Bruce,

Do you remember if the machine smelt of amonia ?

Hi all,

On the thread for the Muir-Hill dumper is a request for some information about the drawings from the French factories.

The Dinky toys Encyclopaedia has a link to all the 133 models French or English  for which I have been able to find a drawing.

Unfortunately the collectors who owns such drawings are not willing to scan and publish them. The reasons are : I have paid for them or they are fragile and may be damaged in the copier. We have had this discussion before on TMT.

I know several collectors who own such drawings but there is no way to obtain a digital copy.

These are the copies of drawings that Vincent Espinasse (l'Auto Jaune) is selling at a resonable price. Unfortunately, unlike the drawings from Liverpool, these do not mention any variations and there is almost no information to recover from them not even the parts list. What was the use of these drawings in the factory ? This lot of 18 drawings is available from http://www.autojauneparis.com/ at the price of 40 €.

As far as I know, there are two types of drawings saved : the models drawings and the dies drawings. Some of these dies drawings like for the A.M.X. 13 body show that the die had two cavities.

The Renault Coca Cola truck and the Facel Vega would have been nice models, such a pity they did not reach the production stage. were there many other intended French models that were never made?

-  Kevin.

44 models are known to have been planed at Bobigny and not issued. There may be more.

106 models are known to have been planed in Liverpool and not issued. There may be more.

The complete list is on the CD : home page, link "Not issued".

Jacques. Thanks for the information about the Meccano drawings and the way to buy copy drawings from Vincent Espinasse. Wow, what an extensive DT collection he has. I have seen several videos of it. Perhaps the biggest DT collection in the world? I had never heard of him. It looks like he just has a store and you can buy different models from him. It seems to be the largest model car store in France? Have you ever met him and seen his DT collection? Does he only have a French DT collection? I have seen he has a auto jaune blog.

Jan Oldenhuis, 26-1-2018

Jan

I have met Vincent Espinasse a couple of times. He certainly has the most fantastic collection of 1/43 models, not only Dinky Toys but all makes as can be seen on his blog ( http://autojauneblog.fr/ ). His collection was started by his father and of course as he sells collections he can buy the best models for him self. He also attends many sales and toy fairs and knows several ex Meccano employes. I have not seen his collection yet but I hope to visit it in the spring.

L'auto Jaune is the name of his store because in the window is a pedal car model of a yellow 5 hp Citroën. There is a similar store at the other end of Paris held by an other collector and named "43° rue".

I found an interesting auction on Ebay UK with the title:
Lot X6 70's Dinky factory model working drawing file copy Striker tank 690-699
with the link:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134816794013?hash=item1f63b5059d:g:INwAAOSw3F...
Jan Oldenhuis 22 November 2023

Hello Jan,

Thank you for the information.

Some of these drawings are from the collection of Christiaan Boland. They are of the Striker, Scorpion, Hanomag and the three Léopards. Christiaan who was a member of TMT may have sold them years ago to the collector which is saling them now.

Jcques