I received a request to ID some stuff from passing reader Noah Churchill the other day, and he explained;
"I am trying to find a source for this gas station toy and crane toy repurposed for the production of the Theodore Tugboat children's
television series circa 1992. I am a model maker who lives near where
the series was made, and I am also an avid historian of the artist who
created the models.
I’m currently in the process of restoring several
original shooting models from the series that were recently
rediscovered, so being able to identify these toys would be an enormous
help with the restoration."
Now, the first thing is, I've never heard of Theodore Tugboat! So it was off to Wikipedia, where I learned the suspected similarities to Thomas the Tank Engine of my suspicious and cynical mind, were correct, but in part because they share a director, while the
model-maker mentioned above, must be Andrew Cochran, the originator.
Wikipedia also states that some of the models are on permanent display
at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax (where the series is based), Nova Scotia, so these recently found ones must have fallen through the gaps?
"The gas station toy is about 6.5" long, the
base and roof are moulded in yellow-orange plastic while the building
section is moulded in white plastic. I figure this must be from a large
town set similar to those made by New Ray, and in fact many of the tire
bumpers on the boats were repurposed from various New Ray toys.
The
crane appears to be sourced from a crane truck toy, and with the boom
extended measures roughly 10.5" long. I've found a very similar crane in
an Artoy Take Apart Vehicle toy from 1984, however it is slightly
different in detail.
Of course with these plastic toys, there can often be an almost
inexhaustible trail of manufacturers copying, modifying, and reusing
each other's toolings."
I haven't been able to help Noah so far, The gas station looks to be from a cheapo' toy, maybe Blue Box or
Redbox or Lucky Toys, or, someone newer like New Ray, but I couldn't
begin to guess. Searching the toy section of eBay for vintage garage/gas
station/petrol station is probably the best bet, it looks too simple
to be a Busch-Faller-Kibri-Noch-Vollmer-Wiad type? I did put some New Ray catalogue images on the Blog, a while back . . .
. . . where a Caltex station has similar petrol-pumps, but a different roof?
Jean
Hoefler
/ Höfler did some simple buildings around 1:60th, while Matchbox, Corgi
and Hot Wheels sometimes issued them in play sets. Equally, it could be
from one of those large multi-story garage-car park things in mostly
printed hardboard? Mettoy and Blue Box did some, others were more
generic.
While the crane might be a civil
vehicle from Preiser, or Roco, they did a line of construction vehicles
in/for AHM in the 1970's, with others being Prailine, Roskopf or Wiking,
but it could be from a railway wagon, maybe by a cheaper make like
Playcraft (Jouef) or Tyco? but there's the added complication of a Canadian angle on the whole thing?
So if anyone can help Noah, either drop a line in the comments, or eMail me and I'll pass messages on, that would, I'm sure, be gratefully received.
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