Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Royal Mint Collectors’ Coins
One of the tasks I seem to spend vast quantities of time on when I am working at Bamfords is cataloguing collections of coins. Much of what comes in is base metal and well used, and has little value; some is in various purities of silver and needs sorting. If circulated, everything not a rarity is estimated at bullion price. Collectors though like their coins in the best possible condition, even, if possible the scarce and rare ones. Other collectors buy new issues from the Mint direct so that they do not have to worry about the arcane business of grading for wear. The Mint issues coins either in brilliant uncirculated (BU) condition (that is, as first issued), or proof. The latter is when the specimens are struck from specially polished dies, giving the field a mirror-like brilliance, and often, these days, with the relief portions of the design given a frosted finish to enhance the contrast. The mint tends to issue both base metal and precious metal examples of most issues and, since realising how much extra money they can make from having several different commemoratives each year, there is a bewildering choice. Furthermore, buying direct means that one pays a premium even for the simplest (card folder) packaging, let alone de luxe and executive packaging, involving hefty leather and satin rich presentation boxes. The coins themselves, if BU, are worth their face value; the mint’s packaging thus makes them expensive to buy and takes a couple of generations to recoup the outlay. For instance, as I write, today’s paper carries an advertisement from the Mint about a Paddington Bear 50p issue, which is BU base metal and can be yours for £3.99 plus postage: that is, a mark-up of £3.49. If the issue is proof, then it loses value less and, of course, with issues struck in precious metals at least their bullion value remains in line with gold and silver process generally. Yet in both cases the purchase price includes a hefty mark-up to cover manufacturing costs (special dies) and better grade packaging. Proof coins have been officially issued since 1887 (earlier ones were strictly unofficial, especially prior to 1731/32), as have another popular collector’s item, the specimen set: in these one buys all the coins issued for a particular year in a special package, either BU, proof or precious metal proofs. Specimen sets used to be issued only at the beginning of a new reign or when the obverse (head side) changed, eg. 1887, 1893, 1902. 1911, 1927. 1937 and so on. It was not until 1977 that yearly specimen sets became regular, although at first they were BU only and base metal, until 1981 when the £5 coin and sovereign were included. Indeed, gold only sets – £5, £2 sovereign and half sovereign) were issued in 1982, although the £2 was thereafter dropped, re-appearing as a base metal coin from 1986 and regularly a decade later. With so much choice, collecting from new becomes a matter of deciding what you like and can afford, but do not expect your investment to grow for a considerable time, unless you are well enough off to collect bullion coins. Many collectors stick to crown coins – old 5/-, then 25p but more recently with face value of £5. Again, there are many commemorative issues. There are at least one commemorative each year these days, and one can collect the standard £5 coin from your bank or building society, but there are also base metal proofs, silver proofs and gold ones, too. Furthermore, sometimes the proofs are struck double thickness – called a piedfort – and since 2004 these have also been issued in platinum – current list price £4,000 plus! I shall cover commemorative crowns on another occasion, however. Well-struck coins are essentially a miniature work of art, but the best way to collect them is to buy at auction, preferably in their unopened sets. Whereas today you might pay £55 for this year’s specimen BU set, £95 for the current commemoratives in a set (£5 Prince Louis, three £2: RAF, Armistice and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a 50p for the 1918 Representation of the People Act), you then could also shell out £210 for a premium proof set and no less than £550 for the silver proof set struck as piedforts. At auction in a year or two, when collections get to the saleroom, prices are going to be more like £20, £45, £80 and £285 respectively. Incidentally, the 5 coin commemorative set also comes in gold (at a price). The latest trend, started by the private mints (like Pobjoy, Westminster, London Mint Office etc., mainly at the instigation of the marketing executives of various insular crown colonies etc.) has been to issue proofs in base metal or bullion with coloured enamel designs: