I haven't seen it yet, as it always takes some more time to cross the North Sea. Yes, good idea to create a regular thread for new issues of the Journal to comment on! Best regards, Jan

I recieved it this morning ! very interesting as usual ! Good job Mike.
I am agree with Member 97 and the contents of his letter on the Atlas production.
I must confess that I bought the first series but I stopped as soon as I understood that it was made only for business and that it will never finish ! I learnt also, that a very well known great french collector, author of many books on the Dinky Toys, working for Atlas since the beginning, is buying a lot of items in play worn conditions : we will never see the end of the Atlas production.
But I respect the Atlas collectors : everybody do what he wants !
For my part, I prefer to complete my collection with authentic Dinky even in bad conditions.
In the mean time, if "The Journal" presents articles on Atlas, it should present all the others manufacturers of Dinky copies ! Dan Toy, P&P, .......
That was my opinion.

Richard

As usual, an interesting issue and this thread is a very good idea, Mike should mention it in the next journal, this could bring more members to this forum. John Beugels article about the record aircraft is very comprehensive and interesting.

The article about the electric tram is something completely new, I would have liked to see a comparaison with the unissued Dinky Toys one.

Wooden mock-up of a double deck tram the photo of which is published on page 250 of M. Richardson's book "Dinky Toys and Modelled Miniatures". This tramway was fitted with train wheels fitted on two bogies to run on OO tracks.
Length : approximately 127 mm. (5 in.)
Scale 1 : 76.

Page 19 of the April issue shows Per Getz's top ten Dinky. To put hins right, the blue Studebaker truck is not the 25K Maraicher but the 25L Tapissi

Richard,

JMR confirms that the present collection will end in 2016 with the number 86 and it will be followed immediately by a new collection of cars with opening parts. This will be the fourth collection of copies of models from Bobigny.

Shall we see the same with the models from Liverpool ?

Sorry chaps, missed this Journal thread. Went and posted Flying Fortress separately (reference 62g piece in Journal).

Re. the Flying Fortress note on page 6: I don't know why Keith Barnard is so upset about the obsolete character of the post-war Flying Fortress/Long Range Bomber. Indeed, it is obsolete, having been modelled on the very first pre-war version of that bomber. Many alterations and additions of the real plane during the war period were not included in the post-war re-issued model, neither did this happen for other models. Too costly, Meccano was happy to sell some models made of the pre-war dies. They even did not bother to add British registration numbers to obvious German planes like the Junkers JU Air Liner/Giant High Speed Monoplane. They were just toys and had to sell. Remember some 'oldies but goldies' which were issued in the mid-30s and made it well into the 1950s or even the early 1960s, like the Streamlined Fire Engine, Streamlined Racing Car, etc. I have not seen any Dinky change subsequent to changes of the real world model (but others may have examples). And indeed, many other models did not last for long, although their real world counterparts did, or at least their fame.

The modelled earliest Flying Fortress version, the YB-17A (in fact the slightly later B-C), as shown in Meccano Magazine of April 1939.

The model, pre-war (left) and post-war, virtually the same, even the pre-war USAAC markings.

(by the way, thanks to Mike for having made another well-executed issue of The Journal - and for the nice, spacious representation of the photographs of my Dinky darlings)

Kind regards, Jan

Jan--I really enjoyed your very nice spread in the latest issue of the Journal. It was a great way to summarize your latest purchases and tell a little about each one. For many of us the chase is often as interesting as actually getting the model, and the journey is sometimes long! It is also interesting how sometimes a very sought after Dinky suddenly appears, and sometimes, as Jan found out, for a very reasonable price.
Terry

Nice to hear, Terry. As I wrote, this was a kind of quick compensation for the non-issued annual supplement for 2013, supplements in which the models and their backgrounds are described more thoroughly. Perhaps a nice example for others to 'administer' their collections. Retiring soon I hope to bring my catalogue up-to-date as it should be and resume issuing my annual supplements. Best regards, Jan

Jan--You brought up a very good point for me and likely other collectors, and that is producing some sort of catalog for our collections. I am curious, do you normally allow a whole page for each model, with photos and descriptions? I need start on my own, and thought it would be easier to use whole pages instead of splitting them. And I am sure you provide a complete description of each: colors, box, model numbers, years produced, when and where you acquired it, and maybe several views of photos? I just installed PhotoShop Elements as I was told it has a section allowing you to create albums, etc. I just need to dive in! Appreciate any advice you might offer.
Terry

Terry, I will send you a pdf copy, as an example.

Terry

About 12 years ago, I had the same wish as you, to make a catalogue of my collection. I looked at a few books and started to build .html pages with my word processor. These were two things that I should not have done and book and first pages were trashed.

The first and most important thing to do is think exactly what you want to do : a printable catalogue or an on screen one. This choice will determine what to do next.

You must also know exactly what you want on each page :
Picture of the model but also the base, the rear, the casting variations, the colours, the boxes, etc... and you end up with an average of 20 pictures per model and some times up to 50.

You also want some typed info : name of the model, reference(s), dates, description, dimensions, weight, registration numbers etc... etc...

You can not start your work before you know exactly what you want.

If you want a printable catalogue, any decent word processor can do the job, you do not have to make a page for each model as you can always add something in between.

If you want an on screen catalogue which I think is more practical, the next thing is to build a standard page. This is the most important and most difficult par of the job because if you do not do it properly on the master page then you will have to modify each page independently. What is great with the on screen is that cross links can be made very easily between pages, you can use larger pictures.

"Adobe Photoshop Elements" contains "Photoshop Organiser" but I do not think that it can do the job. It is meant to make photo albums but not with texts. I have looked at it several times but I do not have a clue on how it works.

My catalogue contains now roughly 3,000 pages and 10,000 photos but it is not a catalogue of my collection any more, it is the Dinky Toys Encyclopaedia

Jan & Jacques---Thank you very much for responding with your comments and info on doing a collection catalog. You are right in that plenty of thought needs to go into deciding just what you want it to be, and just how much detail it contains. And Jan, thanks much for sending me a copy of yours......I will have time tomorrow to open and inspect it.
Terry