T is for Thames Trader Trucks

Which were actually Ford's! Neither are they strictly rack-toys, as they would have been in a stack on a shelf somewhere, but as they would have been priced below a single Dinky, Corgi or Spot On toy and probably no more than two Matchbox's, they fit the bill, which in RTM is Hong Kong (or China) cheapies!

Before moving on - a quick apology for all the typos and lack of editing the last few days, but that BT-Wifi has decided to play-up big-time and I'm now fighting to get the posts up as quick as possible before the mast drops Fleet off the map for the third time in an hour!

Also while I always try to credit stuff which has been donated, gifted or come-in rediculasly (and delibereately) cheap, I don't normally credit for stuff I've bought normally as A) I couldn't possibly rememeber every purchase or who from and B) if you buy something in the normal way, it's yours to do what you will with, but I would like to thank Paul (of 'Saint and Grievesy' for those on the circuit who know who I mean) who came up to me at the end of a show in some forsaken sports hall in Sussex or somewhere, about 12-years ago and said it looked like the kind of thing I'd be interested in - it was!

"True to scale", but no scale given!

Typical of all eight; the axles are the worst part being cut by hand and therefore all lengths from tight-in to extra-wide 'Carlos Fandango'! It's one of those weird things about HK production in the 1950's, 60's & '70's, some used a jig to cat axles the same length, others did them by hand or a finger section or something and ended up with none the same length - this is one of those assemblers!

A body is slid over a flatbed, integral to the cab and the floor-pan holds an un-glued chrome-plated radiator/headlights part in two pre-formed slots. In this case the body has an additional refrigeration-unit (red plastic) glued on and a sticker.

Yes I said 'sticker', this is so cheap it's criminal as the cost-saving is minimal to the manufacturer, but the disappointment to the child (probably already used to cheap plastic toys instead of the die-cast stuff of his middle-class counterparts) will be measureable, and repeated, every time, but they really only put a sticker on the widow-showing side!

They are fitted into the trays with a bar that has twin pinch-points, on either end, which grab the axles, and make useful construction material! The pipe-truck is reminiscent of the Matchbox one, but that was a later vehicle - another Ford I think, but later '60's to the Thames Trader's 1959 birthday.

The tipper is a bit naff to be honest and the lorry being loaded with beams is someone's conversion chuck-out, another pipe-truck which I suspect was destined for military service - in a war games army - but only got as far as losing it's stakes/stachions. All have the dhrome hubs/rims and rubber (PVC) tyres.

You can see from the USAAF figure that they are a reasonable 1:72nd scale.

Comparisons with - from the left - an Empire Bedford RL, an interesting variant of this oeuvre as it is heavier than the (possibly absent)* Blue Box truck you'd think it was a clone of, and just as well made, so Blue Box may have been the copyist here?

Then a copy of [or] the Blue Box animal transporter (I think I've had this in a Blue Box set?)* from one of any number of 'Home Farm' sets or clone-sets, another Bedford RL type (the civi' version was an S-series I think?) which has given today's subject it's equally cloned-body.

Finally; a smaller (HO-compatible), later model of a 1960's Ford (?), copied from Matchbox with a different body which is a combination of the others - a drop-side with stake/fence for animal transport. It has single-moulding running-gear sprayed chromey-silver, but it allows for duel-wheel sculpts on the rears.

What unites all these is basic, glueable, model-kit quality, brittle polystyrene plastic for all bodies, chassis and cabs, with variation of materials restricted to the wheels and axels.

*I think the Blue Box and this are the same, even to the sub-copies by other brandings (as we saw with the Noah sets), but the Blue Box weren’t to hand when I shot these, so we’ll compare the other way, another day although the smaller Blue Box shell tanker has been on here once or twice I think?

Box-art close-ups of the Thames, a similar lorry from Commer (?) and the rest of the smaller sample which came from Trevor Rudkin a few years ago, the silver body is an older shipping/rail container, which were made of wood, rather than the stamped steel of the modern international standard. Stock-code may help someone, but I thought it might be E for Empire until the superior Empire truck turned-up!

 

A week later - I've now seen a five-truck closed-box set of these branded to Emson