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?

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.