G is for Guest Post - Sam Toys

This started life as an email which I thought was a listing, probably of more use on the much-neglected A-Z Blog 'pages', and I downloaded it to look at at home, thanked the sender; Angelo, and got on with whatever I was doing!

When I opened it at home I found the following article complete, with embedded images, and frantically wrote to Angelo the next day saying please send the originals so I can run it as an article!

Not only did he send them, but he took new images of most of them and some supporting paperwork, to the point where I now know as much about these as he does . . . in five minutes time - so will you.

I then suggested I post his article as he'd written it and further look at the vehicles in turn after Christmas, but have instead collaged the images and placed them where the single pictures were in the first draft, which is the only real editorial change . . . I hand over to Angelo;

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SAM TOYS - " MILITARY SERIES"

Sam Toys produced model cars in the late 50s and late 60s.

The Military Series was initially composed of seven vehicles which were the plastic copy of similar metal models by the French Dinky Toys.

Below is a copy of the catalog of the period showing the series and the description of each individual vehicle.

Art. 431 – CAMIONETTA MILITARE - copy of model 641 ARMY "1-TON CARGO TRUCK" by Dinky Toys

Art. 432 – AUTO BLINDATA - copy of model 670 "ARMOURED CAR" by Dinky Toys

Art. 433 – AUTOBLINDO PER TRASPORTO - copy of model 643 “ARMOURED PERSONNEL” by Dinky Toys

Art. 434 – AMBULANZA MILITARE - copy of mode 626 “MILITARY AMBULANCE” by Dinky Toys

Art. 435 – AUTO CISTERNA  - copy of model 643 “ARMY WATER TANKER” by Dinky Toys

Art. 436 – CARRO ESPLORATORE - copy of model 673 “SCOUT CAR” by  Dinky Toys

Art. 437 – JEEP - copy of model 669 “JEEP” or 672 "JEEP" (re-issue of 153a) by Dinky Toys

                              Note the error in the name in JEPP

Later, other models were added that were variants of the first series.

A first variant was the MILITARY TRUCK where 4 soldiers were added to the platform. This meant that the lorry remained uncovered because it was not possible to put the tarpaulin with the seated soldiers.

The next 4 models were created using the floor of the MILITARY AMBULANCE which on the bottom always showed the writing 434 Military Ambulance for all these models.

AUTOCARRO SCALA MOBILE

AUTOCARRO CON CANNONE

AUTOCISTERNA

AUTOCARRO MILITARE APERTO

Finally there is a model 443 - JEEP CON RIMORCHIO that the SAM TOYS inserted in the AUTOCARRI series, but that actually refers to a military vehicle.

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A few points I'll add, all from the material provided by Angelo, firstly, the lorry used for ambulance and plug-in bodies is now recognised as being the Truck, 3-Ton, 4x4, GS, Ford Ambulance (Spurling, Muliner or Duple [bodies]), AKA; Fordson-Thames GS-Lorry, and an excellent article on all the toy versions (we've had the diminutive Matchbox RAF version on the blog and the article attributes the MPC 'Mini' ambulance - also seen here - to the same marque) appeared in the October 2011 edition of Model Collector magazine, with Nigel Robertshaw in the author's chair.

The image from which Angelo cropped the 'civi' Jeep, also has civilianised versions of the same lorry, each in a 'wagon-&-drag' configuration (commoner on the continent, although a lot of haulage companies use them on their late night 'trunckers' so you often see them on the motorway network in the early hours), along with a wrecker-body version of the Humber 1-Ton, which is lovely!

Many, many thanks to Angelo for sending this into the blog, a relatively unknown series of non-Hong Kong copies, and I'm very fond of my one example, the Humber with passengers.