hence the Royal mint will now sell you a Peter Rabbit set or a Winnie the Pooh set (both basically 50 pence coins) with coloured Peter or Winnie in various engaging contexts. The former is a set of four, the latter only two, and will cost you 10p BU or £60 enamelled, whilst there is no reduction if you buy the coins in a set, for while the Peter Rabbit sequence is not sold as a set, for Paddington’s set of two – £120; you can even order the latter in gold, a snip at £780! The sensible thing to do is to concentrate on a particular period, like specimen sets pre-2000, or pre-decimal issues and buy at auction or from reputable dealers. That way you will accumulate really rather attractive coins, mainly attractively packaged, which will also have a chance of appreciating. And, of course, rarity counts, so buy a price guide: Seaby, Coin News and MyHobbyStore all produce helpful ones, but most important, the former two both give mintages which will guide you as to rarity. +10
Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Beswick Pottery Figures
John Beswick Ltd, formerly J. W. Beswick, was a pottery manufacturer, founded in 1892 by James Wright Beswick and his sons John and Gilbert, in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. The firm survived until in 1969 when it was sold to Doulton & Co. Ltd. They closed the factory in 2002 and the brand name John Beswick was sold on in 2004 to Dartington Crystal, which outfit resumed production. The pottery was chiefly known for producing high-quality porcelain figurines such as farm animals and Beatrix Potter characters and have become highly sought in the collectables market. The Dartington owned brand will still sell you items from a range of their classic pottery animals at prices ranging from around £16 for a seated piglet to £65, which sum will buy you an impressive-looking red stag. Based at the Gold Street works in Longton (Stoke-on-Trent), Beswick originally produced tablewares and ornaments such as Staffordshire cats and dogs. Yet when James Wright Beswick died in 1921, the company continued to expand under his grandson, John Ewart Beswick. In 1934 the introduction of high fired bone china meant they could produce high-quality figurines, such as famous race horses and champion dogs. The company was made a limited company, John Beswick Ltd, in 1936. An important change came in 1939, when Wolstanton-born Arthur Gredington (1906-1976) was appointed chief modeller and the firm began producing farm animal figurines which quickly became widely collected. Gredington’s range of no less than 190 rearing horsemen is one of the largest (and most popular amongst collectors) ever produced by the company. Not that the number 190 is anything but a notional one, for it is made up of minor variants of the basic 150 or so of Gredington’s horse figures. There were, for instance two versions of model 868 (a racehorse, jockey up), one with the jockey in an orange or scarlet jacket cut away at the waist sitting bolt upright. In the second version introduced in 1952 horse and rider have greater animation, the rider flung back by the motion of his steed. The commonest model of version two with a brown horse can be found for around £175. Yet these have fallen in price from around £250 a few years ago, although colour does make a difference, for a version two 868 in grey can sell for £650, whilst one in chestnut with damage to an ear sold for £2,124 in January, and yet a third, in rocking horse grey, the most sought-after colour, sold for £2,588. Version one is harder to come by, but the price for one with a brown horse rarely exceeds £500. The rarest of all Beswick wares is Spirit of Whitfield, a pony, modelled after the pit pony Kruger. An example of this item sold for £9,500 in London fifteen years ago. Under decorating manager Jim Hayward, there was a shift towards lifelike animal pieces, including cats, dogs, farm animals, fish and wild animals. Continued expansion enabled the acquisition of the adjoining factory in 1945 to accommodate offices, warehousing and new potting and firing facilities. In 1947, Lucy Beswick suggested bringing to life the illustrations in the Beatrix Potter books. In 1948, John Beswick secured the right to reproduce a range of 10 Beatrix Potter earthenware characters, the first of which was Jemima Puddle-Duck, modelled by Arthur Gredington. In 1952, Beswick began manufacturing a range of Disney characters, including Snow White, Mickey Mouse and Bambi. Along with the designs of James Hayward, the high-quality pieces they produced have become quite desirable. A Beswick model of a running hare, 5 inches high, model no. 1024, issued 1945-1963 was sold by us at Bamfords for an impressive £330 a decade ago now. Arthur Gredington retired