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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

P is for Paramount - Little Farmer Series

I covered the Paramount tractor when I did a post on tractors a while ago (about a year!), but here is most (?) of the rest of the series. The first time I got one of these I showed it to Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior (link - as always - to the right!) and he said "Paramount" without hesitation. Now I have a rule that I don't accept anyones word for anything whether in print or in person, until I've seen a boxed/bagged example, or a marked example or a photograph of one or the other. Needless to say although I politely took his advice, it wasn't until I found the rake-harrow that I fully believed him!! [sorry Paul!]

Bagged examples with front and rear of the same card, I'd love to know what the 'Amphibious Ferry Boats' looked like and why you got more than one (boats is plural?) but only the one car...I suspect a typo and it should have been 'Boat' and 'Cars'.

A couple of tractors in close up, both the figure and the overall design of the vehicles puts them in the 28/30mm scale bracket, and while the front wheels use the Hong Kong wagon wheel 'pop-on' system, the rear wheels have an quite heavy eight-gauge mild steel bar to plug on to.

The implements I've tracked down so far. Rear row from the left includes a pair of gang-mowers, disc-harrow, rake-harrow and three furrow plough. In front of them are two trailers and a silage cutter, with a 'bit' in the foreground!

The red section of the rake-harrow (much pirated by our friends in Hong Kong, including Blue Box!) is well marked 'PARAMOUNT PR ENGLAND'. I don't know if animals were also made, or bought in?

Close up of the gang-mowers, the bit and the silage-cutter. The gangs have a pin for another set to cover the cutting gap left by the front two, whether this would have been a single or triple I can't say. The bit seems to be a road bogie for one of the towed items but - try as I might - I can't get it to fit any of my existing items, so at least one is missing? Bogie wheels are the same as the tractor fronts, so it's definitely part of this series.

21/12/12 - It turned-up in a mixed lot a month or so ago, it is the plug-in rear bogie for a 2nd trailer design! All I have to do now is track down the trailer, as the one that turned-up had someone else's name on it..Doh!

01/01/15 - Also; The Paramount would seem to be a copy of a TN Thomas/Thomas Toys original, differences now blogged Here with the Oxydol premium.Some of the above equipments are actually Thomas as well, but I will blog both families another day.

These are well made little toys, and given Paramount's history of rip-offs of Britains Herald Wild West a bit of a mystery (like so much early British plastic). Made of what I consider 'standard' soft polyethylene of the Airfix ready made type, colours are 'toy' rather than realistic, and if anyone has further items to swap I have tractors to reciprocate!

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