Gold­en Slum­bers fill my eyes – when dream­ing about my now 75 year old favorite, the Guy Van “Slum­ber­land” of Decem­ber 1949.

When you ask a Dinky Toys enthu­si­ast to choose a favorite from the great 1950s Guy vans, the answer will like­ly be the “Lyons” or “Weet­abix” vans, and often the one with “Gold­en Shred” liv­ery. The “Slum­ber­land” van will usu­al­ly be rat­ed low­er. This may be because a “Slum­ber­land”, if it has lost its orig­i­nal bright red fac­to­ry fresh fin­ish or if its trans­fers have fad­ed or been dam­aged, often los­es much of its glo­ry and appeal.

But if it has retained its fresh appear­ance, this 75 year old red and gold beau­ty is my unas­sail­able favorite among the Guy vans. And in this respect I’m in good com­pa­ny with the well respect­ed late Cecil Gib­son who, in his “His­to­ry of  British Dinky Toys” wrote “This van appeared lat­er in var­i­ous fin­ish­es, and re-num­ber­ings, but I find this the most attrac­tive...” Indeed, the “Slum­ber­land” offered the first oppor­tu­ni­ty to make acquain­tance with what was to become the respectable and famous fam­i­ly of Guy vans. Not only was it the first Guy van to be issued, it was also the first reg­u­lar post-war van with adver­tis­ing. Many addi­tion­al dec­o­rat­ed vans like the oth­er Guys (5), the Big Bed­ford (1), the small­er Tro­jans (6), the Austins (3) and the Bed­fords (3) were to fol­low in the gold­en decade of the 1950s.

The proud Guy Van “Slumberland” in bright red, adorned with majestic golden lettering.

“NEW, ready during the month” in the December 1949 issue of Meccano Magazine.

It was a brand new and expen­sive Dinky Super­toy of the ear­ly post-war years! The “Slum­ber­land” van was adver­tised in Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine of the fes­tive presents month of Decem­ber 1949 for the first time: “Ready dur­ing the month” and with “Large capac­i­ty van body”. It was sub­se­quent­ly reviewed in next year’s Jan­u­ary issue along with the Coles Mobile Crane, a firm clas­sic with high play val­ue, and the odd three-wheeled Moto­cart.

Motocart, Coles Mobile Crane and “Slumberland” van, the new Dinky models that were reviewed simultaneously in the January 1950 issue of Meccano Magazine.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, the com­ment that accom­pa­nies this new love­ly van was mod­est com­pared to the often long-wind­ed elab­o­rate com­ments of new­ly intro­duced Dinky Toys.

Our third new prod­uct this month is the Guy Van, Dinky Super­toys no. 514. The basis of this is the now well-known Dinky Super­toys Guy chas­sis, on which a van body of large dimen­sions with rear open­ing doors, has been fit­ted. Each van will bear the name of some well-known British firm, and the result is a real­ly beau­ti­ful minia­ture road vehi­cle.

The January 1950 issue of Meccano Magazine, double review page.

These mere 60 to 70 words appear to have been includ­ed at the last minute, in the midst of vir­tu­al­ly end­less praise about the Moto­cart and espe­cial­ly the Coles Mobile Crane, which dom­i­nate the illus­trat­ed dou­ble text page. The neu­tral cap­tion “Guy Van”, that accom­pa­nies the “Slum­ber­land” illus­tra­tion in both the Decem­ber and Jan­u­ary issues, seems to allow for any liv­ery. As implied in the text, Mec­ca­no had def­i­nite plans to not lim­it the pro­duc­tion to a sin­gle van, but instead intend­ed pro­duce sev­er­al spon­sored liv­er­ies right from the start. One can assume that’s why the cat­a­log num­ber was­n’t cast or embossed on the mod­el itself, even though the first vans all shared the same ref­er­ence num­ber: 514. They were more pre­cise­ly defined by the addi­tion of the let­ters “S” (Slum­ber­land), “L” (Lyons) and “W” (Weet­abix) on their respec­tive box­es. The “Slum­ber­land” sim­ply hap­pened to be the first issue, and the spe­cif­ic pic­ture of that mod­el was accord­ing­ly select­ed for inclu­sion in the review by Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine.

