B is for Britains Mini Sets - 3 - № 1002 Shepherd & Sheep

I thought we'd had this years ago but I can't find it so I suspect it got shoved onto a dongle during the house-move or upon the death of the old Laptop, which I donated to a tech-training centre for the students to play with! I also wondered if it was mine but I think it's 'from the archive' which was the early Blog's euphemism for 'I photographed it at JB's house'!

Whether I've shown it here or not, it's been cleaned-up and given a nice picture-frame, so it's worth a second-look, if it's a second-look!

A complete Shepherd & Sheep set and looking at it, I think I may have shown the dog as a question-mark Corgi in the past, being the same scale (1:48th), size (40mm-compatible) and material (PVC) as some of their [Corgi]'s other stuff - I think it was darker brown as well?

The shepherd looks more like the Britains tractor-driver (he also seems to be based-on) than a shepherd, and has stopped for a smoke, confident the sheep aren't going to wander-off as they are rooted to the ground with those long spikes of 'grass'!

The image from the door-hanger display board sent out to retailers and photographed courtesy of John Begg - whose set it may be as well!

As with this morning's diver set, the idea was to separate the smaller ovoid bases from the larger plate, so increasing the playability of the set, and to enable the mixing of elements from other related sets.

Had Britains stuck with the concept until they had issued more sets, I think they would have taken-off, and might even have still been with us as a blind-bag or capsule 'thing', imagine; thousands of 40mm vignettes (20-per year for 50-odd years?), with interchangeable parts!

But for whatever reason it was pulled soon after the second tranche was issued, and while they sold well enough for plenty of loose bits to turn-up in junk lots, they clearly didn't sell as well as Britains had hoped they would?