SCALE STEAM WITH 1:50 SCALE CORGI TRACTION ENGINE

SMN report
Here’s another in Corgi’s long-running 1:50 scale ‘Vintage Glory of Steam’ series, and it’s well up to the standard set by others in the range. This one is the Burrell 7 NHPP DCC Works No 3159, a road locomotive delivered to Anderton & Rowland in 1909, to haul A&R’s fairground machinery and exhibits around south-western parts of the UK.

Nostalgic steam fairs
Steam power is a real nostalgia-inducer these days, with summer steam fairs giving owners and public a chance to revel in these huge monsters of times past. Of course, they were not all huge beasts - as you can see in the pic above, there are plenty of scale models around, complete with a working engine for reduced-scale fun. Cheaper on the coal needed for the furnace too!

Working traction engines
These machines were built to work, and hard too. A long leather drive belt enabled owners to supply power for almost anything required, from sawing logs and threshing grain to hauling fairground stuff and, by adding a heavy steel roller on the front, you had a roadroller. This flexibility made them highly useful machines, though like metal dinosaurs, they become more than a little slow and cumbersome for the changing conditions of the early 20th century.

By the mid-1920s, a typical traction engine had become far more expensive to run than a truck with an internal-combustion engine. 
   
Visit Corgi here.

Have a look at some traction engines here. Note there’s a discount on Corgi’s price.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1  Corgi Anderton & Rowland Showman’s traction engine.
2  Working small-scale replica, roughly 1:10 scale.
3  Controls of a full-size engine.
4  Show-winning vintage steam.
5  Using a leather belt to power a sawing machine.

SUPERB COLLECTIBLES ON SALE THIS SATURDAY AT BREKER AUCTIONS

We’re keen on auctions at SMN, and find that local ones are a good, if unpredictable, source. You can pick up bargains of all sorts at these sorts of places, offering as they often do, house-clearance articles at knockdown prices.

You don’t know what’s there until viewing day of course, but there is often treasure to be unearthed - unbuilt plastic plastic kits, collectible model rail, toy soldiers - you name it, you might find it. Many articles are grouped together in these general auctions, and these can be simply mouthwatering - at the last auction we attended, a box containing ten Airfix kits, a feast of miscellaneous Hornby items and even half a dozen fair-condition Dinky Toys went for just £20.00 GBP ($29.00 USD) - a bargain or what?!

Specialist auctions are a different matter, and here values are carefully monitored, with items more likely to be sold as individual lots. One of the better known of specialist auction houses is the German Breker outfit, and above we show two of Breker’s lots for the upcoming auction on Saturday, May 29. The 555 mm (22 in) long traction engine (top picture) is a far cry from Corgi’s excellent, though rather smaller, 1:50 diecast models. You’ll need a small bag of coal to fuel this live-steam beast, made by Maxwell Hemmens of York, UK.

The racing car shown here is a classic tinplate item, and hugely desirable for lovers of the genre. The SMN Vault contains a bunch of tinplate robots - we’re firmly in the 1960s era with these, though can certainly appreciate the products of earlier times, such as this Gunthermann item from 1905. Even though it is more than a century old, the clockwork motor in the 310 mm (12.25 in) long car is still in working order.

It’ll be interesting to see what these, and other items fetch on Saturday. Breker claims big numbers with earlier sales - for example, the tinplate Tipp & Co speedster of 1936 (above) fetched a wallet-melting $17,200.00 USD (£12,000 GBP).  

Visit Breker to view lots and download pdfs here.

CORGI LIMITED EDITION TRACTION ENGINE

On a traditional note, Corgi has released a Limited Edition - 1000 pieces - of the 1:50 scale Burrell Showman’s Traction Engine, in Anderton & Rowlands markings. Aaah, the age of steam! Companies like Burrells were leading-edge motor manufacturers a century ago, and carried on making these great steam machines until 1928. And it wasn’t just road haulage either - traction engines powered all sort of things in those days, from saw mills to bacon slicers, though this Corgi one pulls a miniature steam organ.

Corgi’s models are pretty good, though it would be super to see a few operating features creeping in - this one is just begging for a sound chip to give small-scale puffing steam and organ music. The last real one we saw was brightly lit up with rows of chasing light bulbs, so a bunch of tiny LEDs could be another feature to add. We’re only suggesting Corgi, and you’d have to do it carefully, to add to the ‘scale modelness’ not turn it into a toy.

Visit Corgi here.