About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Friday, March 22, 2019

D is for Dutch Daimler from De Gruyter

I'm not sure if it's pronounced 'greweeter' or 'groiter' or even 'grew'it'er', but I first learned of De Gruyter many years ago in an article in Plastic Warrior magazine, penned by Jan Boers, on this issuer of little novelty playthings (with coffee) in the same vein as German Wundertüten (they actually carried the Jean knights with De Gruyter bases I think), Spanish Sobres or our own 'Lucky Bags'.

1896 - The First Ford; 1899 Daimler; Century of Transport; De Gruyter; De Gruyter Premiums; Kellogg's Premiums; Lucky Bags; Model Kits; Novelty Models; Old Plastic Toys; Plastic Kit; R and L Premiums; R&L; RL Giveaways; Rosenhain & Lipmann; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sobres; Vehicle Novelty; Vintage Plastic Kit; Wundertüten;
I have to say they have proved hard to track down, but I do have the same church as was included in Jan's article somewhere (in red polyethylene) and this (polystyrene 'mini-kit') came into the pile a year or so ago, I can't remember if I bought it, if Mr. Little found it for me or if Mr. Evans chucked it in one of his bags, but I'll thank Adrian and Peter just to be sure!

In the same format as the Kellogg's stuff made by R&L 'down under', but seemingly a locally-produced item in Holland (similar stuff comes out of Italy) the 1899 Daimler model has only eleven parts of which eight are wheels and hubs!

1896 - The First Ford; 1899 Daimler; Century of Transport; De Gruyter; De Gruyter Premiums; Kellogg's Premiums; Lucky Bags; Model Kits; Novelty Models; Old Plastic Toys; Plastic Kit; R and L Premiums; R&L; RL Giveaways; Rosenhain & Lipmann; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sobres; Vehicle Novelty; Vintage Plastic Kit; Wundertüten;
Packaging to the left while on the right I've shown a couple of the R&L/Kellogg's models for comparison, both have similar part counts and the same pin-through wheel/hub arrangement, and the same basic size. Indeed - packaging is everything as all this premium/giveaway/freebie stuff went around-and-around!

If I were to find another I'd take one off the runners and assemble it, but then the chances are it's more likely to find a started/finished one anyway, so I won't ruin this unnecessarily!

I say the other two are both Kellogg's, but I only know the blue one is the 1896 - The First Ford from the 'Century of Transport' issue we looked at here (link), the other is unknown and while I suspect another Kellogg's set it could be a second De Gruyter?

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