I did have my childhood stuff until around
1996, when some friends and I were doing car-boot sales, as much for a laugh as
anything else, and I sold the little tin of gray plastic track and non-powered
rolling stock along with a few accessories and both pairs of Land-Rover/Citroens
(which I do regret!).
The reason for selling them was that I
wanted to concentrate on figures, consequently the above carded blister-pack
came into the collection a year or two later and it ID'd some loose figures in
the 'unknown civilians' zone!
These figures are not much bigger than
those Reisler chickens we looked-at
the other day!
The fences come in two versions, and
earlier version with little 'feet'lettes' that are polyethylene and prone to
warping (from new) and a later set with a continuous base in a nylon or
polypropylene, which made for more rigid mouldings. The gates are often found
with their runners still attached, which makes them look a bit odd, but
useable!
Someone did tell me who made them (as
sub-contractors) but I didn't note it at the time and either now can't find the
email, or it was in conversation? It was one of several plastics firms in the
Potter's Bar, Herts/Beds boarder area, I think (one of which; Declon Foam, was owned by Airfix!) and they (the sub-contractor) also
made the low-friction wheels (a sort of Bakelite or styrene?) and
nylon/polyprop' hitches, for this early N-gauge system.
There are two versions of the telegraph
pole too; the older on the right was fed from the little flaps joining the
bases, which on the left hand one have been drilled-out and rounded-off by way
of blanking, while the resin-feed has moved to the top of the pole where a
gate-mark now replaces the extended-pole of the earlier version.
Pure guesswork; but it appears the
mold-tool was cut-up/reversed and a new runner/channel added, possibly when
injection-moulding machines were upgraded/replaced?
Also a reinforcing flare has been tooled
into the bottom of the pole where it joins the base, presumably to stop it
snapping-off at that point, something which was probably actually solved simply
by changing to the glossy plastic from the older chalkier one? But the whole
polymer industry was 'learning on the job' back then!
A separate set contains the trees, a common
design, possibly creditable to George Musgrave whose Festival branded fir-trees for Christmas cakes may have pioneered
the stacking on a pole, over the plug-and-hole 'domino-stacking' of Merit's trees, but several European railway
accessory companies, Marx and others
carried similar trees and the first (of either design) is lost in the mists of
time.
There are two patterns of each section size
(one with 'open' foliage, one 'closed' or thickened) except for the smallest
and the tip, each of which has the one version, and there is only room for six
sections on the trunk-pole, this gives a little leeway for different
appearances of tree to be constructed.
The two I knocked-up are one-of-each 'open'
frond (left) and duplicates of the middle-sizes 'closed' (right) to give
different looks, the figure give an idea of how small they are and they were
probably meant to represent the - now all but extinct - elms which were so
common then?
4 comments:
Once more thank you for all the work that results in really interesting posts.
I remember so much of this from Woolworths, how do kids today manage without it?
Thanks John
I'm afraid they send naked pictures of themselves to each other, worry about it afterwards, cut themselves and go into therapy to be more like 'im off-of TOWIE'!
We were fortunate to do the childhood phase in more gentle times!
H
I appreciate your post on this topic. Once again I have been introduced to a product that I had not previously heard of.
Cheers Jan - N gauge is a funny one, and Lone Star were quickly overtaken by Arnold (Rapido) and their ilk!
H
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