Britains Mini-Sets

I can't find a thread on these (please move if there is one!), so thought I'd start one, but I've only got the one photograph, so will leave it to others to top-up the story!



Bit of a disaster for Britains - these, but the animal sets have some of the nicest animals they made!

I remember having these as a kid.I had all the wildlife sets and the one with the octopus.They were great sets and also inexpensive at the time.Shame they only made them for a short time.Great to see the photos of all the sets-they wouls be great collectors sets now!  

I only have one of them, which I took out of the box for this photo, but have never fully assembled - I'd rather keep it in original 'mint & boxed' type condition.

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Damn! I was hoping you'd have the rest Dave...Animals at that!

Taos wrote:

I remember having these as a kid.I had all the wildlife sets and the one with the octopus.They were great sets and also inexpensive at the time.Shame they only made them for a short time.Great to see the photos of all the sets-they wouls be great collectors sets now!  

They go for a lot of money now, especially the late sets (not illustrated), but any in a box, complete, there was so much to lose or damage for such small sets!

smallscaleworld wrote:

Taos wrote:

I remember having these as a kid.I had all the wildlife sets and the one with the octopus.They were great sets and also inexpensive at the time.Shame they only made them for a short time.Great to see the photos of all the sets-they wouls be great collectors sets now!  

They go for a lot of money now, especially the late sets (not illustrated), but any in a box, complete, there was so much to lose or damage for such small sets!

The high prices is why I haven't bought any (apart from the one I got cheap) in recent years, and I didn't buy them back then - I was a young teen at the time and going through a too embarrassed to buy toy soldiers phase, especially as the mini-sets didn't fit in with anything else.

This was in the 'lose recent acquisitions' box

Here are all mu minisets which have animals (i have all the produced minisets, but will show only the ones which have animals in them):










This is the box which would be in a shop: it would hold a certain number of Minisets and the customer could take 1 out and then pay for it:

In the beginning each Miniset would have its own designed box, which could be cut open and used as a background during playing. Later Britains (i think to reduce the costs) would use 1 blue box for all the Minisets They pruduced and would put a sticker on which showed which Miniset was insied. Here is an photo of such a box:



Only a few types of Minisets where produced in there blue boxes, because most Minisets are only produced for a short numer of years. The whole Miniset-programm was far from succesfull (commercially spoken)........ I saw some drawings from the Britains-designers which showed beautifull Minisets (1 with a polarbear for example), but they never were produced because off the bad selling of the Minisets. To bad, because i just LOVE these Minisets.......

Lovely...I knew someone would have them!

When we were kids Mum bought us both the diver sets on the same day (to shut us up probably!) which must have been toward the end, as the second one is very uncommon now...sadly they went the way of all flesh!

Thankyou for starting this great topic, SSW
I never heard about them before, and they are ever so lovely, those sets   

Mreyder, your collection is enormously impressive, WOW  

I don't have anything relevant to add to this excelent thread but a lot to learn.
You're doing an excelent work on STS vintage section! Thanks to all!

Great to see all those sets again!Lots of memories there!!   

They are beautieful and interesting!! Big congrats!! I especially like the ubnderwater sets!!

This is one of the topics I enjoy to return to
They are both interesting, charming, beautyful and have this old-fashioned "IT" !!
Even with that great vending-"mashine"   

Question, - do the animals have a hole in the underside for the supporting stick ?

SUSANNE wrote:

Question, - do the animals have a hole in the underside for the supporting stick ?

Yes, they do, everything is plug-in, which allowed for the re-use of things like the fences and bushes in more than one set and the knights and American Indians had little sticker-sheets like the one illustrated above.

Hugh

Hugh, I deleted your post as you requested. Though, you can delete your own posts. just click the cross after the edit button and confirm it.

Roger wrote:

Hugh, I deleted your post as you requested. Though, you can delete your own posts. just click the cross after the edit button and confirm it.

Thanks Roger!

I only have this set sadly enough..., probably the most common still around, but mint i must say.


I saw those sets in the 1970's, and i have to admitt that they didn't interested me much either, as the animals had different sizes then the other zoo-range.
Strangely enough i started collecting Britains when i was living in Germany between my 8th and 13th birthday, so i was lucky to know all about Hausser Elastolin also, which were even better in painting and mostly in modelling also then Britains.
But i combined them when i was building zoo's on the attick all of the time.
The name of of the shop(Wischusen, Zeven, Germany) i still have in my mind like yesterday, having not only Hausser Elastolin and Britains, but the early Schleich rubbery animals also, which i bought also, as they had many small species in their mini-series, like a hedgehog, porcupine, beaver and so on.
All of those stayed in my collection untill now...