The “COMPLETE” drawing (job 13010) of five Guy van liveries dating from 4 October 1948, with later additions (Christie’s South Kensington).

In inter­nal fac­to­ry doc­u­ments, the Guy van was also known as “Guy Cov­ered Van” or “Guy 4‑ton Truck Van”. Designed on the 1:48 scale cab/chassis com­bi­na­tion of one of the first Dinky Super­toys types of August 1947, it had an unprece­dent­ed size and com­plex­i­ty, com­pared to pre­vi­ous vans. The gen­er­al (i.e. com­plete) assem­bly draw­ing for all Guy vans was job num­ber 13010, dat­ed 4 Octo­ber 1948 and signed by “D.L.M.” On the draw­ing, the let­ters “A” to “E” were attrib­uted to the trans­fers of the var­i­ous sub­se­quent liv­er­ies: “A” for “Lyons” and “B” for “Slum­ber­land”. In Novem­ber 1954, the fol­low­ing jobs were added: “C” for “Weet­abix”, “D” for “Spratts” and “E” for “Exide Bat­ter­ies”. “F” for “Gold­en Shred” was still miss­ing, appar­ent­ly not yet envis­aged in this, the sur­viv­ing final stage of the draw­ing. With this let­ter sequence in mind, the “Lyons” vari­ant may have been meant to be issued first in the ini­tial pro­duc­tion. Regard­less, the “Slum­ber­land” and “Lyons” vans may be thought to have been close con­tem­po­raries, issued at vir­tu­al­ly the same time in late 1949 or ear­ly 1950.

The scarcer “Slumberland” van’s contemporary: Guy Van “Lyons”, ca. 1951–52 (former Rob van der Hoort Collection).

Cab and chassis drawing, jobs 12181 and 12179 (former Peter Golden Collection).

New large scale design draw­ings weren’t nec­es­sary for the cre­ation of the cab and chas­sis cast­ing of this van. This basic com­po­nent had already been drawn at an ear­li­er stage in May 1946, devel­oped for the three Guy truck ver­sions.

Body drawing, job 13011 (former Peter Golden Collection).

The body of course was new and its design was approved on 28th Jan­u­ary 1948. It had its own tin­plate floor. The two rear doors could be opened and closed and they could be unlocked by lift­ing them slight­ly using the door han­dles. Ear­ly Guy vans have straight door han­dles while lat­er ones have them angled down­wards at 50 degrees.

Guy van doors drawing, jobs 13012 and 13013, with detail showing the downward angled handles, as applied on 6th March 1952 (former Peter Golden Collection).

The adjustment to the actual door handles: 1950 “Slumberland” (straight), 1953 “Spratt’s” (angled downwards).

This change of 6th March 1952 is doc­u­ment­ed in the draw­ing of the doors, com­pris­ing job num­bers 13012 and 13013. This mod­i­fi­ca­tion, a bend­ing action to be per­formed after cast­ing, is one of the many inter­est­ing and sub­tle detail changes that weren’t record­ed by Mike & Sue Richard­son as a “sig­nif­i­cant change” in their Great Book of Dinky Toys. As a nov­el­ty, the mov­able doors were held in place by hinges of thin wire, thin­ner than reg­u­lar wheel axles, and crimped at the low­er ends only. This con­struc­tion was used repeat­ed­ly in the 1950s, for instance by the Big Bed­ford Van, the Mil­i­tary Ambu­lance, the Pal­let Jek­ta Van and oth­ers. The tow­ing hook, present on Guy trucks, was omit­ted.

The early square versus later triangle shaped details in the front license plate area.

Being the first one, the “Slum­ber­land” van’s com­po­nents had all the tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of the ear­ly trucks: the first ver­sion of the die (with the square low­er front line edges instead of the lat­er tri­an­gle shaped sup­ports next to the reg­is­tra­tion plate), the ear­ly rear axle clamps, and the ear­ly ridged “Dinky Toys” hubs.

