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nickjones wrote:The tower bridge was made by at least two different companies, I have the cavendish, I believe the other one was made by crescent but I could be wrong.

The Crescent model of London Bridge is a much cruder casting than the version marketed by Cavendish Novelties (which has some similarities to the FoB St. Paul's).

Idris wrote:This makes it all the more likely that the Abbey also exists as a Coronation commemorative.

I've had a good look on the Internet and, whilst I get a very few hits for the Coronation St. Paul's Cathedrral pencil sharpener (implying that it is scarce), I get absolutely nothing for a Westminster Abbey version. Therefore, if the Abbey was rereleased for the Coronation, it must be extremely rare.

Here's a link confirming that the two Abbeys are the same casting. (I see that he does not have the Abbey which rather confirms my gut feeling that it is the harder of the two to find. That's a shame since I think it's the better casting.)

I now have firm evidence for both the Cathedral and the Abbey having be re-released in 1953 for the Coronation (see below).
The Festival of Britain Cathedral is very common, with the Festival of Britain Abbey being significantly scarcer. The Coronation models seem very hard to come by, with the Cathedral, once again, being by far the more common of the two, but still scarcer than the Festival of Britain Abbey. (In fact, the Coronation Abbey seems to be extremely rare.)

If anyone's interested, there are currently two BiN FoB Cathedrals on Ebay, both with their sharpeners (which, being only a push fit, are normally missing):
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Souvenir-Building-Pencil-Sharpener-St-Pauls-Cathedral-Festival-of-Britain-1951-/141625277802?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20f9863d6a, and
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Souvenir-Building-Pencil-Sharpener-St-Pauls-Cathedral-Festival-of-Britain-1951-/141600076816?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20f805b410.

Idris wrote:

nickjones wrote:They could be DCMT Lone Star, Jack Odell worked for DCMT before becoming a partner in Lesney.

...but surely he was part of Lesney in 1951. (Although isn't he credited with the tooling for the 1953 Benbros State Landau? If so, can anyone explain the background to that?)

I now understand that it was Rodney Smith who was associated with the State landau.