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Farming In Miniature, and other helpful publications. An appeal


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Hello all, 

Some of you may remember me from a little while back, others I'm sure you do not. I used to be quite a prolific member on this excellent forum, but sadly became preoccupied as a result of A-Levels and subsequently Uni. I've now graduated but stayed on to continue a Masters in history. An interest in rural life however stayed with me, and I was lucky enough to do modules on the history of British agriculture, finally writing my dissertation on rural childhood. 

As part of my course this year we are doing a course at the Museum of English Rural Life. The course requires us to write an essay on an object or text of our choosing, and being cunning as I am decided to do my essay this year on a collection of Britains models that were donated to the museum. The majority of these are lead figures collected around 1948, but I was more interested in the toys added to the collection by the donors daughter in the 70's. Of the collection I am focusing on the Ford Force 5000, a Massey Ferguson 165 and a Ford Super Major. 

The catalog however states that these are all Britains toys - but after close examination and research I realised that only the Ford Force 5000 is Britains. The Ford Super Major (with silver wheels) is Corgi, while the Massey Ferguson 165 is Matchbox (it has a square cab with blue glazing). 

Luckily as a former collector of sorts I am a little knowledgeable of Britains, especially with David Pullen's books being available at the museum. However I'm not as clued up on both matchbox or corgi, two companies I know are (were?) much broader than simply farm toys. My question therefore is does anyone have any suggestions where I could find out more about them, any particularly helpful publications etc?

From a little skim online it looks like the Farming in Miniature books look like a bible of the hobby. I was perhaps wondering whether anyone who owns the book would be so kind as to scan the section on Matchbox? I know that sounds cheeky, but at £49.95 I simply can't afford to buy both copies just for this task (although I would be very interested to read the books more generally). 

If nothing else it's been good to revisit the site, but if anyone could help out or offer any suggestions, or even their own knowledge of the models that would be great. Please feel free to post on here or contact me via PM. 

(I would have put up pictures of the models to make things easier, but as I took them at the Museum I have been asked not to share them apart from within my work as a result of copyright)  

Regards, 
Nick

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Farming in Miniature has proved useful for me.  Cannot scan it but why don't you ask at the local library.  Most libraries will get copies of books for you.  There is usually a small charge if they don't already have it as they will obtain a copy from a library that does.  I managed to get a copy of a very old book that had been put into archive in Wales somewhere.  I think it cost me around £1.50 to reserve it and then I had it on loan for around a month.

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hey nick long time no see mate, good to hear collage / uni is going very well ,as sue said most libraries will be able to get that book in , the wife just looked at cornwall's list and its on there so for a good uni library or alikes it  should be easy

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