B is for Beetlemania!

No, it's not a typo, these were a bit of a present, or payment in kind, for a favour I did, and, as I owed the favour, an unnecessary kindness really, but I'm not complaining, although they are mostly outside the parameters of the collection, or, would have been, a few years ago!

 

It's a plethora of Beetles in the 1:30-1:48th scale range, who also manage to break down into pairs, which makes them are easier to compare or look at, as those pairs, but we have two from Scandinavia, two from Hong Kong and two from the UK.

 

The British pair are to be looked at quickly, as they are after-market lumps of poured resin, in a scale somewhere near 1:48th, but a tad bigger I suspect (1:45th?), and despite Google being hopeless these days, or because if it, I've been unable to find out anything about the maker, A.J. Baldock, beyond the label pointing to the late-1980's/early 1990's as a likely date, I well remember those mail-order add's; "Buy now and get your first 200 free", or "Your reorder code is here", with choices of about four colours of text and six colours of label!

 

Two lumps of poly-vinyl, on the left of each shot, the Tomte Laerdal Police car version from Norway (around 1:40th/1:35th), I can remember these, a few were still around Southern Germany in the late 70's (have I just shoehorned my time in Southern Germany into a post, to box tick someone else's recent stuff? I think I have, it's an easy game!), in white and puke-green, with Polizei down both sides!

 

On the right, the Galenite (1:43rd) from neighbouring Sweden, in the standard saloon (? . . . bubble) configuration, you can see the Galenite is the far-better finished model, while the Tomte is quite lumpy or 'melty', but the Tomte's always have the better wheels!

 

Two (of 1:32nd compatibility) from Hong Kong, and quite similar. From the 'emergency' green driver, one is tempted to suggest Blue Box or Tai Sang for one, and the body-shells are so similar, you wonder if they aren't two versions/tranches of the same toy?

 

But I suspect one (possibly the blue one; cruder wheels) is just a close copy of the other, that they are both based on a Western (or South American?) die-cast model, and Tai Sang may not have had anything to do with either? The white one is hollow, the blue has an interior moulding and steering wheel, in addition to the driver.

 

They (Blue Box) did have a driver for their small-scale Jeeps and Austin Champs, in the same colour, but may have bought them in, so it's not empirical enough to draw those kinds of conclusions. Belly-pans both rule out A-OK, lack of a pull-back motor rules-out Lucky (who tended to a roof light for Fire Chief or Police vehicles) and FE, bumper rules-out Larami, lack of paint rules out most of the rest I can find, so right now, your guess is as good as mine, your knowledge, better!

 

Wheels!

 

♫♪♪♫ Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning, running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind ♪♫♪♪

 

By length! It's not the size, it's what you do with it!