Question

Were all Midgets wrapped in the paper catalogues?

Response from Barry Young

Midget Toys - Wrapping in Paper Catalogues A.R.R. E.& O.E. Copyright Barry Young.

The red/white and red/yellow boxes overlapped each other. You will notice that the Mobil arrangement was over around 1967, but there were still a few Mobil Midgets dribbling out even in the late 1970's.

The models over 60m long were never sold in the Mobil r/w boxes of course.

As far as I know most Midgets were wrapped in the paper catalogues before being boxed. The first few may not have been - the toys got 'rubbed ' in the boxes thro' rolling around in transit, and that was the main purpose of them being wrapped.

You will notice too that once the Mobil style catalogues had been used up the Clown ones were introduced.

I think the Mobil catalogues were still in use after the Mobil boxes had all gone.

Rather muddly I know, but there was a fair bit of confusion in purchasing large numbers of printing early on. ( I only started systematic purchasing about 1971...:-)

If the quantity is big enough it is cheap, but if only a few thousand, everything gets suddenly much dearer!

Catalogues were not originally planned or budgeted for, but were a 'must' to avoid 'rubbing'.

Toys in the visi-packs did not usually get wrapped, because there was a range of several 'platforms' of cardboard, which fitted into the visi-packs and lifted the models and stopped them rolling around.

Some funny (strange !) things happened on occasions around this period: we were producing nearly a million a year, and this was sort of unfamiliar ground !!!! There were some misunderstandings, but they were not generally of major significance.

Hope this helps towards a better understanding of the variations in Midget Toy Packaging.

Good collecting and Fun ho! .... Barry, December 2002