Colin Penn

Our research seems to suggest that Colin Penn was the third person to manufacture white metal spare parts, the first two on the scene being Mikansue and Pirate Models.

Another spare parts manufacturer was DG Models, run by Dave Gilbert.

The late Dave Jones used to make spares for early Dinky Toys, Britain's and Charbens as well as his Dinky style cars. Colin originally obtained the spares he needed for himself from all 3 of these, but then started making them himself because he needed parts that no one else made.

It all started for Colin at his local model railway club. One of the members was an Enfield Council dustcart driver. He brought to the British Railways Staff Association club a pre war Johillco Golden Arrow record car which had only 1 wheel and presented it to me. At the time there were very few swapmeets and Colin had never seen one for sale before. He decided to try to restore the model and at first used 4 spare Dinky wheels with rubber tyres. However he wanted it to be more authentic and he recalled reading an article in an old Railway Modeller magazine about reproducing wagon sides by making up the sides and ends in plastic and then making rubber moulds and casting them in white metal. He had one original wheel and thought this could be used, as a master, to create a mould and through this process make another 3 wheels. Colin found a supplier for the rubber and made himself a two part mould which worked well. The Golden Arrow is still in his collection.

Following this experiment, he had a quantity of left over rubber and decided to see what he could create with it.

Returning again to his model railway interests, through his local model railway club, another member offered Colin a carrier bag of Scalextric cars and bits for £5.00. He recalled his younger days playing with his brothers, and as a result, he started collecting the cars. Many of the early cars such as the Mercedes, Austin Healey and Aston Martin had separate bumpers which were often missing or broken, so Colin started making white metal ones which eventually became chrome plated. This was before Barry Smith came on the scene with his lighter resin ones, produced under the name BTS Mouldings.

In fact it was Colin that introduced Barry to the spare parts circuit, as he was working for a company making resin car body shells, and Colin asked him if he could produce windscreens in clear resin. His business was built up from there. Colin was also making Scalextric drivers’ heads, and concentrated on the more obscure parts, rather than the Dinky spares as produced by Mikansue, Pirate and DG Models.

Martin Jewell and Steve Flowers came on the scene much later. Another dealer, from Bognor Regis, who used to have a stall at the Woolwich toy fair in the foyer, was Bob Walker, and he specialised in selling spare parts.

Steve Flowers began by acquiring Colin’s parts, and supplying them more cheaply. Colin had created a replacement plastic card carrier for the Dinky searchlight wagon, complete with a bolt cast into the base so that it could be fixed to the base with a nut. He used to supply them to Martin Jewell until he learnt that Martin was getting them cheaper from Steve Flowers.

When Colin checked what Martin was selling, it was his own casting, but recast in all white metal including a cast bolt. It was slightly smaller due to wastage and as a result had less detail definition. Colin is proud of the comments from the public that his castings were better quality, but acknowledges that Steve's are much better now.

Colin continued to make and supply spares until the 1990s including the resin parts by Barry and the tin parts by Steve.

Subject ID: 81375