Dinky Toys: TV Shows, Space and Specials
Including Gerry Anderson and other TV shows plus specials and novelties
This is old news as this happened in 2024 but only just pricked up be me! The original USS Enterprise has completed its voyage home. Heritage Auctions Executive Vice President Joe Maddalena returned the 3-foot-long model of the Federation’s flagship, used in the original Star Trek series’ opening credits, to Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry Jr., son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and caretaker of his father’s legacy.
A genuine boxed version was recently offered up for auction at QDT (UK auction and sales house) but it did not meet it’s reserve. The last seen bid was for £4,500
There’s a brand new TV programme on the Yesterday TV channel (UK) called Scouting for Toys. The 10-part series is set behind the scenes at internationally renowned Vectis Toys Auctioneers in Teesside, where buyers and sellers from all over the world come to trade every toy imaginable.
You can see the programmes live on Thursdays at 9pm on the Yesterday channel (Sky, Virgin, Freeview and more) or via the UKTV app for repeats.
It’s an amazing and entertaining production with amazing characters from both Vectis and the Buyers and Sellers and features great toys as well as a cameo from Yours Truly in the Gerry Anderson programme.
Five Star Five was a Gerry Anderson movie project which was begun in 1977, immediately after Space: 1999. The story was described as The Magnificent Seven in space. Five characters- including a talking chimp and a robot – must destroy an alien asteroid fortress that threatens a planet. Sadly in 1979, just before the production was about to start the funding was cancelled and the project abandoned.
So what is the connection to Dinky Toys? During the preproduction phase a number of spaceships were designed and initial drawings created, one of which looks as though it could have been a design inspiration for the 362 Trident Starfighter . Note also that the bad guys in this movie were called the Zargons, so could this also be linked to the Dinky Zygon fleet? An unproduced Gerry Anderson project, The Investigator, provided the templates for the 602 Armoured Command Car and the 674 Coastguard Amphibious Missile Launch so it seems possible that the creative links between Gerry and Dinky may still have been strong enough to see further collaboration.
Five Star Five is now available as a book and an audiobook. Details HERE
Currently available on eBay are facsimile pre-production design drawings for the 353 Shado 2 and the 351 Shado Interceptor. The Shado 2 drawing is particularly interesting as it shows a variant that was not put into commercial production.
The auction ends on the 4th March and more details can be found HERE
9th December 2020
A while back QDT, the diecast specialist, sold a range of Gerry Anderson models curated by an unnamed collector. However the collector wrote a blog about his love of this models and why he amassed such a comprehensive and high quality collection. For those who have not seen it, I thought it was worth highlighting it again. Click HERE if you can’t see the blog below.
The collection, now sold, can be viewed here:
(Added originally to Updates page and copied here)
A new version, possibly a prototype or maybe a one-off special of the 353 Shado 2 Mobile has come to light. This version has a radar dish instead of the rocket. Both share the same base and this version can also flip round into the body and be angled like the rocket. More details on the 353 Shado 2 page.
The comments section on the 353 Shado 2 page is describing this as the ‘Holy Grail’!
Some detective work required please! Fellow collector Andrew has these three SPV 104s in his collection. They are believed to be all original including the aerials, of which there appear to be three types.
The most common version is on the left, the other two appear to be rarer. If you look at the roof top plungers, they are bare metal which indicates all three SPVs are very early editions.
Does anybody have further examples of the less common aerials? Or who can shed a little more light this?
GA expert Martin Gainsford has provided images from the Christie’s Auction catalogue of 11th July 2002 . It features a stunning set of pre-production models and prototypes of four models, 106 Thunderbird 2, 104 SPV, 351 Interceptor and the 353 Shado 2 .
He says: “I was fortunate at the time to have been involved with FANDERSON and requested by Christie’s to act as one of their advisors for the Anderson related items so had the chance to handle and see up close all the pieces for sale.”
The catalogue does not have an image of the 353 Shado 2s but Martin photographed them a year or two prior to this auction at an exhibition.
Until 1966 the famous Rolls Royce ‘FAB1’ was a model starring in many of the Thunderbirds TV programmes and in both the films. A full-sized replica of FAB 1 was built to transport writers-producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson to the premiere of the second movie ‘Thunderbird 6’ * in London. It was constructed by the company Toby Baxter Contracts under Sylvia’s supervision and not by Brains or Rolls Royce.
* In the linked article below, it incorrectly says that the premiere was the first movie ‘Thunderbirds are Go’. (see comments)
Petrolheadism, a well known motoring blog, has the fascinating story of what happened to this model and where it is now.
Continue reading “What happened to the full size FAB1?”
Back in October 2018 two original props from Gerry Anderson’s The Investigator TV series were sold at auction (see news story below) and now they are back up for sale at Vectis Auctions on September 26th.
These props were used in ‘The Investigator’ which was produced in 1973 as a pilot episode for a new series mixing live action and puppetry techniques, similar in approach to ‘The Secret Service.’ No further episodes were produced.
A matt green variant of the first version, with a riveted base, of the 101 Thunderbird 2 has been sold on eBay for £549 ($670). According to the seller it was purchased new in 1967 and then stored carefully until its sale on August 31st 2019. There is an FAO Schwarz (a well known New York toy store) price sticker for $18.69 on the box.
A change of paint finish for a model on its first production run is unusual especially as the riveted base version was only sold for a year before the rivets were replaced with screws to enable easier repairs of the thin yellow legs that were very prone to breaking under normal play use.
Has anybody out there got a similar variant? Would love to hear from you and see some pictures.
OK not strictly Dinky Toys but its always interesting to see the original props and models that the Binns Road designers worked from to produce the toys that then sold in their millions.
Gerry Anderson TV is the official YouTube account of Anderson Entertainment & the Gerry Anderson Estate and has a raft of short background videos looking at different aspects of the GA productions including the vehicles and series featured on this site.
You can either go direct via the link above or via this site’s series and vehicles pages
Thunderbirds Primer
Captain Scarlet Primer
Space 1999 Primer
UFO Primer
FAB 1 C21 Tech
Thunderbird 2 C21 Tech
Candy and Andy Audio FAB Facts
And there are three new USS Enterprise original prop images on the
8th August 2019
Two interesting new variants for the site for the 102 Joe’s Car from the Joe 90 TV series.
The first is a gunmetal base version, possibly an export version or even a factory error, whatever the origin, its certainly a strange colour combination.
The second newly identified variant is the omission of the on/off switch labelling, next to the double headed arrow and possibly a tooling issue. A short lived change as the very first versions had the text labelling as did later and the last versions of the 102.
4th August 2019
JK Auctions recently sold a resin prototype of the never commercially released 113 John Steed’s Jaguar from the 1970’s New Avengers UK TV series. The prototype was originally part of the Parodi family collection who had exclusive import rights to Dinky Toys for Italy.
Dinky Toys: TV Shows, Space and Specials 