 'Classic Car Buyer' in with it, don't know why they're trying to flog this to tractor enthusiasts, perhaps trying to convert us or it's not selling that well. I would not buy it at £2.60 weekly.

Probably warrants a seperate topic really but the Britains catalogues I have at present are from 1967 up to date but between am missing 1968, 1971, 1972 and 1975. The majority are the smaller type they call the shop catalogues and I also have a few of the A4 size trade ones as well from the 1980's and 90's. As said, the earlier ones throught the 1960's and 70's are the best ones but when the fold-out single sheet ones that were produced for a very short time in the 90's they were rubbishy and very cheaply produced and you needsd a magnifying glass to read them.

A nice clean and crisp original 1967 Britains catalogue.

I've been looking at that one too Bill and it is a good price. Not into them too much but beginning to appreciate some of the animal studies although some are a lot better than others. Some of the 'garden bird' studies are very good and some on at very good prices as well but again it's a question of room and where do you stop? Was the 'Out To Pasture' from the same chap?

Here's the one I bought. Came early this morning by courier and on getting it out of the packaging and the box and all the polystyrene I was surprised to see how big it actually is, bigger than it appears in the pictures I've seen in other places, it's actually almost a foot long and just over five inches high to the top of the horses ears. A quite heavy piece as well. Really glad I bought this one and at the price, a steal. Enjoy.

I was watching the boxed Dexta and thought the end price was pretty good, well done. I received the Britains yellow Winget 2B 1500 dumper today, banded box dated 1989. Never seen one round here so a bit of a rare find for me. Also just bought another Border Fine Arts study, 'Lightly Rolled'. Horse and roller with man walking behind. On the sites of companies that sell Border stuff, this one is marked up at £138 to £180 but Gray's of Shenstone is advertising it in their latest newsletter for £69 but I found a 'shop' on eBay that is selling them for £34 'buy it now' format, now that is cheap, I'll post a link to this guy in the Border topic if anyone wants. The one I bought should be here tomorrow.

The loft of any house is not ideal to store anything of an organic nature as the fluctuation of temperatures will create moisture and the lack of circulation of air will further contribute to this even if the loft is insulated. If you want to store this type of material in your loft you should have a heater installed, one of those electric plug on a lead, tube greenhouse heaters to maintain a constant temperature or a fan heater that will also move the air around a bit and circulate it, it could be plugged in via a timer so that the heater comes on at regulated intervals which will also save electric in not being on constantly, you can get a timer that you plug in the socket and then plug your appliance into that and pull out the little pins to coincide with the times you want it to operate. My house is thatched and stays a fairly constant temperature so I have found that putting empty boxes in larger thicker boxes keeps them very well, the only problem is in thatch you get a lot of flies hibernating in it and find their way into everything and the flittermice living in the roof poop on everything.

Britains mint and banded boxed yellow dumper and driver, dumper decalled Winget 2B 1500. Just wait for it to arrive now. Britains 1969 catalogue, mint with price list. Britains boxed show jumping eventing set.

It's an early conversion of the Britains early issue one.

If you read David Pullens first book on Britains tractors, it tells you which castings were used on different models and there were several that used the same casting so lend themselves to these sort of conversions. I know this is off the point a little but thought worth mentioning, especially to our younger members that may be getting interested in converting.

Buy a UH 1:32 MF590 and change the bonnet decals. Job done.

Anything is possible in the 'virtual' world, especially carpet farming!

There were 4 of these tractors built and went on to farms for demonstration and two remained on farms for evaluation. Two were scrapped when the project was dropped and the other two remained on the farms that they were sent to for evaluation. One of these I believe is now in France in the museum and the second was re-discovered in the back of a barn on another farm, where it is now is uncertain and surrounded in secrecy. There have been many Stories and stuff printed on this tractor but the best one to look for is a publication from 2002 caled 'The Legendary LTX Tractor, The Big "Fergie" Story by Erik Fredriksen. You see copies on eBay from time to time or if you want a copy try the people that advertise tractor books in the magazines.

The light brown chickens are the same breed used in battery houses, called Lohmann Traditional, very close to the slightly darker red/brown free renge layers that are a cross between Rhode Island Red and Lhomans which are known as Golden Comet. The cockerel is a cross, Rhode Island Red with Wellsomer. The light grey hen is a cross, don't recognise the lighter colour side of the cross, probably an Orpington but the grey is either Marran or Plymouth Rock. As for the fibreglass pig, at least it will not need feeding or a ring in its nose to stop it rooting.

Vectis is one that do specialist toy auctions.