Washer for chassis and spare wheel mounting in the “Slumberland” van’s body.

By com­par­ing the mount­ing of the spare wheel with an ear­ly ver­sion of the Guy Lor­ry No. 511, it will be noticed that no screw or nut were used to attach the spare wheel of the van; instead a small wash­er was used. This solu­tion was prob­a­bly cho­sen because the top of a bolt, inside the van body, would be inac­ces­si­ble for assem­bly with a con­ven­tion­al screw­driv­er.

The magnified details of the “Slumberland” van’s lettering showing their hand written origin.

I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly struck by those splen­did gold­en let­ters, espe­cial­ly in an undam­aged, shiny mod­el. Even through the eyes of a for­eign­er, the “Gold­en Slum­bers” leg­end is very attrac­tive, unique and char­ac­ter­is­tic for British typog­ra­phy on vehi­cles of this peri­od. A mag­ni­fy­ing glass or high res­o­lu­tion scan reveals sev­er­al minute details: the small­er black let­ters turn out to have been designed by draw­ing them man­u­al­ly. Although irreg­u­lar, they don’t appear to be so when observed with the naked eye. The over­all typog­ra­phy is taste­ful and crisp.

The model’s box, marked “S” for “Slumberland”.

Where­as the ‘Slum­ber­land’, ‘Lyons’ and ‘Weet­abix’ vans share the same cat­a­log num­ber, the mod­el shown on the box was – though small and in grey-scale – not gener­ic. It was def­i­nite­ly the ‘Slum­ber­land’ van. It is remark­able that the ‘Slum­ber­land’, like the ‘Lyons’, unfor­tu­nate­ly has nev­er been adver­tised in col­or, nei­ther on the box, nor in any cat­a­log or in oth­er adver­tis­ing mate­r­i­al. In con­trast to their con­tents, and com­pared with the lat­er bright blue striped lid box­es with col­or­ful pic­tures of the mod­els inside, the box­es of this ear­ly trio were uni­form and dull. They were all blue with two-tone black and orange labels past­ed over the lid. The matt blue of this peri­od is very sus­cep­ti­ble to fad­ing due to its high sen­si­tiv­i­ty to light.

At first glance, it seems the “Slum­ber­land” van did­n’t have any vari­a­tions in cast­ing or fin­ish. The only dif­fer­ence that’s men­tioned is in the the shine of the gold let­ter­ing. This may have been caused by vari­a­tions in the print­ing of trans­fers and also the effect of expo­sure to the ele­ments over time, there­by affect­ing the result­ing look. Despite the seem­ing­ly sta­ble gen­er­al lay­out out­lined above, there are some less­er known and sel­dom observed sub­tle dif­fer­ences in the appear­ance of the “Slum­ber­land” van to which I’d like to draw atten­tion. My 11th edi­tion of Ramsay’s British Diecast Mod­el Toys Cat­a­log and sev­er­al oth­er ref­er­ence works men­tion the exis­tence of a first type cab only which I con­cede. But they also men­tion a “ridged” (Dinky Toys) hubs only mod­el whose exis­tence I chal­lenge.

The scarcer later grooved hub version on the right (former Rob van der Hoort collection).

Although scarce, there are also “Slum­ber­land” vans with “grooved” Dinky Super­toys hubs in exis­tence. These may have been over­looked because they appear to not have been sold in the U.K. and many oth­er coun­tries to which Dinky Toys were com­mon­ly export­ed. This com­plies with the com­mon­ly men­tioned final year of 1951 for this liv­ery, because this change in hubs did­n’t occur before 1952. My 1951 Dutch cat­a­log shows the “Slum­ber­land”, fol­lowed by the “Weet­abix” pic­ture and cap­tion in 1952. The same goes for the British cat­a­log of 1952, which nei­ther shows nor men­tions the “Slum­ber­land”. How­ev­er, the “Weet­abix” is pre­sent­ed there. 1952 is often referred as the final year of the “Slum­ber­land”.  The first men­tioned year is jus­ti­fied more or less by the famil­iar cat­a­logs. But almost all of the very few “Slum­ber­land” exam­ples with grooved hubs that have came up for auc­tion in past decades had a Hud­son-Dob­son stick­er on their box­es, reveal­ing their U.S. prove­nance. An exam­ple from a Vec­tis “Sim­ply Dinky” auc­tion cat­a­log of 5th Novem­ber 1997 was qual­i­fied by the auc­tion house as “with super toy wheels, this is an extreme­ly scarce item issued for the US mar­ket only”.

