VBD2 is closed. Please go to https://vbd3.co.uk instead.

Good to have u here on our new forum Mike...been missing your posts.
All the best
numi

numi wrote:Good to have u here on our new forum Mike...been missing your posts.
All the best
numi

Hello Numi.
I am very pleased to hear from you.

I have a lot of work in my company.
I hope soon more time for the forum.

Bussi your Mike & Nico.

'Mystery truck' update...

Hello Mike & Nico.

So far, I have not found any model that resembles your little grey truck in my books, (some of which date back to the 1960's) not even a model car with the same type of construction or general appearance.

Looking at the rear of the model, there is a little pin that suggests the truck can tow something like a trailer or a Military field gun. This is interesting, as it may decide on the purpose of the vehicle, like a farm truck that can tow a similar sized trailer, or a Military truck that can tow a field gun.

If it was a farm truck, would you then tow a trailer of similar size ? I doubt it, but a Military truck of this style would tow a field gun and many other British company's have made a combination set of models, with a truck and matching field gun.

Then there is the actual size of the model, it's verging on being a mere novelty item, made before the use of Mazac, (Zamac) based metals, but with the possibility of it being made as a Military truck, takes it into the Wargaming area of the model World, these are models used to highlight or re-enact War Scenarios and they did not require full detail, they just had to represent a vehicle and they were often made of a lead-alloy based metal.

I still don't have a country of origin for this yet and as I mentioned in an earlier post, it is very feasible to have been made by an engineering company and not an established toy or model company, especially given what I have just said about it being a Military model.

That's all for now, still working on it for you,

Take care Mike & Nico,
Regards,
GHOSTHUNTER.

Hello Mike, is this the model that Robert Newson looked at some time ago or is it a different one?

It’s definitely a curious piece.
For starters, it has ejector rings, so it’s been made in a proper tool rather than simply slush cast, the wheels are mounted on axles which are free to rotate within the body casting and yet, for all that, the amount of exterior detailing is minimal and what little there is, is crude.
Since the inside of the rear of the truck is particularly well engineered with proper wheel wells protruding through the floor, and given the tooling evidence mentioned above, I would suggest that this model was made by a firm with significant diecasting experience but with precious little expertise when it came to modelling. This might well point to a company having to change direction comparatively quickly and searching, perhaps desperately, for saleable products to make in order to survive.
The obvious period for this to have occurred would be immediately after the Second World War when companies which had been full to capacity producing components associated with the war effort suddenly found their Government contracts drying up.
I know from my conversations with Patrick Trench that the immediate post war years saw a flurry of activity in diecast toy production by small firms, not only for the reasons above, but also because a whole generation of children had been starved of model vehicles. It was therefore a small leap for businesses to link their need for a product with the demand for toys.

Ghosthunter, I believe you know Patrick. Why not show him the photographs when you next speak to him and see what he says. (Whilst you’re at it, perhaps you could also mention that I haven’t forgotten that I still owe him a couple of pints from the early 1980s!)

Idris wrote:Ghosthunter, I believe you know Patrick. Why not show him the photographs when you next speak to him and see what he says. (Whilst you’re at it, perhaps you could also mention that I haven’t forgotten that I still owe him a couple of pints from the early 1980s!)

Hello Idris, yes, Patrick and me go way back, I taught him everything he knows, only took about twenty minutes...

Seriously, he was in my mind as well, I won't be seeing him until the next Windsor (Slough), toy fair, so yes, I will take a few prints to show him and I'll buy him a couple of pints, for you.

Regards,
GHOSTHUNTER.

Hello friends,
Thank you for your work on this model.
Friendly, collectors Greetings from Austria
Mike & Nico

I think Hugh is on the right track, but might it not be of German manufacture ?.
Mike, what country did you get the truck from?.

nickjones wrote:I think Hugh is on the right track, but might it not be of German manufacture ?

That is the danger. It could very well be either German or Austrian. However, given the state that Germany was in at the end of the war (a certain person said that he would fight on until "five minutes past midnight" and that is precisely what he did), it is debatable whether anything of this quality could have been produced there immediately following the war. Even if if it could have been, I think they would have had higher priorities than toys.

nickjones wrote:I think Hugh is on the right track, but might it not be of German manufacture ?.
Mike, what country did you get the truck from?.

Hi Nick,
Thank you for your interest.
I bought the model of a German collector.
Unfortunately, he does not know history of model.