in 1968 and the following year the company was sold to Royal Doulton and although animal figures continued to be produced, by 1989, the Beswick backstamp was dropped in favour of the Royal Doulton Royal Albert DA one. The popularity of the Beatrix Potter characters was a factor in re-introducing the range in 1998, specifically for the collectors’ market. But by the end of 2002, Royal Doulton ceased production of all Beswick products and in 2003 the Gold Street works were sold. In 2004 the Beswick name and product design rights were also again sold. The John Beswick name is now owned by Dartington Crystal, which continue to produce animal figurines using some original production moulds from the Gold Street works; they also produce vases under the John Beswick name. The Snowman and the Gruffalo figures are just some of the nursery figures still being produced. Yet if you want to collect, you should ideally be looking to buy items from the Gredington era (1939-1968) and the earlier the better. As usual, check for damage and wear. There is also a published price guide by Harvey May (no relation!) last republished in 2014, which gives some idea of current prices (which appear pretty stable at present) and mould numbering. Buying new is best avoided, as it will take decades before your purchase reaches the sum you paid, and there is always the danger that the manufacturer will over-produce, which always hobbles future prices. 00
Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Vintage Telephones
Those of us over a certain age will know that, until 1984, when the GPO (Post office telephones) monopoly was broken up, one did not actually own one’s telephone, but rented it from the GPO along with associated installations. Thus there was very little choice over the type of telephone one could have. Collecting these instruments now is a relatively inexpensive hobby, with most types being available for under £50, although as usual condition is crucial and if an example has been adapted for modern plug in use, then the price is enhanced. When I lived in my mews house in London in the late 1960s we had two lines – KNI[ghtsbridge] 1136 and 9226 – both equipped with rather sleek plastic ’phones in two-tone grey and plastic flexibly spiral cord. Yet when I got my first place in Derby, in Littleover, I inherited a hefty Bakelite job with a fabric coloured platted cord – much inferior to my way of thinking. This latter was a GPO type 332 introduced in 1937 (expect to pay between £20 and £80 depending on condition, but add £250-300 if originally supplied in cream). It had a ledge under the rest with a recess so you could carry it around – provided that you paid the GPO for an extra-long lead. In contrast, my London ’phones were (then) up-to-the-minute type 706 ones, which also had the option of a wall-mounted version, one of which we had. For these today expect to pay as low as £10 and up to £60, much depending on the colour. The letters on the dial were to enable one to dial London numbers: three letters (part of a name identifiable with a distinct area) plus four numbers a system converted to all number in 1970. Yet my earliest memories of telephones included various elderly relatives with ‘candle’ upright instruments, from which the earpiece hung from a metal bracket which opened and cut the line when the weight of the earpiece was removed or applied. The earliest of these were Bakelite and brass-mounted, called a type 150L dating from the early 1920s. Today, expect to pay £80-120 or double that if sold by a dealer. The ones I seem to recall were a later modification eliding the brass mounts, although they had the refinement of a silver-coloured metal dialling ring for London subscribers with one’s ’phone number printed on a disc in the middle and covered by a bit of clear plastic. These can fetch £120 to £150 at auction, and the bell set alone can cost £25-30. These evolved after a while into the more compact type 162 which had its own bell incorporated, now selling for similar prices. For the purist, the 1890s Ericson-made GPO phones – very antediluvian in appearance and predominantly brass – were around until after the Great War and can fetch several hundred pounds. Yet by the 1950s most of my friends and relatives had the first type of pre-war ’phone with a horizontally placed handset, set on a slim neck, again, so that it could be carted around, and called by collectors a ‘pyramid’ ’phone. This was a heavy-ish Bakelite instrument called a type 232L; again, it came with a dial-less version called a 232CB; both had a little drawer in the base in which to put one’s friend’s numbers. One was sold with a £80-120 estimate by Bamfords a year or two ago, although the pre-war ones (check base for approximate