Model Zoo Exhibits

12-03-2012

Anyone heard of papo?,they do a wide range of figurines,their wild animals[for the most part] are very good,bought the silverback recently,excellent detail.

Catalogue 2012

12-12-2012

I sold all my Britains zoo animals within the last couple of years on EBay I bougt a lot too, then realising the time and space i'd need to make a proper lay out I just boxed them all up and eventually sold them when I need to raise some money, along with all my zoo maps and ephemera.

I saw a pack of Plastic animals in the post office yesterday and I picked them up to inspect. The sheep dog was the same size as the cow.

As a child my collection only had Britains as they all went near enough to scale. any well meaning relative who gave me a bag of "made in Hong kong" animals usually left dissapointed when I didn't play with them I mean how can a foal be larger than the mare.

I spent my childhood making complete panaramas on rainy days, in front of the fench doors, i remember once the trouble I got into for cutting a large piece of green cloth out of the centre of my brothers subuteo soccer set. They hadn't used it for a while and I needed more grazing!

Britains stopped making the Zoo animals in 1999 and stopped all production for good when they sold out not much later to a French company.

Does any one recall the model zoo some one made and showed it off on Blue Peter? I can still recall it it loked wonderful but in reality it may not have been to scale. There it is again that all important word Scale.
Happy meories.

13-12-2012

Regarding the Blue Peter zoo, it was in the very early seventies I think, I made one myself for the Britains animals, and from memory it was made out of the following, the base, large polystyrene ceiling tiles painted green, the pay box was a converted oxo box with tooth paste tube caps with pieces of sponge for shrubs, zebra paddock, this was flattened drinking straws with match sticks as posts, elephant house, cereal box with corrugated cardboard for roof and doorways, and a smaller cereal box for the camels. The sea lion pool was a polystyrene meat tray,(blue) with a rock obtained from the beach, the lion cage was two polystyrene meat trays with cocktail sticks as the cage bars, and the chimp cage was a circular cardboard cheese box,again with cocktail sticks as bars and a corgi toy tyre hanging from the roof on a piece of string, there may have been more exhibits, these are all I can remember.

13-12-2012

Airifx also did model zoo in the late 60's, early 70s.

Vintage Airfix - Zoo Set, Ref:1686

Ix picked up one of these (complete) from a charity shop a few years ago for £3 and sold it for £75 on e-bay.

Happy Days!

15-12-2012

Tarzan
While you where making yours in south shields i was doing mine in Ryton, just up river, I seem to remember using cheese triangle boxes to make round cages, that our American chatters would call corn crib cages.
Also I remember making hedges with green loo roll, dampened in wallpaper paste and then pressing them out into lenghths and when dry highlighting them with felt tip pens.
Dean