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Dalekfan
Dalek Commander of the Outer Galaxies
United Kingdom
9429 Posts |
 Posted - 02 Mar 2012 : 09:56:46
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By 1984, I was avidly collecting Who merchandise again, and buying up pretty much anything that came on the Market (you could do that then!).
There was, however, a noticeable gap in the Market for me at least, as there was no collectable Dalek model at a decent scale to army build and colour co-ordinate.
This was sorted in late 1984 when Fine Art Castings, well known at the time for their range of military pewter models, entered the Who Market with a range of white pewter figures. These were produced in 25mm, 40mm and 80mm sizes, and it was this latter 80mm size that appealed to my Dalek desires as the accuracy of the figure was greater by far.
Fortunately the Dalek was amongst the earliest releases in 1984, and these were available as plain pewter, antiqued finished or fully factory-painted. There was a scale of prices therefore, and this John Fitton catalogue from 1986 gives some of the full painted prices that I was after:
At this time, John Fitton was really the only place to go for Who merchandise, and he was certainly the only person I dealt with for these. Initially I bought a small selection of ready-painted figures, and these are still in my collection today:
Note the example of the illustrated box that they sometimes (but not always) came in. My major disappointment at this time (other than the hefty price tag and the long wait to receive them) was that the variety of colour schemes was very restricted. If anyone knows of any other factory-painted variants I would love to know!
By 1987, John Fitton was handling the retail sales of all the FAC figures, as this brochure extract states, together with a then-current price list:
Being a completist, I invested in an antiqued set too:
What I really wanted was the ability to vary the colour schemes, so my only option was to buy the basic figures and prime & paint them myself. This picture shows the colours I did, and again these are still in my collection. I had so much more patience to paint in those days!
Note the thinness of the Dalek in the “Death to the Daleks” colour scheme on the right. As time passed, clearly the moulds were flagging, and later Daleks purchased were much thinner!
And here’s the standard painting instructions I got from FAC. No imagination at all!:
By 1992 the figures were no longer being produced, and the availability could be gauged by the John Fitton catalogue of the time, who by then had all remaining stocks. Note that the Dalek was no longer available:
So by 1993 they had moved onto the secondary Market forever. They were never the most accurate figures but they may well have been the heaviest! But they hold a special place in my heart because they filled a void in my Collection at a time when there was little else to fill it.
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kevb0977
Chancellor
United Kingdom
941 Posts |
Posted - 02 Mar 2012 : 10:37:10
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Thanks for posting that, it was VERY interesting & made for a good read..., I had been trying to hunt some of these down a while back but never had much success. Forgot about them to be honest, moved onto other things SO it's nice to have the reminder & learn something too!!!  |
Kevin |
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Topic Locked
Daleks conker and destroy
