C is for Corgi Countryside (Farm Animals and Farmers)

OK, into the home straight with these Corgi posts now, and the other animals et cetera. When we were kids we didn't have much of this stuff as we were army-brats and had military toys and a railway (along with all the usual chemistry sets, Lego, Meccano and such like), but our cousins were farmers oop'North and had a huge wooden farm in one of the old chicken sheds which was their playroom, and it had all sorts of farm stuff by Dinky, Corgi and Britains including the remains of Dad's and my Uncle's old toys.

So although we didn't have them ourselves we did get to play with them a few times a year and they hold a nostalgia.

The miniature versions of the bigger calves, these fold-up off their base-plate to fit neatly in the trailer, unfortunately they fit equally as neatly in a Matchbox stake-sided lorry and you often see them being sold as Matchbox on EvilBay!

The race horse is an interesting one, coming in two sizes, the smaller ones with painted blankets in various colours, and with or without a granular surface (much like the two versions of many Crescent figures, which may be a clue to there origins?). In the larger size the blanket was a paper sticker which rarely survive outside a mint-boxed example, I have seen a green with yellow lines checked one, a blue one with - I think - a yellow boarder, and a red/purple one

You can find a shiny high-density polyethylene one from Hong Kong without the horse blanket, but they did copy the knee-pads!

The middle shot shows two PVC animals to the left from the later sets and to the right another Juniors / Husky one, this one looks quite similar to a cellulose acetate / styrene one from Starlux which I thought I'd blogged, but haven't - so a civilian Starlux post mentally bookmarked into the queue!

The later farmer and the two versions of tractor driver, also used for other cabbed vehicles of a more construction nature, both these have been heavily copied by Hong Kong over the years (in hard styrene and soft PVCs and Ethylenes), and the unknown supplying maker also let Corgi grade originals go to HK rack-toy producers.

The larger version of the calves from the Corgi 'proper' range, we looked at the Hong Kong versions from Blue Box here, where we also find blue hard (polystyrene)plastic versions of the tractor driver doing his thing with a tractor and a combined-harvester. These calves always looked American to me, for no reason I can put my finger on, they just seem to belong in Texas, not the home-counties!