Festival of Britain Pencil Sharpeners

[Idris]

We discussed the two Festival of Britian pencil sharpeners (St. Paul's Catherdral and Westminster Abbey) at some length on the old forum (here). Although nothing could be proved either way, it looked possible that the tooling could have been the work of Jack Odell and therefore, by extension, the buildings could have been cast by Lesney.
I have recently managed to obtain both castings (complete with sharpeners!) but they are very dark, especially on the upper surfaces. (Unfortunately, the photograph below doesn't really show this properly.) I suspect nicotine staining and was wondering whether any members have any suggestions for cleaning them up? (My concern is that I don't know how fragile the gold finish is. I'd rather have dirty gold-painted models than clean, bare-metal castings!)

[YYS4BOB]

I use a well worn tooth brush and a week soapy water solution. Don't press hard, brush like you would if your gums are tender. I have even used an electric toothbrush with a similarly well worn head. The key is that the bristles are soft, and the pressure applied is not too great.

[johnboy]

How nice that you've found both of these Hugh. Can you tell what the finish is? (paint, gilding, plate,etc) because if you are in doubt then you may want to leave them alone especially if it looks flaky or crazed under a lens. Generally, I would favour Bob's method, perhaps with a manual soft brush where you can apply the absolute minimum of pressure. If there is an area out of view where you could test it out first then so much the better. When I clean models I always remove any soap residue afterwards and I make sure the model is dried. I have used compressed air (before cleaning) to remove dust and grit from awkward places and a hair dryer on a low, distant setting after cleaning (but I've only done this on common painted models with a sound finish to spruce them up!).

[Idris]

Can you tell what the finish is? (paint, gilding, plate,etc) because if you are in doubt then you may want to leave them alone especially if it looks flaky or crazed under a lens.

I'm confident that they have been painted since there is evidence of (what I interpret as) overspray on the inside surfaces.
I'll try the soft (tooth)brush and soapy water approach and will let people know how as get on. As for drying, placing the models on a folded up tea towel on the back of the Aga should work.

[Idris]

The soft brush and warm, soapy water approach is certainly working and the Cathedral is coming up like new. However, progress is very slow and I've used up a full charge on my electric toothbrush doing only one quarter of the building!
Whilst the toothbrush is on recharge, I've had a look at the sharpeners (which are a not-very-good push fit, which explains why they're usually missing). They are a very crude, lightweight casting (very different from the buildings) and simply carry the legend "Made in England", so that doesn't really get us very much further, although I do see it as potential confirmation that these were assembled using bought-in components from third parties, thereby leaving the door open for a direct Lesney Products involvement.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Having looked at a picture of the inside inscription, the style of letters are very close to what 'LONE-STAR' have used on some of their products and while they have been attributed before as 'CRESCENT' castings and then dismissed as such, I believe that when these novelty items were being made, there was enough distance between 'DCMT' and 'LONE-STAR' for them to come from 'LONE-STAR' rather than DCMT as 'CRESCENT' castings.

I don't have any of these to inspect close-up in the hand, so can only rely on pictures, but this is what I feel. I don't know of any 'direct' connection between 'LESNEY' and 'LONE-STAR' so they could still be from the former, but my inkling is from the latter.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[nickjones]

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

[Idris]

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?)

[Moyboy]

Although he was a master toolmaker, to try and accredit everything around this era to Jack Odell is stretching it a bit. Around the early 50's Jack was Lesney and by this time were busy making their own stuff. That plus the embargo on zinc before the Coronation would not have allowed for toy making as it was not a product that went into the war effort.
The only way that he could possibly be involved was as a supplier of a mould to make the items, not the actual items. I have never heard of Jack being involved with the Landau either in all my years collecting and its not a greatly detailed model, poorer than the small Coronation coach in casting detail. He was quoted as saying they couldn't make decent horses so their ones were farmed out in the first instance so maybe there was a bit of to and fro'ing between the various companies that existed at the time. In the story he put out as well as Rodney's they both state there were many small companies making diecast but because of circumstances Lesney grew big whilst others just faded away, their names forever forgotten nowadays so who knows who made what ??
Rodney even says he started to produce some of the early toys on his own when he gave up pig farming, mainly the road roller and the dozers etc. so which are his as I have never seen any of his ones so marked unless they were the Benbros Qualitoy versions but he said he worked with Morestone. Could Rodney possibly be a link between them as he had all Lesney's older machines so may have asked Jack to make moulds for him.

[Idris]

I'm sure that in the early days everyone knew everyone else and it was all highly incestuous. To me, the similarities in many of the models point more to close cooperation than to blatant plagiarism. As such, I do not think it unreasonable to assume that Jack Odell either manufactured tooling commercially (i.e. as part of Lesney) for other toy firms or perhaps even personally helped them out on occasion.
I have seen the link between Jack Odell and the Benbros Landau mentioned in print several times, but never with any background information, so I suppose it could easily be just another unsubstantiated myth. The Festival of Britain pencil sharpeners (together with a clockwork tinplate drummer) were linked to Lesney by a couple of listings on Ebay in which it was claimed that a former employee had offered them for sale, so providing both the background story and provenance.
At the end of the day, who knows? It is almost certain that the supporting documentation has long since gone the way of all flesh, meaning that, with unbranded toys like these, each of us has to make a value judgement as to what was made by whom and whether it is worthy of a place in our collection.