dating evidence) can make up to £225, and cream examples from £275, even more with bell set and drawer to base. They were introduced in the early 1930s and kept going into the 1950s, although the type 332 was a later improvement, which continued to be supplied for years after the war – likely to cost £50-80 now, but a cream one might go to £300. In darkest Herefordshire, the cousins with whom I lived after my mother died had a wall-mounted exchange with a handle on the side of its timber body which one had to crank to put callers through to the appropriate extension on the estate; this was in service until at least 1970. I saw a similar one on sale at a fair for £130 recently. By the time the writing was on the wall for the GPO monopoly, one could buy a variant of the type 706 (called a type 746: £35-60) which came in a dizzying variety of seven colours, or a type 756 which had a push-button dialling facility (£30-50). Indeed, the current craze in the 1970s was for the type 722 ‘Trimphone’, the first instrument to ring with a different sound to the then-familiar double ring: they produced a horrible chirruping noise, much imitated on TV gameshows. Rt. Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, briefly MP for Chesterfield and the then Postmaster-General) presented the first one to a subscriber in 1965, but it was not actually available until 1968. Incidentally, ‘Trimphone’ is an acronym: Tone Ringing Illuminated Model. These go for £30-40 nowadays, colour being important. There was also a lightweight version of the type 746 which looked more like the familiar US domestic ’phones of the era, but which never seems to have caught on – at least amongst those of my acquaintance but despite rarity, cheap to buy. Going back to the early days in the 1890s the telephones were subject to infinite slight variations, all of which came with a separate bell unit, usually attached to the wall nearby (a phenomenon which endured to some extent to around 1970), no dial and a crank attached to a magneto wherewith to raise the exchange. It was only when the type 150 came in that standardisation largely prevailed. There were also various later types with buttons on the top by the rest for business use, or for domestic premises with extensions, and larger, more complex office installations, too. All the types had wall-mounted variants, although the candlestick variant was
Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles : Collectible UK Comics
I can still recall, aged five or six, being taken out by my nanny to catch a train for a visit to the Science Museum at London – a favourite destination of mine at that age. On the way to our suburban station was a newsagent’s shop, with current titles and the day’s papers displayed at the door. One item caught my attention immediately: a coloured comic, most of the front page of which was covered with a superbly painted disintegrating spaceship. Apart from the fact that the presentation was streets better than anything else in my experience, the impact was immediate. I duly expended fourpence of my very limited pocket money (6d = 2.5p) on a copy and was hooked. I read it, later supplemented by the Beano (founded 1938), thanks to my parents’ forebearance in adding it to the newsagent’s delivery, until I was sent away to prep school four years later. The reason it was so superior was that Eagle was printed in colour photogravure (aided by Eric Bemrose) on good quality paper with artwork of superb quality by Frank Hampson. The founder and editor was Revd. Marcus Morris a Lancashire parson and Christian values informed the content without being either apparent or tiresome. This content was itself pleasing to me: PC 49, the bumbling Harris Tweed and his piratical oppo, Capt. Pugwash (later of TV fame), Luck of the Legion, not to mention Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future (flying through space quite effortlessly in the year 2000 which I felt perfectly plausible) pitting himself against the Venusian tyrant Mekon on his flying potty, not to mention Vora King of Space and other implacable adversaries, all supported by Spaceman Digby and Spacewoman Peabody. I also like the wonderfully well drawn cutaway version of transport wonders in the middle, especially when they dissected a Southern Pacific and put it in the original livery, three years after nationalisation! The Eagle, launched in 1950, was by no means that early a starter, for my second choice, the Beano (which gave me a more light-hearted view of the world), began in 1938, and I preferred it to its rival the Dandy, a year older, despite my enjoyment of Desperate Dan and his cow pies. The former survives, the latter which ended in 2012. Not for me, though, the Boys’ Own Paper, however (a