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Hello all,
In addition to my regular wheel Matchbox Toys I've been collecting models/toys depicting Hudson automobiles. There were a couple of Hudsons within the Dinky range.
What I'm wondering is whether or not there is a reliable print resource for variations in casting, tires/wheels, colors, etc for Dinky Toys? I guess I'm looking for the Dinky Toys version of the Stannard Guide for Matchbox.

I am not aware of anything on Dinky to the same detail as Stannard's Matchbox variations book that is in print. But the book here...https://www.vintagebritishdiecasts.co.u ... 099#p57205 is a good start. There is an encyclopedia CD on Dinky but I do not have this so I do not know how comprehensive it is.

Ghosthunter.

matchbox_n_molars wrote:What I'm wondering is whether or not there is a reliable print resource for variations in casting, tires/wheels, colors, etc for Dinky Toys? I guess I'm looking for the Dinky Toys version of the Stannard Guide for Matchbox.

Hello Greg,

Happy Christmas to you and the family and all the best to you all for the New Year.

The Dinky reference I consider to be the M.J Stannard equivalent quality reference is the Dinky Toys and Modelled Miniatures and was published by New Cavendish Books in 1981 by Mike and Sue Richardson. This is the precursor book to The Great book of Dinky Toys which contained new and updated information.
While it is not a variation catalogue as such, it does contain a wealth of technical information with many technical drawings, colour plates, black and white images and almost every known model number and description. My copy is hardcover version with sleeve and it weighs about 1616 grams or 3lb 9oz.
There is also a separate compendium for this book or later versions have this included.

There are several references to the Hudson Hornet and Commodore with some of the known colours of both models at the time of publication.

In respect to wheels and tyres information the technical drawing refer to axles, wheels(hubs) and tyres as Job numbers and it is a matter of knowing the job number against the model.

I have several Dinky books and catalogues but none actually laid out the same way as Stannard.

Here are a couple of photos of my book, it is a much treasured reference just like my Stannard.

Another of my references is History of British Dinky by Cecil Gibson only lists about 8 Hudson variations, mainly to do with colours but a lot more new information has come to light since this publication.

Although I do not use the Ramsays British Diecast Model Toys Catalogue as a price guide I do use it for variation and detail reference. As a contributor to this publication for a number of years I know some of the info is reliable. Also this reference shows over 21 variations between the Hudson Hornet and the Commodore which may be what you are after.
I can probably give you a breakdown of the periods of use for wheels especially given there was a transition period for the 139b/171 relating to the Hudson.

Also a couple of pics of the Ramsays with isbn. Apologies for a couple of slightly out of focus pics.

If you would like some detailed information just drop me an email or pm.

All the best

Bert

There are always a number of copies of "Dinky Toys and Modelled Miniatures" for sale on Ebay (both auctions and BiNs), but please be aware that there is more than one edition.
You could also try Addall. This is a specialist search engine for secondhand books, and is the one used by booksellers throughout the UK.

Sincere thanks gentlemen. I'll scout around for a copy of the Richardson book.

Hello Greg, firstly your calendar arrived today thank you, I posted your one 12 days ago.

As Bert has said there are a few books on dinky toys I have several but the one by Mike and Sue Richardson

is about the best one in my collection of model books. Above my Dinky Book.

George T.

Hello all,

I am almost new on this forum but some of you know me on Talk Model Toys, DTCA and other forums, I also write articles in Model collector Magazine.

I have just read your interest for a reference document for Dinky Toys. Cecil Gibson' History of British Dinky Toys was the first list of English Dinky Toys to be published way back in the late fifties I beleive. The best is of course Mike Richardson's Great Book of Dinky Toys which he has written after several editions of "Dinky Toys and Model Miniatures", but Mike in his last days was sorry that he had writen the book before the internet was efficient.

There are many books about French Dinky Toys, some very good and some very bad. some are written by keen knowledgeable collectors and some by people who only want to make some money and do not know much about Dinky Toys so beware if you want to buy any, the best known are certainly not the best.

I started my own catalogue of French Dinky in 1955 as there was nothing available then I extended it to English Dinky in 1956 after I had been to England for the first time. Since that I have been saving every piece of information that I could get about those lovely little cars and when digital cameras appeared some twenty years ago I started to photograph the 1 000 models in my collection, adding slowly pictures from the net and from the collections of some friends. This has now come into a 3 000 pages catalogue listing all the Dinky Toys French, English, Spanish, Italian, Hon-Kong, Chilian etc... with all the details, the variations, the boxes, the catalogues, the Meccano Magazines and everything that can be of interest to the collectors. I started to provide this catalogue on a CD then two CDs, then on double layer DVDs and recently I exceeded the capacity of DVDs and now I am using 16 Mo USB memory sticks to publish this unique catalogue. To make it available to most collector, the texts are in both English and French language.

More information about the Dinky Toys Encyclopaedia can be found there :

https://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php ... 1&Itemid=0

I can give you more information if you need.

Kind regards.

Jacques

Hello Jacques welcome to the forum.

I do know you from Planet Diecast (I am ''Rollerman'' over there), so its quite a jump from there to here but at least we do not have the same technical problems they are currently experiencing.

Your CD is what I mentioned in my post earlier in this thread so it is good news that you have come here and hopefuly enlighten us even further to the benefits of having the CD and maybe give us some opportunity to aquire the CD for the Dinky collectors we have here.

I hope you enjoy the many topics we cover and of course you are most welcome to post pictures of anything from your own collection.

You can use the forum's image attatchment method or a third party picture host so see how you get on and try and resize your images to around 600x600 pixels. I have some picture posting hints and tipd here...https://www.vintagebritishdiecasts.co.u ... p?f=5&t=21 so perhaps read through this beforre attempting to post and please do ask questions no matter how basic or silly you think it sounds.

Ghosthunter.