WEB EXCLUSIVE: Extra pictures from Sandown

This is an excerpt of the Sandown swapmeet report first published in Collectors Gazette's June issue. To see which issues of Collectors Gazette are available to buy, click here.

Dspite the wet weather, queues formed quickly outside on the day of the toy fair. Within, it was interesting to see so many early bird buyers stalking their prey: clearly there’s profit to be made out of those who get up before dawn!

Sandown is renowned for its wares – and rightly so. Modern toys are, thankfully, kept to the minimum. But what modern toy, for example, could hope to compete with, say, the Tri-ang Victory Herald Coupé in bright red that I saw early on? A rare beast, this example was just under £700. The same dealer (and I’ll spare his blushes) was touting a boxed plastic Nuffield Tractor at £395. Interestingly, there were at least two other examples of this Pippin Toys product at Sandown, the better of which was half the price…

Tom Hughes had brought some interesting products this time around. Two gleaming, mint clockwork Gama tanks of different sizes had their heavily taped boxes intact: the larger was £160 while the smaller was half that sum. Of equal interest was a trade box of LoneStar Arabs. Rather than try and sell the lot, Tom was happy to part with single examples at £8 a time.

Peter Palmer still attends this show and he unfailingly has something of great historical interest. This time around two objects caught my attention. One was nothing more than a hollow plastic cat with one articulated leg that had to be fastened to the body. This swivelled a little and contained a hidden magnet...

Organiser: Barry Potter Fairs

Good to see a number of early, plastic bagged, Series One Airfix kits: prices were £10-15.