little too earnest), which lasted from 1879 to 1967. Later after having to go and live with my seven cousins in the early 1960s, I was re-introduced to Eagle (much reduced in quality), along with its stablemates, Girl, Robin and Swift. Space precludes any attempt to adumbrate upon the virtues or otherwise of Beezer (1956-1993), Lion (1952-1974), Valiant (1962-1976), Knockout (1939-1963), Rover (1922-1973), Tiger (1954-1985), Topper (1953-1990) or indeed a poor thing called TV Comic (1951-1984) but back numbers of all (and others) are collectible and have a (generally modest) value. Funnily enough the Eagle attracts less money than some of the others, mainly because of its quality and popularity. It sold well (no. 1 sold out, 900,000!) and quality paper meant that it is far more durable than most. No. 1 would go today for around £150, later issues of the first volume (1950-51) around £70-£90 in mint condition but less than £10 in average state. Contrast this with Beano and Dandy: both were published by D C Thompson and the first one of each came with a (very modest) free gift, with Dandy a whistle and with Beano the following year a mask. Both, I might add, have been copied to deceive. Their appeal, magnified during the war, was irreverence and slapstick. Over ten years ago the former, complete and in good condition made £20,350, whereas one has to go back near 20 years to find a price for a first issue Beano, when one (with pressie) made £6,280, although you could comfortably double that figure today. In 1951 Dennis the Menace was introduced and the relevant issue might fetch £350 -£400 at auction, although by the time he had been promoted to the cover, his value in mint will have dropped to around £15. Dandy’s early issues vary (through condition) from £40 to £300, but the first four issues again can reach four figures, with later pre-war issues £1-20 and later still, just pence up to £5 and more recent ones no higher than £2. There are websites devoted to all the minutiae of these comics’ publication history, which one does need to have to hand to enjoy collecting them, but unless you have found a landmark issue in a vile state, just look out at your local car boot or general sales (such as we run fortnightly at Bamford’s) for editions in decent condition, from very fine to pristine. Most of these publications also produced annuals, and these too are highly collectable. Eagle’s first, in 1951 will make over £1000 in mint condition, although £40 should buy a worn copy, with declining values for subsequent issues, none of which are that rare due to the quantity published. Beano started its annual in 1940 with the war on and whilst a tatty one might be had for under £500, a near-mint one would be worth nearer £4000 and the remaining wartime issues tell a similar story, although with slightly diminished values. The variety of published comics is such that collecting old issues can be quite rewarding, especially if you really enjoy browsing the content, an inclination often exacerbated by an affliction called nostalgia. The only thing to say is, do your research first and then seek out the very earliest (or best landmark) issues you can and where possible in the very best condition. You should not have to pay too much on the whole, and buying miscellaneous bundles often reveals better condition copies (or rarities) within, which can be a good way of proceeding. Then one can extract the items one wants and put the remainder back into auction or onto e-bay. 00
Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Royal Commemorative Mugs
Most commemorative objects, from coins to china plates, tend to cost a lot more to buy than you get back for re-sale, as the plethora of relatively modern specimens which come up for sale in Bamford’s general sales testify. Today you can expect to pay in the region of £10 or more for a 1953 Coronation mug, given free to most school children (including me) at the time. But it is not so much the occasion commemorated, but the manufacturer that made the item. For instance had one’s parents gone for a Wedgwood one for about £1 with a design after that striking and original inter-war artist Eric Ravilious, then today you might expect £250-280. The best names show the best returns, in other words. The earliest Royal images on mugs (or similar) were those of Charles I and Charles II which turn up on a few extremely rare tin-glaze mugs, for which you may expect to pay £5,000 or more assuming the condition is better than dire. Up until the mid-eighteenth century all commemorative mugs were hand painted, too, but towards the end of that era however, the invention of printing on pottery allowed for mass production. As a result you can find plenty of George III images making that