Nice Willy:)

Mann bedankt sich!

We bought some of the animal sets and used them together with the 1:32 scale animals. The Horses as ponies, the crocodiles as young ones (they actually came back as such later) and the octopus as the size it was.

I think its a bit stupid of Britains to make a range in a different scale, and in size no other manufacturer did either. It's a little bit as when they started the more toylike,. playmobil lookalike animals later on...

Fords drawings of the Greater Kudu, Blackbuck, Cape Buffalo, Wapiti, Jaguar, Lemur, cheetas and Racoon as shown in Barney Brown's collectors guide are so much more interesting.

He also drawed a bongo, Reed bucks, Impalas, gazelles, Wildebeest, two fighting Sable antelopes as well as others...

I would have loved them...

/Lennart

Lennart wrote:

We bought some of the animal sets and used them together with the 1:32 scale animals. The Horses as ponies, the crocodiles as young ones (they actually came back as such later) and the octopus as the size it was.

I think its a bit stupid of Britains to make a range in a different scale, and in size no other manufacturer did either. It's a little bit as when they started the more toylike,. playmobil lookalike animals later on...

Fords drawings of the Greater Kudu, Blackbuck, Cape Buffalo, Wapiti, Jaguar, Lemur, cheetas and Racoon as shown in Barney Brown's collectors guide are so much more interesting.

He also drawed a bongo, Reed bucks, Impalas, gazelles, Wildebeest, two fighting Sable antelopes as well as others...

I would have loved them...

/Lennart

I never bought any when the MiniSets were first available - seemed they weren’t sold for very long in Britain! Also MiniSets  were and still hard to find on the Toy Fair / Swapmeet circuit from when I first went to them in the mid 1980’s to the present.

Britains MiniSets were to a similar scale to toy vehicles made by Corgi Toys / Dinky / Spot-On etc... So MiniSet farm animals and related figures were useful for these ranges. Even the MiniSet zoo animals and figures could be used but here they would have been better animated as wild life and one could have fun on miniature safari’s across the carpet!

The US Infantry were good to go with Dinky Toys expanding military vehicle line. Unfortunately they were withdrawn to early and would have worked better in the early to late 1970’s. However, Britains needed to add British Army figures as DT’s issues were mainly British Army related.

What I could never understand is that Britains never issued MiniSets relating directly to toy vehicles e.g. petrol pumps, garage figures etc… These would have been popular as Dinky Toys / Corgi Toys / Spot-On garage figures were withdrawn at the time MiniSets were released.

Britains MiniSets were an interesting concept and precede the theme related mini-sets that Lego and Playmobile have continuely issued over the past years.

Going back to Britains 1:32nd scale animal figures I agree with Lennart that those drawn by George Ford featured in Barney’s book would have been a great success. Seems George Ford predicted the animated wild pose of toy animal figures but Britains preferred the static zoo look. A real shame here but perhaps Britains current owners, Tomy, may surprise us all and issue them!

mreyder wrote:

This is the box which would be in a shop: it would hold a certain number of Minisets and the customer could take 1 out and then pay for it:

mreyder wrote:

In the beginning each Miniset would have its own designed box, which could be cut open and used as a background during playing. Later Britains (i think to reduce the costs) would use 1 blue box for all the Minisets They pruduced and would put a sticker on which showed which Miniset was insied. Here is an photo of such a box:



Only a few types of Minisets where produced in there blue boxes, because most Minisets are only produced for a short numer of years. The whole Miniset-programm was far from succesfull (commercially spoken)........   I saw some drawings from the Britains-designers which showed beautifull Minisets (1 with a polarbear for example), but they never were produced because off the bad selling of the Minisets. To bad, because i just LOVE these Minisets.......

Hi mreyder

The set in the lower image is one that was assembled by Britains so that retailers could put this into the top of the retailer counter display box you have in the top image. As far as I know the blue box ready assembled models were not available to the public so they are harder to find than the normal MiniSet boxes.

Congratulations on having both the blue box and counter display box in your collection.