Toys from the Past: 1968

Showing posts with label 1968. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

#590 MERCURY – FIAT 125 and 850 (Around 1968)

At this moment, there are 7 entries dealing with Mercury toys. 6 old ones and the present one. It may seem a lot, but there is a trick... The first three dealt with motorbikes in 1:24 scale (although two of them were made by Guiloy, not by Mercury), and the 4th and 5th entries show the same car, a Ferrari 512S. The sixth entry commented the "Speedy Velox" series (1:64 scale).

But until now I had not the chance to show any pictures of more common models in 1:43 scale. The Ferrari 512S is ok, but I cannot really compare how accurate the model is, since I never saw this car in a museum or wherever.

These two models are much more common cars. There used too be a lot of them in the early 80s in Spain, the Fiat 850 was Seat 850 and the Fiat 125 was never available in Spain, but a close "relative", the Seat 124D, similar in appearance except for the head and rearlights.

Because I have seen many 850s and 124s, I can appretiate how well casted and how accurate the dimensions are. Had Mercury the original blueprints from Fiat? I think it would be possible, or maybe some worker of the company drove these cars and they took the dimensions directly from a real car... which, I think, was not the case in the Ferrari mentioned above.

The Fiat 850 was available from 1964 to 1971 and the Fiat 124 between 1967 and 1972, so I guess these models might have been manufactured by the late 60s: maybe 1968. The 850 comes with rally stickers, and is probably a later version of a car that was also avaible years before in other colours. The 124 was also produced by Mebetoys.

The models 850 and 124 were also available by some Spanish manufacturers like Joal and Guiloy. I wish I had these to be able to compare the casts. Mercury and Guiloy sold the same motorbikes in the early 70s, so it is not crazy to think that they also shared some casts that might be interesting for the Spanish market. Fiat models are on average a few years older than their Seat versions...

FACTS AND FIGURES:

Name: FIAT 125 and FIAT 850
Scale: 1:43
Year: Around 1968
Company: MERCURY (Italy)
Size: approx. 9 cm

Saturday, August 22, 2015

#581 LONE STAR - ROADMASTERS "IMPY" / "FLYERS" - VOLVO 1800S (1968)

Lone Star has two Roadmasters series. The first and oldest one, spelled Road-Masters started in 1956 and was made in 1:43 scale, like their competitors from Corgi and Dinky. During those first years, the models by Lone Star were not very well detailed. In the early 60s, models started having windows but not interiors, that would be available first by the end of the 60s. Head and tail lights were painted silver or red. Wheels were two parts, including aluminium hubcaps and rubber tyres.

In 1966 the Impy series was introduced. This series had a fixed size of 3,5 inches, that is, very similar to the Matchbox 1-75 series. The Road-Masters were discontinued, but this new series was called Roadmasters Impy. Here's a flyer with the first 12 models ever reeased in this series.

The Impy models were advertised as the "cars with everything": a lot of practicable parts, steering, jewelled headlights. They were the first toy producer to adapt the thin, low-friction wheels introduced by Hot Wheels, less than one year after Mattel (Mattel: 1967, Lone Star: 1968). Models equipped with these wheels were repackaged to the "Flyer" series.

The packaging was similar to the one used by competitors Corgi and Dinky, although afer a few years, the introduced the boxes with plastic Windows. The boxes of the Impy series displayed a baby devil.

In the U.S.A., the Impy series was sold as "Mini-Cars" in blisters packaged by Physio-Chem, a toy company that usually distributed in the United States toys made in other countries.
To finish this entry, I would like to publish here the images of a catalogue that I found on the blog DieCast Chile, which is a very nice blog in Spanish that shows die-cast models from different manufacturers. This catalogue was found here: http://www.diecastchile.cl/2013/06/publicidad-de-impy-lone-star.html. Note that the cover car is actually the same I am presenting here, with the original rubber wheels instead of the "flyer" wheels.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

Name: VOLVO 1800S (Nr. 19)
Scale: Approx. 1:64
Year: 1968
Company: Lone Star (Great Britain)
Size: approx. 8,5 cm

Friday, April 25, 2014

#406 JOAL – REMOLQUE TRACTOR (204), PULVERIZADOR (205) and TRACTOR MASSEY-FERGUSON CON PALA CARGADORA (206) (Around 1968 and 1974)

I have already griten about Joal’s “series 200”. In two consecutive entries, I described the Leyland Dumper (Rer. 200) and the Camión Grúa Taylor “Canguro” (Ref. 201). I will now show three more references from this line, and I have all three of them boxed, so there will be a lot of pictures today.