monarch known to far more of his subjects as a result. Consequently, it is possible to put together a selection of mugs that chronicle the most significant events of the King’s 60 year reign. Those that celebrate the return of George to health after his first bout in mental difficulties sell for about £400, depending on condition. The reigns of his two sons George IV and William IV saw mugs to commemorate both their coronations and deaths. These tend to cost £300 or more, although royalty was not the only subject to catch the potters’ eye. Heroes of the wars against France, Nelson and Wellington in particular were at a premium. Today it seems to be Nelson who outshines Wellington in popularity. A Nelson, blue printed mug used to make around £400 but since the bicentenary of Trafalgar in 2005 prices have increased noticeably, whereas the bicentenary of Waterloo had a notably less inflationary effect on Wellington’s. For the new collector, the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901 offers the most opportunity with prices starting at £20. Her Coronation (1838) mugs have been the subject of debate amongst collectors as to whether they were made in Staffordshire or South Wales, although in either case auction estimates hover around £750-850 for examples in good condition. Fortunately Victoria’s Golden and Diamond jubilees of 1887 and 1897 offer richer pickings and more affordable ones, too. A good maker such as Doulton produced Jubilee bone china mugs in several colour schemes, now fetching around £120 for a clean example. Earthenware Jubilee mugs by lesser known makers can regularly be found for £30 and less but some of these bear images of the old Queen which she would have found less than flattering. The advent of the new century saw more in the way of Coronation mugs: Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI and the Queen all provoked a welter of commemoratives of varying quality. For most a price of between £10 and £40 should be the norm, and at Bamfords they turn up our general sales rather than in Fine Art ones. People often mistakenly assume that because Edward VIII reigned only 10 months and abdicated without being crowned, his commemoratives will be scarce, but this is not the case. In fact every enterprising pottery in the country put out commemoratives in anticipation of his coronation, and they had to be sold off inexpensively when he decided to give it all up for love. One of the best is, surprisingly Burleigh earthenware, but designed by Derbyshire’s own Dame Laura Knight, which sells for £50-60. As we are currently remembering the slaughter in the trenches and elsewhere occasioned by the Great War, mugs relating to this conflict have edged up a little being usually in the £30 to £60 bracket. In more recent years subject matter has included our Queen’s two Jubilees but more importantly her children’s rite of passage. At home I found a mug commemorating the inauguration at Caernarvon Castle of the Prince of Wales in 1969 by Delphine pottery, and royal weddings have generated a wide variety from Princess Anne through to that of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (with Meghan and Harry to come pretty imminently). The 1981 wedding of Charles and Diana generated a plethora of mugs, some pretty dire, but one in bone china by, say, Caverswall sold for a bit over a fiver in 1981 would now fetch £25 or even a tad more, for Caverswall is a good maker, whereas mugs by less well regarded firms go for prices nearer £8-12. Of course, here in Derbyshire, it is often worth going for Royal Crown Derby examples. They are very good quality, for which initially one would pay a great deal comparatively, but second had examples in good condition with their boxes are still highly collectible, although if you bought one new, it will take a few decades to make your money back. 00
Derbyshire Antiques – Dinky Toy Aircraft
Last month I penned a few lines about the enduring and collectible die cast model motor vehicles produced by Meccano Limited under the Dinky imprimatur. This I threatened to follow up with an article about the die cast model aircraft the firm also made from the 1930s. I was given my first example as a Christmas present from an aunt – of which in those days I had Bertie Woosterish quantities – in the shape of a model 73c Vickers Viking, a rather portly looking twin engined medium airliner. I had just been taken to see (and had been enthralled by) a film called The Night my Number Came up, about an aircraft or similar size, (actually a Douglas DC3) getting lost and crashing onto a Himalayan mountain valley, so the dear old Viking had to go through a good few re-enactments with its nine year old owner. The other attraction, as I got older, was that before