| roll up, roll up for the mystery tour...
38 http://www.modelcollector.com | august 2019The joy is in the
RESEARCH
Ian McDermott revels in the fact that there are still more questions than answers...
A
lthough I understand
there are collectors
who like to have every
last morsel of info laid out
for them in the price guides,
there are those of us who
like nothing better than to
follow the lead on a good
story. One would think that
with the passage of time,
there’d be little information
left to unearth regarding old
toys, but the truth is the more
you dig, the more you realise
there is still to be discovered.
Here then, is a snapshot of
some of my experiences,
along with a few deductions,
numerous further questions
and plenty of intrigue...
My French mystére
Now, this may not be much
of a mystery in its home
country but it’s a tale,
nonetheless. This lovely large
tinplate coupe was purchased
from a vendor in the UK via
eBay. I made a cheeky offer on
an already low asking price and
to my surprise it was accepted.
On receipt, I unwrapped
what appeared to be a barely
used toy, in vaguely 1930s'
Peugeot styling, which was
an impressive 36cms in length.
Even the key was still attached
by some coarse twine. The
paint resembled red oxide
primer, so a gentle polish was
called for. I then researched
eBay France, cross referencing
as I went. I thought the model
may have been the work of
Charles Rossignol, a prolific
French maker; however,
I could not find a match
with which to compare it.
Months later I made a
new contact in France
and decided to test his
knowledge. He directed me
to a website that featured a
car of the same pressing but
lithographed rather than
painted. Helpfully, it featured
a maker’s name on its rear,
SMJ, which my contact
informed me translated
roughly as Societe-
Marsellaise de jouet.
So, was my example a
later, possibly post war,
cheaper (being painted
rather lithographed) re-issue?
Or had, perhaps, another
manufacturer acquired the
dies, just as Chad Valley did
with the Burnett dies before
t he wa r? I pondered these
possibilities for a little while,
before an identical model to
mine surfaced on eBay,
this time attributed to M.L.
(Martinan & Larnaude). It sold
for three times what I had paid
for mine, albeit to a collector inits home country – which just
goes to show the premiums that
can be commanded by selling
in a model’s indigenous market.
For me, however, the identity
of this model’s manufacturer
remains unverified. Who was
right? I still occasionally scan
the Internet to see if anything
similar has turned up, in the
hope that this will shed further
light on things, but as yet to
no avail. As Holmes would not
doubt say: “A two pipe problem”.Hidden in plain sight
One only has to look at British
cinema during the 1960s to see
the emerging nostalgia for the
1930s and the war period. By
the ‘60s the modern age had
arrived, with the teenager, hire
purchase, the welfare state
and increased car ownership.
Aligned with the newfound
prosperity, the pre-war period
quickly began to be looked
back on as another age entirely.Those who felt side-lined
by the modern era started to
look back in reverie on the
perceived values of community
and its simple pleasures as a
way of escaping the reality
of tower blocks and the
permissive society.
Goody Toys is one of
the enigmas of British toy
manufacturing. What little we
know about the brand is almost
entirely based upon the scarce
examples that have survived.
Many years ago, now, the
learned collector and toy
historian Robert Newson
published an excellent article in
Model Collector on the subject
of early Timpo Toys, in which
he noted a distinct similarity
between the Goody Toys’
Morris and the Timpo Toys’
Streamlined Saloon. A Morris?
Well. both the saloon and the
coupe certainly display enough
of the styling cues to resemble
a pre-war Morris 14. This isOur writer, Ian, bought this gorgeous French tinplate
coupe on eBay, but despite several interesting leads,
he has yet to verify its manufacturer.