About Me

My photo
No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

S is for Selley Manufacturing Company 'Finishing Touches'

Another one I don't know enough about to more than present the archive imagery, which will form the basis of the eventual A-Z blog entry, but for now, and because I mentioned it in association with Weston's as 'coming soon' in a comment the other week, they can follow the Weston figures in this sequence!

1940's, I think?





1950's, this could be the 5-cent list mentioned above, but is more likely to be the 25-cent catalogue listed next, inflation, even then!
 
1960's . . . it says!
 
A list I copied from somewhere?

Walther's 1998 catalogue.

One suspects that by the time the Selley had been dropped, and Finishing Touches was the only branding being used, it was in the hands of a new owner? It's another one which seems to have disappeared in the last decade or so, although a few dealerships seem to have a few bits left in stock?
 
We have seen a bit of Selley here, my 'Road Gang' which was at the time 'unknown' despite all this sitting in the archive, sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees, and it was Jon Attwood who made the connection, the other day! Indeed, the kneeling guy with the hammer is also to be seen in one of the Comet catalogue versions of Jon's carded set, which would be a fourth piracy in that set, or some iterations of it?

4 comments:

jon attwood said...

The first two HO sets in the 50s catalogue look a lot like Hornby Dublo, and on the second page of that cat look like more Comet/Authenticast.
Perhaps Selley were importing at the same time as selling their own products, but listing it all as one?
J

Hugh Walter said...

Possibly Jon, or they may have been pirates, I've definitely got unmarked heavy-lead copies of the Hornby, and I think they are mentioned in one of the Binns Road books . . . Foster's volume 3 or one of the Hammond's?

H

Jan Ferris said...

Here in the US, Bowser once, at the least distributed the Sally line. I might have a digital copy of their offerings somewhere around here. Ten years ago I made a post on HO gauge miniature, where I mentioned Sally products. The link to the site no longer works.Very sorrying!

Hugh Walter said...

Yes, Jan, my brief Googling revealed Bowser seemed to be one of the last major stockists, it seems to be a somewhat dying arm of the toy industry, serving a few wealthier adult hobbyists, rather than lots of kids/families?

H