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Statistics on my collection
I just finished a preliminary outline in Excel of my collection and now have a firm idea of how things break down by actual car manufacturer (after years of handwritten totals). The top five work out to be:
1. Ford (US) - 170
2. Porsche - 157 (156 German, 1 Austrian)
3. Ferrari - 123
4. Chevrolet - 108
5. MG - 96
I have car manufacturers grouped by country. So, if I include Ford UK, Ford Germany, Ford Australia, and (yes) even Ford France (which became Simca), I could add another 41 to Ford's #1 ranking. I have to admit though, a lot of the Fords are Road Champs cop cars and Revell NASCAR stockers.
I record Corvette separate from Chevrolet - if included Chevy would be tied with Porsche at #2.
What's #6? Mercedes-Benz at 80 replicas (Dick would be proud).
Now that is something I need to do Harv.
Autominologist residing in the Robin Hood County
Nottinghamshire England UK
Harvey, I need to organize my collection one of these days, smaller than yours I'm sure, but a lot of nameplates. An interesting fact some may not know, The Simca Vedette used the old '36-'39 Ford flathead V8-60. Considered a slug in the US but probably pretty high performance in the Simca. I believe the Ford Pilot used that engine as well.
Prior to Simca Vedette there was the Ford Vedette - French Dinky made one
Simca bought Ford of France in 1954.
You made me curious about my own collection Harv
And the results of the jury
1. Ford (all) 188
2. Porsche 97 (lots of LM cars)
3. Mercedes-Benz 85
4. Nissan 67 (rather shocked with this - Skylines)
5. Morris 60 (I seem to have too many Minors)
6. Renault 58
7. Opel 56
8. Volkswagen 46
9= Holden, Jaguar & Toyota 45
10= Alfa Romeo & Lancia 44
I think Ford are helped by the fact that they're called Fords everywhere.
171 marques in all - the singletons (sometime more interesting) include AC, Alvis, Jowett, Pontiac, Tatra & Zastava.
I see Harv's & my top two are the same!
True Harvey. French Dinky made two versions as well.
Firstly there was the beetle back one, then the trunkback. I've always loved this dog's breakfast of a car. It has to be one of the most ungainly looking machines ever made. The centre part is pure '49 Mercury - those distinctive front wings that run into the doors.
Stephen - Our top two may be the same for one reason: racing
All those Ford GTs and 917s, I'll bet....
Another collection statistic - number of vehicular marques represented
I count about 400. It gets a little messy when you factor in the unknowns - trailers for example. Some of the oddball one-make marques: Zetor (a Czech tractor), Hong Qi (Chinese state limo), Kassbohrer (Austrian ski slope groomer), Morita (Japanese fire engine), Yakovlev (the Russian YAK-3 fighter plane from WW2), Vespa (no, not a scooter but the car made by French Dinky), Krauss-Maffei (German half-track), Agusta (helicopter), JCB (no, not a backhoe but the Dieselmax record car), and Zamboni! (Road Champs made a replica of the ice grooming machine).
My Collection from 1937 on
I had about 40 toys before WW II. Many were about 1/43 scale but many were smaller. During the war I built about five wood kits of military vehicles. And a car transporter for a Tootsietoy semi tractor and four Tootsietoy 3" cars. I don't have the wood military models but I still have the car carrier and cars. On Christmas 1946, if H. Hudson Dobson got to Milwaukee buy then, I got a set of 5 Dinkies. I bought nothing but Dinkies for the next nine years. Then I started traveling and started to find other Dinky like toys. I got up to about 5000 approx. 1/43 scale toys when I started selling them after I retired. I had about 4000 smaller and larger models also. Now I have only about 1200 models almost all about 1/43 scale.
My first written records were probably after I got an H. Hudson Dobson catalog in 1950. I tried to get catalogs from every toy car company for every year ever since.
My first records were on lined paper, about 37 lines per page. Then I switched to graft paper at 50 lines per page. Then in late 1989 I got my first computer and started records with memory. But I have not yet transefered all the records to the computer. So I don't know what I had. Only rough numbers. I kept lists by toy company not by car company.
I'm kinda in the same boat, Pete
I have a mixture of handwritten (38-line notebook paper), Word files and (as of about 2 years ago) an Excel file. Fortunately I think I converted all my old WordStar stuff though I may have a few WordPerfect files left!
I record date of purchase, replica manufacturer, number, date of actual vehicle, make, vehicle description, year(s) of manufacture, details (color, race history, etc.), my cost, estimated value, and a 3-character designator of vehicle type (2DR, WAG, LM, etc.) to enable me to sort, let's say, all my Le Mans racers or Woodies. I'm color-coding this last category for a few other reasons - notably which kid gets what in the event of my demise! I'm also starting to record who I bought something from. The Excel framework is complete for replica manufacturer and vehicle make, now I only need to fill in and verify the rest.
Not so much Ford, only 9 GT40s & a few C100s & Capris the Fords are mainly roadcars. Quite the opposite for Porsche - I definitely have a thing for the 956 / 962s.
My LM collection is really from 1969-91 - the exceptions are Fangio's 300 SLR, a couple of D-types & the eight MK IIs from 1966.
Interesting you mention the Vespa - I've got the Norev version
A rather basic model, but, charming.
Other type of stats...
Mention stats to an engineer and you get a graph! What happened to me in 1989?
photo no longer available
Nice Karl - now who is going to be first with a pie-chart?
Autominologist residing in the Robin Hood County
Nottinghamshire England UK