Digging into the past and re-visiting an old swapmeet.
We battle through the crowds to report on a busy and popular fair.
With all the stall space taken and having had to turn traders away, Gerry Widdowson ended his swapmeet year with a bang. The venue was busy right from the start – and was still active when I left.
Mark Fenlon had his usual array of diecast and reproduction window boxes but on this occasion he’d turned up some ancient (1960s) shop stock. What was more interesting still was that the selection of toys in bags and header cards were largely of Hong Kong manufacture and were dirt cheap. For £2-3 you could have taken home a time-warp in the shape of a plastic hydroplane with separate motor and figure; a set of gardening tools; a pair of plastic rifles (which could be cocked) and which were labelled, surprisingly, “Field Gun”; a pair of Routemaster buses; a set of cars and road signs, a proper field gun and even a submarine. Odd man out was a quartet of little jeeps, each with something attached to the rear, which hailed from West Germany. It was a truly wonderful selection, with some header cards printed with the price of 1s (5p) but with a superimposed shop sticker reading 9d (4.5p!).
Mark’s other delights included a fairly common Marx Speedway set, this being the earliest version with tinplate track and tinplate windup clockwork cars. Everything was present and the condition was quite acceptable; a bonus was the original box. Priced at £70, this set had actually been made in Dudley, near Birmingham. Similar money was being asked for a Tri-ang Milk Float in pressed steel. This would have been aimed at the export market, I felt, since the design was most definitely American. It came with a plain trade box (very unusual) and equally unusual was the fact that it had a full load of bottles (28 in all), although some lacked their caps. A thirsty milkman, maybe.
Nearby, another dealer, requesting anonymity, showed me a large-scale Mettoy Vanwall racing car finished, as you’d expect, in mid-green. This was equipped with “push and go” action and was complete with driver and perspex windscreen. There was, sadly, no packaging, but this impressive toy in 1/18 scale commanded attention – and it was priced at £175. Much cheaper at £45 was an Arbur Products saloon car painted in dark blue. Clearly played with, this example was nonetheless in great overall condition. Arbur isn’t a make you encounter every day although its origins go back to London in the mid-1940s: