I received a letter today from Philip in Canada providing photos of some Vintage Model Kits 1962 Cereal Toys and asking for more information about them.
The Vintage Model Kits series was issued in 1962 by Nabisco across Australia, France, Switzerland, Japan, Sweden and the USA. The kits were in various cereal boxes, like Weeties, Honey Smacks, Cornflakes, Sugar Puffs, and others in the different countries.
These kits also appears in retail packets of 2 kits, “Junior Model Kits” – “No Cement Required” a precursor to the “Snap-Together” kits issued in Australia later in the 1960’s.
How these items came to be in Canada can only be guessed. Thanks to Hayden for his comment “These were the very first series made by R&L, a group of 12 known as ’19th Century Transport’ and sold 1 million pieces to Canada. This was back before they concentrated on cereal inserts.” .
The models that Philip had included a Paddle Steamer, and several colour variations of the Covered Wagon, First Ford, General Grant Loco, and Penny Farthing Cycle.
The full set would comprise of 12 models:
- 1829 Stephensons Rocket
- 1834 Hansom Cab
- 1840 Covered Wagon
- 1840 Paddle Steamer
- 1858 General Grant Locomotive
- 1860 Cobb & Co Coach
- 1872 Penny Farthing Cycle
- 1896 First Ford Car
- 1899 Daimler Car
- 1900 Calthorpe Car
- 1910 Fire Engine
- 1915 London Omnibus
All of these were produced by R & L in Port Melbourne as polystyrene snap together kits. A broad range of colours exists including Yellow, Pink, White, Red, Green, Black, Olive, Blue, Cream, Purple, Orange and additional variants in lighter or shade variations of these colours.
Thanks to Philip for the information he provided. As always thanks to Craig Hall and his definitive guide to Cereal Toys.
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