We start with “Remolque Tractor Repartidor de Abonos” (Nr. 204) which roughly translates for: “Tractor Trailer – Manure distributor?” I am not sure if distributor is the right word, but this machine is basically a manure container, that deposits it on the ground evenly. The toy is a nice piece, done with great detail. Note that the wheels move the two grey devices by means of a transmission belt, which is made of metal (looks like a spring). This way, the mechanism works today as if it was new, and it is almost 50 years old!

The Pulverizador (Nr. 205) is a similar machine, only this time it pulverizes liquid fertilizer. The cast is simpler than the previous machine, and consist of a blue body with wheels and a couple of chromed parts. This model has no mechanism.

The Massey-Harris tractor is presented in 2 different versions. The yellow one seems to be the oldest version, while the green is probably a reedition from around 1974. There is another tractor, which is basically the same cast, only without the shovel at the front (Nr. 203), but I do not have it.

The box belongs to the second version, although the first one should have had a similar box. The weak points of this toy are the rear wheels, which are made of plastic, and they tend to deform themselves. Note that the green model has this problem: the plastic compound has stuck to the box, so when I removed the tractor from the box, it took on the wheel some cardboard with it. The yellow model has some cracks on the wheels, and another model I had, had directly broken wheels.

The shovel can be lifted by means of a lever, and then dropped by pushing another lever.

The front wheel is slightly different in both models, being these of the green model slightly more realistic. The original pilot is the blue one, the other figure is actually a Corgi figure from Nr. 67 Ford 5000 Super Major Tractor (which is very similar to this one made by Joal, especially the wheels).

Interesting that the box was manufactured by another company (not Joal). This company left its seal in one of the lashes of the box: Suñer from Alcira (Valencia)

FACTS AND FIGURES:

Name: REMOLQUE TRACTOR (Nr. 204), PULVERIZADOR (Nr. 205) and TRACTOR MASSEY-FERGUSON CON PALA CARGADORA (Nr. 206)
Scale: Unknown
Year: Around 1968/ 1974
Company: Joal (Spain)
Size: 11 cm (tractor)

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

#268 MATCHBOX - HYDRAULIC EXCAVATOR and SCAMMEL CONTRACTOR (K1 and K10) (1969 and 1968)

This will be a short entry showing two more King Size / Super Kings models.

The interesting fact about them is that they were released in 1968 and 1969, as the series was still called “King Size”, and discontinued years later after being part of the “Super Kings” series for a few years. The rename of the big scale Matchbox series took place in 1971, probably to unify names after the deployment of the first “Superfast” cars (1:64 scale) in 1970. So if the 1:64 cars were “Superfast”, “King Size” should be renamed “Super Kings”.

The most important change was naturally the wheels. Older models typically have the two-part wheels with black plastic tyres and red rims, while “Super Kings” have the classic Superfast wheels, just in bigger scale. The older wheel type fits and looks better in most models, so “King Size” are usually most “wanted” than their newer versions.

Naturally, the packages of the toys were changed accordingly.

Scammel Contractor (K-19) from 1968: the K-19 was first released in 1968, but re-released in 1972 with superfast wheels. New models seem to be painted in a slightly darker red, but I cannot compare the colours, since this one is my only model.

Hydraulic Excavator (also O & K Excavator) (K-1) from 1969: Similarly to K-19, with the Hydraulic Excavator K-1, which was released in 1969 and changed to superfast wheels in 1971.

And now, I include pictures of several old Matchbox catalogues depicting these two models. There are great dioramas and more information in the pictures.