Still available in the USA: page from the 1952 Hudson-Dobson catalog featuring the “Slumberland” van.

This is con­firmed by the 1952 Hud­son-Dob­son U.S. cat­a­log that indeed includes the “Slum­ber­land”, albeit with an obso­lete pic­ture show­ing ridged hubs! As stat­ed ear­li­er, the grooved Super­toys hubs had been intro­duced dur­ing 1952.

The scarcer grooved hub version of the 1952 mode on its box showing the downward angled door handles and the Hudson-Dobson sticker, along with the more common early issue model in the foreground with the straight handles (former Rob van der Hoort Collection).

Although not record­ed in sim­i­lar auc­tion cat­a­log descrip­tions, the one of a kind shown here is pro­vid­ed with the new down­ward angled door han­dles. So I pre­sume that all instances of the final “grooved hubs” batch of mod­els also sport the lat­er angled door han­dles. This makes sense and the puz­zle starts to fit.

Why were they avail­able in the USA only, and not on the “old­er side” of the Atlantic, or in British Com­mon­wealth coun­tries? With­out access to oth­er doc­u­men­ta­tion, I can only make an edu­cat­ed guess. While the final batch with grooved hubs was in pro­duc­tion, prob­a­bly in the first half of 1952, the “Slum­ber­land” van’s adver­tis­ing text was sud­den­ly out­dat­ed. It like­ly read “...bed­ding man­u­fac­tur­ers to H.M. the KING”. But mean­while King George VI had died in Feb­ru­ary 1952 and there was now a female monarch! This batch could not have been large in num­ber, because the “Lyons” and “Weet­abix” mod­els were also avail­able ear­ly that year. But what to do with this late, out­dat­ed “Slum­ber­land” pro­duc­tion run? Although this text may not have been of over­whelm­ing impor­tance, at least not in the eyes of young chil­dren, King George’s death may have led to some embar­rass­ment and con­tributed to the ear­li­er dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the “Slum­ber­land” van in the U.K. and in coun­tries oth­er than the Unit­ed States.

In the Unit­ed States, obso­lete Dinky Toys like the present “Slum­ber­land” van with its out­dat­ed text, grooved hubs and down­ward angled rear door han­dles, found a hos­pitable mar­ket with­out seri­ous com­pe­ti­tion. For Mec­ca­no, the mar­ket­ing of the new “Weet­abix” van appar­ent­ly took pri­or­i­ty in 1952, as this new­com­er appears in the May and Sep­tem­ber 1952 U.K. cat­a­logs, with no men­tion of the pre­vi­ous ‘Slum­ber­land’ and under adver­tised ‘Lyons’ mod­els.

The very rare black hub version, this example (lot 2184) sold at the Vectis “Simply Dinky 15” auction of May 2009, shown along with a pair of contemporary first issue 1948–1949 Bedford Articulated Lorry models with the same black hubs. (Image: Vectis Auctions)

In 2009 anoth­er unknown ver­sion of the Guy “Slum­ber­land” came to light. The 15th Vec­tis Sim­ply Dinky auc­tion of May 2009 fea­tured a “Slum­ber­land” van with black paint­ed ridged hubs, a most sur­pris­ing item in a stun­ning anony­mous “sin­gle own­er col­lec­tion”. Con­trary to the late ver­sion with the grooved hubs, this exam­ple must have belonged to the very ear­li­est batch of  “Slum­ber­land” vans to leave the Binns Road fac­to­ry in the lat­ter months of 1949.

