D is for Dyna Model Products Co., or 'Dyna-Mo'

Continuing the rather haphazard look at model Railway figures and ephemera, which was going to be about five or six companies in the run-up to Christmas but which will now extend to the end if Feb at this rate of a one post every few days, and cover . . . 30-odd makers, maybe more?

Brain Berke sent us his Dyna-Mo, I've actually cropped one out of a larger picture, which will reappear in a round-up at the end, with links to all the relevant posts! His set of HO '4 seated figures and bench', is clearly HO, or OO-gauge compatible, unlike my example . . . 

 

Which is supposed to be the same (we've seen it, and the box end before), yet the alpine climber clearly shows it to be more like N-gauge? You could use it in the background to help force perspective, but I think 'box scale' is more accurate!

 

Walther's entries for 1998 (above) and 2000 (below), they may still be around, just, but someone on an old Google group isn't sure, and Scalemates are no help at all! Last known as being operated out of Sangervill, Maine (USA), by a Tom Kemp, mostly concentrating on the old-fashioned car kits?

 

But in their heyday, they were pretty prolific, and the above is only a hint of their products, with a four-page flyer, and several old magazine advertisements, probably from Model Railroader magazine?

 

Back in the 1940/50's they also did model aircraft, a line which, I would imagine, was killed dead by the plastic kit revolution! I looked for them in Ron Smith's 'Collecting Toy Airplanes' but they are not there, he tended to concentrate on ready-to-play commercial models though. Likewise, the Richardson's book only has Dynaflytes (Zylmex I think), which are both commercially finished and a smaller scale.

 

If you've read this far, you may appreciate the more wordy ephemera! We did also look at a post-card marketing/mail-shot they did in a past post, use the Tag, where you will also find the box-end for the forklift-truck!

A is for Archive - "Dyna-Mo"

Back in the days before glossy consumer-oriented catalogues, you had to buy the modelling press to find the after-market companies, write to them (enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope) and hopefully hear back from them, replies which usually arrived about four months after you'd given-up all hope!

In this case, Dyna-Model sent the potential customer a post-card sized flyer, with artwork from their own advertisements in the model railroad press, which as they have credited the magazine, must be artwork wholly or partially 'got-up' by the magazine! Further, the card . . . isn't; it's actually the same glossy sugar-paper as the original magazines and may have been provided by the magazine as a kind of reversed advertising?

The mailed owner has subsequently added the next item issued; R-23 (a sow and piglets), dating the flyer to soon after the magazine ad's had run so probably the autumn of 1947, or 71 years ago!

The owners of DMP have thought to tantalise the applicant with news of new products, by hand, on the back of the flyer . . . but then not actually listed them!

F is for Follow-up - 2

Following up from the set of posts I did a month or so ago, looking at early - mostly - British Plastics and a bit of metal; here is some other metal bits to tie in with them.

The semi-flat metal bathers issued by Aristocraft in the US in the post-war period are made in West Germany and bare some resemblance to the figures Marklin were issuing at the time, but are a little larger and a little cruder.

The Dyna-Mo forklift was still in the Walther's catalogue as an unpainted casting in the last few years, this one go's back to the 1950's. and is a single colour all-over paint-job on lead/white metal.

The 'Selly Road Gang' could be Comet/Authenticast, but I don't think so, and any help would be much appreciated in identifying this early US railroad item...which may have been made-up and titled by the owner from the products of more than one company - as they do look a bit like Comet? Now known (2024) to be Selley 'Finishing Touches', see comments or click Tag/s.

The three guys at the top might be Timpo, and either pre-date or be replacements for; the Zang composition mechanics that Timpo carried in the late 1940's-1950's?

 

Below are definitely Comet/Authenticast, with a broken unpainted and group of painted ones from tow different sets (I'm working on a complete check-list of HE/Comet/SAE/Malleable stuff at the moment).

 

The bottom shot shows the late-issues of Wardie/Mastermodels with tiny bases designed to be as unobtrusive as possible on a model railway layout, compare with the ones shown last time.

Below the size-comparator shot we have an unknown 35mm pilot and two (probably home-cast) copies of the Dinky gun-crew.