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I was at Donington Toy Fair today and picked up one of these tanks.
I'd never seen one before but the colour and shape caught my eye and reminded me of something in one of my Fireball XL5 annuals.
At a price of only £2, I thought it was a good deal and would later kick myself if I didn't buy it.

AJR wrote:I was at Donington Toy Fair today and picked up one of these tanks.
I'd never seen one before but the colour and shape caught my eye and reminded me of something in one of my Fireball XL5 annuals.
At a price of only £2, I thought it was a good deal and would later kick myself if I didn't buy it.

That was a bargain, for such a rare toy from such a short lived manufacturer. Great find.

Do you Guys mind if this thread is moved to the 'Tin wind up toys' thread here...viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5258

Ghosthunter.

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:Do you Guys mind if this thread is moved to the 'Tin wind up toys' thread here...viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5258

Ghosthunter.

Is it worth creating a wind-up/tinplate toys area?

Idris wrote:

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:Do you Guys mind if this thread is moved to the 'Tin wind up toys' thread here...viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5258

Ghosthunter.

Is it worth creating a wind-up/tinplate toys area?

Could do, then both separate threads can go in there. Call it 'Clockwork/Tinplate' so it does not attract any plastic toys which can also be clockwork.

Ghosthunter.

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:

Idris wrote:

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:Do you Guys mind if this thread is moved to the 'Tin wind up toys' thread here...viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5258

Ghosthunter.

Is it worth creating a wind-up/tinplate toys area?

Could do, then both separate threads can go in there. Call it 'Clockwork/Tinplate' so it does not attract any plastic toys which can also be clockwork.

Ghosthunter.

Done.

motorman wrote:

AJR wrote:I was at Donington Toy Fair today and picked up one of these tanks.
I'd never seen one before but the colour and shape caught my eye and reminded me of something in one of my Fireball XL5 annuals.
At a price of only £2, I thought it was a good deal and would later kick myself if I didn't buy it.

That was a bargain, for such a rare toy from such a short lived manufacturer. Great find.

I've just found this thread and decided to read it - Dibro is one of the manufacturers I have been researching over the last year - bet you didn't know there was a Dibro NZ company too! (part of the Dickinson family moved here and brought tooling and machinery with them).

however my main reason for replying is your comment about them being a short lived manufacturer - from my research it appears the company existed from 1933 as printers and manufacturers of stamps, however they do not appear to have entered the toy business until 1945 and seem to have quit the toy industry by the 1970s - I'd say 1945 -1970 is not exactly short lived when compared to some others such as Glam Toy Products or Jolly Roger.

See http://toysnz.com/Dibro-DickinsonBrothers for details on the Dickinson's business

Ian

Thanks Ian for clearing that up. My reference to their involvement in the manufacture of toys being short lived was due to the small number of model variations they produced. I realise the Dickinsons were involved in much more than just the manufacturing of toys throughout their history.

motorman wrote:I realise the Dickinsons were involved in much more than just the manufacturing of toys throughout their history.

As indeed the NZ arm of the family has been.. I recently spoke with the son of the Dickinson who moved to NZ and he was telling me he still had some of the tooling and machinery in storage at the family's current base of operations. Here in NZ they moved from tin to plastic and then into acrylics. The NZ toy manufacturing appears to have been quite short lived and I've only ever seen one example of a toy definitely produced by them (a small pistol) but have a double decker bus in my collection I believe to have been produced by them for a neighbouring factory that produced Philips K9 Tvs... I have yet to get confirmation from the family re the bus.

Ian

Very interesting Ian thanks for all the information.