Appar­ent­ly some of the very first Guy vans have sur­pris­ing­ly been fit­ted with the char­ac­ter­is­tic satin fin­ished black hubs of the 1940s. Com­pare, for exam­ple, relat­ed ear­ly Dinky Super­toys of the peri­od, like the Guy trucks and also the Bed­ford Artic­u­lat­ed Lor­ry with their black hubs. Indeed this hub col­or change took place at the end of 1949, dur­ing the birth of the “Slum­ber­land” van. I’ve nev­er seen a ref­er­ence to this vari­ant before. But that’s just me; it may be more con­vinc­ing that Vec­tis stat­ed in their cat­a­log, “...Extreme­ly rare with black ridged hubs, one that Vec­tis Auc­tions has nev­er seen before.’ Isn’t it amaz­ing that even after so many years, nev­er before seen vari­ants of oth­er­wise well known Dinkys still turn up?

The only mys­tery I haven’t yet dis­cussed is the obvi­ous two or even mul­ti-tone (albeit grey scale) rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the “Slum­ber­land” van, both in Mec­ca­no mag­a­zines and on the box as shown above. The front wings seem to be dark or even black, the cab and chas­sis are of a medi­um shade, and the body of the van is appar­ent­ly fin­ished in a brighter col­or. I can hard­ly imag­ine that such a col­or­ful ear­ly bird would show up by sur­prise. It’s more like­ly that only a pro­vi­sion­al mock up was avail­able to the pic­ture artist, a van box with “Slum­ber­land” design mount­ed on an eas­i­ly avail­able Guy truck cab/chassis unit, in its ear­ly fin­ish with mud­guards in con­trast­ing col­or, and dark­er or pos­si­bly even black hubs.

The Corgi Toys Thames van “Slumberland’.

We con­clude our “Slum­ber­land” sto­ry by touch­ing for a moment on some mod­ern ver­sions, inspired by or direct­ly based on the Dinky Super­toy. First, the mod­ern Cor­gi Toys ver­sion of the “Slum­ber­land” van that was intro­duced in 1996. On clos­er look, it seems Cor­gi retained the roy­al coat of arms but left out the “man­u­fac­tur­ers to H.M. the KING” (or “Queen”?) text. A safe and time­less solu­tion! Although well done, it’s hard for me to not think that Corgi’s main intent was to sat­is­fy a nos­tal­gic sen­ti­ment for the Dinky Toy by almost copy­ing the Dinky mod­el in every respect. The only obvi­ous dif­fer­ence was the choice of a new­er 1960s Thames Trad­er cab truck.

The Promod Commer van “Slumberland’.

This also applies to the Pro­mod mod­el, this time using a Com­mer C‑series cab. The old “Slum­ber­land” in mod­ern dis­guise. A ded­i­cat­ed Dinky col­lec­tor will how­ev­er see through this and would like­ly pre­fer the hon­est vin­tage char­ac­ter and sol­id qual­i­ty of the one and only real Dinky Guy van “Slum­ber­land”!

The modern DAN-Toys replica.

There’s also the mod­ern repli­ca of the Dinky, the DAN-Toys issue. This is a very nice replace­ment for those who inter­est­ed in own­ing an afford­able ver­sion of the orig­i­nal, but not in a hard­er to find and more expen­sive per­fect orig­i­nal Dinky. For them, there’s no objec­tion to the small dif­fer­ences that would annoy a purist Dinky Toys col­lec­tor: the unjus­ti­fied tri­an­gu­lar sup­ports next to the license plate, the slight­ly over­sized high gloss axle ends, and the over­ly per­fect­ly pro­duced let­ter­ing. But that’s a prob­lem for the nit­pick­er.

Author’s Note

This arti­cle was first pub­lished in the Christ­mas 2009 issue (vol­ume 7, num­ber 5) of The Jour­nal of the DTCA. It has since been extend­ed and brought up-to-date for pub­li­ca­tion at DinkyFans.com, with the inclu­sion of sev­er­al new and high­er qual­i­ty images.