--27b and 320 Halesowen Harvest Trailer (1949-71)

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Mon, 10/22/2018 - 19:44

Jan Oldenhuis

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--27b and 320 Halesowen Harvest Trailer (1949-71)

I now have 3 different base versions of the Halesowen Harvest Trailer.

Dinky Toys Halesowen Harvest Trailer. 1 with brown racks and 2 with red racks.

1. Dinky Toys 27b Halesowen Harvest Trailer 1st base without number and painting ring. Metal wheels. Brown racks.

2. Dinky Toys 27b Halesowen Harvest Trailer 2nd base without number, with painting ring. Metal wheels. Red racks.

3. Dinky Toys 320 Halesowen Harvest Trailer 5th base with number 320, painting ring and a raised area on both sides of the tow bar. Metal wheels. Red racks.

It is not quite clear when they went over from brown racks to red racks, but may assume that the 1st base versions were issued with brown racks. There are still a 3rd base version with number 27b and painting ring and a 4th base version with number 320 and painting ring, but without the raised area on both sides of the tow bar.

In this contribution I am only talking about the Harvest Trailer with solid metal wheels. I know that there are also 320 versions with plastic wheels, without front wheel and different colour variations. I hope that members will add pictures and information about all these variations.

What strikes me is the name Halesowen Farm Trailer on the base that I cannot link to this Farm Trailer anywhere. Apart from the introduction in Meccano Magazine July 1949 as Harvest Trailer I could not find any information or photo of a real Halesowen Farm Trailer. The only thing I could find is that Halesowen is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands, England. The Brighton Toy Museum gives the following explanation about the name: The Dinky toy was named after the West Midlands town of Halesowen, possibly just to make it sound less generic.

In the catalogues the trailer is named as Harvest Trailer or as Halesowen Farm Trailer or as Halesowen Harvest Trailer. All boxes mention Harvest Trailer. Only the plain box 320 mentions Halesowen Harvest Trailer.

The farm equipment has always been a regular part of the Dinky Toys range of Meccano Liverpool and I love these models. Usually grouped together in the various catalogues over the years, of which I will show a brief overview.

Jan Oldenhuis, 22 October 2018.

Tue, 10/23/2018 - 11:52

janwerner

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Hi Jan, nice comparison and picture documentation!

My trailer with brown racks has the early state base indeed. Remarkably the box, with the 'Join the Dinky Toys Club' statement seems much later. Perhaps also interesting to observe that the small wheel in front is shared with the no. 190 Caravan and the no. 107a/385 Sack Truck. Kind regards, Jan W

Sun, 11/15/2020 - 15:13

janwerner

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Hi Jan, I can add a slightly different one now, the latest of the traditional version with all-diecast wheels, showing the plastic jockey wheel and the red painted hook, which means it was fixed before the red paint job was done. The ejection marks seem to be slightly different too. Also a new picture of the yellow 27B numbered trade box with three models. They have each unpainted hooks, same colour racks (packed in tissue paper) and paint spraying holes underneath. Kind regards, Jan W

Mon, 11/16/2020 - 21:46

Jan Oldenhuis

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Jan, again some nice additions to your collection. The 27b trade box with its 3 trailers also looks very cool.

What strikes me about these models is that the paint rings are also painted on the inside. Apparently a different method of painting was used compared to the Jeeps. These paint rings are unpainted inside. I am adding photos of my own models with these painting rings.

Kind regards, Jan Oldenhuis

Tue, 11/17/2020 - 05:58

janwerner

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Jan, I presume the paint spraying ring was for applying the main tan colour only. After that the second red colour was applied, holding the model in the mask, and covering the whole ring afterwards. On models without ring there are faint or clear marks on the wheel supports, where it rested during the paint procedure in my opinion. Kind regards, Jan

Tue, 12/08/2020 - 22:56

Christopher.Batten

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Hello Jan,

I have 2 early base Harvest trailers with red painted metal tow hook.

I have a 27B base with 2 non raised ejection pins and plain metal tow hook.

I have 2 320 base with plastic hubs and plastic jockey wheel and plain metal tow hook.

The 320 is on a stlightly raised platform to delete the 27B. Both have no paint in the central hole.as they are all red..

Thank you for alerting us to look closely at our models - these differences are very interesting.

kind regards

Christopher Batten