The Little World

The heading image was taken at a meeting of our model collector’s club and represents an entry into the monthly contest – in this case on the topic of the letter ” O “. Orange motor cars, as you can see – these are various models of the Dodge used in ” The Dukes Of Hazzard “.

While the toy cars are pretty innocent, the Confederate flag on the roof and the name of the car – ” General Lee ” – is an orange rag to the bulls of the Currently Politically Outraged. We’ve seen 1:18th scale models of this car marketed locally with a peel-off orange sticker over the top of the roof to hide the flag – presumably until the owner gets home and places it on a secret shelf. This sort of nonsense seems to be important in parts of the USA but I hasten to point out that we are not a part of the USA…and the whole thing seems terminally silly.

This collector was perfectly happy to have authenticity in these toys and so were all the spectators. Not one protest or demand to pull down a statue…

All the same, the fact that there were so many of the little cars is evidence that the collector knows how to avoid trouble at home. He can collect them to his heart’s content now that he has a working batch…because one orange Dodge looks like another orange Dodge and 10 of them look like seven of them to the casual eye. The things can multiply safely in the cabinet without drawing attention from the Accountancy Department.

I know this as I used to collect 1: 1200 scale ships. One grey cruiser looks very much like another and eventually you can have a whole fleet appear, one by one. It sort of gives the game away when the combined weight of the metal castings becomes greater than the shelves can hold and they crash to the floor in the night, but…