the war, Dinky produced models of types that were virtually extinct, even in the 1950s, and which I deemed much more worthy of acquisition than a modern (then!) boxed 734 Supermarine Swift (about £20/25 with box) or 70a Avro York (about £15-20 unboxed). My interest was quickened when, in 1954 we moved to a house not so very far from Croydon airport, then used exclusively for club flying and where numerous pre-war types could be spotted pottering across the sky from our garden. My first pre-war acquisition was a nice blue 62k Airspeed Envoy – modelled on the King’s personal transport (about £350 retail in box, but £40-50 unboxed and played with, like mine), and things continued, via pocket money and visits to junk shops, until I was sent away to school at ten and finally nose-dived (if you will forgive the pun) when I transferred schools at thirteen. My most prized possession was a Dinky model 63a/b Mayo Composite – essentially an Empire flying boat called Maia which carried a small mail carrying floatplane called Mercury on its back, and which in real life took off from its host when the latter had to stop for re-fuelling. Being long deleted by Dinky, I found the bottom part second hand but had to wait eighteen months before a rather strange general store in Tain, in the far North of Scotland (where we were staying with friends), astoundingly happened to have Mercury, new, and left unbought on an obscure shelf for twenty years! I have no idea how it became parted from its other half, as both came together in a blue box. The whole thing boxed would set you back £350-450 today, and even without box, like mine, £80-120. Yet one autumn day a year or so later I couldn’t find it, and hunted high and low for this prized possession, including every inch of our fairly large garden; my mother thought I’d developed an unhealthy interest in horticulture! Some years later it emerged that mama, who each year sent toys to the local orphanage, had found it in an unlikely place, assumed whilst I was away at school, that I had tired of it, and consigned it to the orphans. One I particularly loved was the DH 91 Albatross, a pre-war wooden four-engined airliner of great beauty which I had never seen in the flesh (none survived the war) and managed to acquire in blue, along with a DH88 Comet racer in silver. The series began in 1934 and ran through the war to some extent, some of the military types being dubbed ‘two seat fighter’ and ‘heavy bomber’ to confuse enemy spies. A Messerschmitt 110, masquerading as ‘twin engine fighter’ with props missing went through a general sale at Bamfords for £10 recently. My model 62a Spitfire was boxed and sold specially to raise money for the wartime Spitfire fund – not to be confused with a much more authentic looking Spitfire which was issued as a revival in the later 1970s. By the time I got mine (having been born a little too late) there was no box – not that I’d have kept it! The last models were issued around 1973 with no. 731, a Jaguar fighter with – unheard of in a Dinky – a retractable undercarriage (mint in box about £40). The most expensive examples which I have come across include an Avro Vulcan estimated at £500-700 and a pre-war model 60e Dewoitine D.500 open cockpit fighter (one of the range only sold in France) good condition but no box, a snip at £600. Coming closer to our times, even a 1960s Sud Caravelle in Air France livery is likely to set you back £120. Buying in auction would be the best bet for anyone intending to collect these miniature masterpieces in decent condition. For instance, a second issue Dinky 60 set of six was sold for £800 against an estimate of £1,000 to 1,300, for which you got, in pristine condition, a 60a Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (coyly called ‘Imperial Airways airliner’), 60b DH 85 Leopard Moth, 60c Percival Gull, 60d ‘Low wing Monoplane’ (a Boeing P-26?), 60e General Aircraft Monospar and 60f Cierva C.30 autogiro – all rare and early examples, and no metal fatigue, no knocks, about £130 per plane, which is actually not bad for any of these. Likewise, a box of mixed period (including ‘revival’ (post 1973) ones, all well played with, sold at Bamfords recently for £22. Indeed, Spitfires and Hurricanes in silver rather than camouflage and small post war fighters like Gloster Meteor IIIs and P-33 Shooting Stars (which lacked the fragile red tin propellors of the former pair) can be had almost for pence if you look around. And the attraction is that you get some completely forgotten aircraft types, like the Bristol 173 twin rotor helicopter of 1952 (£30-40), which never really got into serious production, perhaps because on its initial flight on 3 January 1952, it was found it tended to fly backwards! After 1973 the
