jaywilli7610 Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Im currently sorting my Britains animal collection and found that many ears and horns have broken off in storage. Im just looking for some advice on how people store animals with brittle parts? I currently have them in countless shoe boxes with bubble wrap but find it impossible to locate a particular model without disturbing the whole collection. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_scrivener Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Countless boxes are inevitable I'm afraid, unless you can find (perhaps cheap at a car boot sale?) on of those handy chests of shallow drawers, ideally with drawers about 1 to 2 inches deep. Otherwise, beg, borrow, or make yourself from cardboard lots of shallow boxes, old chocolates boxes, biscuit tins, etc, etc. For the very tiny and now rare, items, such as the Britains/Herald 1960s cats & rabbits, I've bought a few old cigarette tins (the sort that had 50 or 100 'Senior Service', 'Kensitas' or whatever in) at car boots. One layer of cats/rabbits per tin, with cotton wool under and tissue over. Scrunch up and then almost flatten out the tissue before use, so the little folds & ridges help to hold the animals in place. Bubble wrap is not good. plastic and lead both need to 'breathe', and wrapping can break off parts as you've discovered. Line the bottom of drawers/boxes/etc with old fashioned tissue paper, white, or preferably 'natural' unbleached. By using shallow boxes etc, lay out one layer of animals, then put a sheet of tissue over the lot, and place another layer of animals on top, arranging them to partially half sink in the gaps, and being careful how you place anything with thin legs, a fragile tail sticking out, etc. Some types of plastic used in the 1950s & early '60s will go brittle & disintegrate whatever you do. This was because some manufacturers mixed chalk dust in the molten plastic to make the paint stick on better - this was before suitable plastic based paints had been invented. Britains and Timpo seem to be worst for this, although the animals are not usually as brittle now as some of the soldier ranges. Perhaps worst are Britains 'Eyes Right' ceremonial soldiers and some of the Timpo 'solids' (i.e. before they changed to their version of swappets & overmoulding), such as their Cossacks, Waterloo range and Cowboys/Indians. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaywilli7610 Posted January 22, 2011 Author Share Posted January 22, 2011 Great stuff thanks for the advice. Hadnt though about dangers of bubble wrap :'( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMurF Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Rap them individually in toilet paper then put them in a box Cheep and cheerfull Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_scrivener Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 As I mentioned Timpo 'solids', some of you might like to look at this site (in German or English versions) http://www.timpo-solids.com/E_index.htm At the home page, click on 'Series' to see all the ranges, farm & zoo as well as soldiers etc. I think its worth taking a look because plastic farm figure collecting here is so dominated by Britains/Herald that many collectors seem to forget, or don't even know, that other UK companies made them as well. As Lady Ferguson has shown elsewhere, Barrett & Sons and F.G.T.Taylor (post-war separate companies, from pre-war 'Taylor & Barrett'). Timpo & these two were probably Britains main competitors. The Charbens & Cherilea plastic farm ranges were terrible crude things, so only likely to appeal to plastic figure obsessive collectors. JoHillCo briefly produced a few interesting (to us obsessives) plastic versions of their old lead farm range before they went bankrupt. The Crescent plastic farm range is limited in number of figures, but they're quite good. Apart from them, its down to very minor makers, such as Gemodels, Paramount, Speedwell, UNA, VP, in which even the experts have trouble identifying or know what their whole ranges comprised. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
super6 Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I've found the best place to store them is in cabinets, bonus being you can view them as well I also use those self sealing bags in a variety of sizes along with trade boxes when available! The difficulty with these other "lesser" known makes is information appears to be very thin on the ground. To help matters even less some manufacturers didn't even bother to mark their products. I have a few farmers, one *** and a possible Timpo and Charbens ones, although I'm sure both of these manufacturers marked their toys, the latter looks to be from a lead mould. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Ferguson Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Although I use plastic storage drawers myself (with dividers and each piece in a gripseal bag), a cheap and easy alternative is to use shoeboxes and partition everything off with card partitions. You just have to be sure they don't get damp, though as the cardboard will stick to your figures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_scrivener Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 I've found the best place to store them is in cabinets, bonus being you can view them as well I'd need a considerably bigger house to do that! I've about run out of space to store my collection as it, and as I've got the house to myself, every cupboard is full, bookcases everywhere (loads of books as well), even cardboard boxes stacked up here & there. Compulsive collector me. Probably OCD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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