Category:Shackleton Toys

1958: Abbey Corinthian Foden lorry advert, Meccano Magazine [image info]

1958: Abbey Corinthian Foden lorry advert, Meccano Magazine [image info]

Shackleton Toys were best-known for their small range of largeish models of Foden lorries, which were advertised during the 1950s in Meccano Magazine by the Abbey Corinthian Games Company. The "Shackleton Fodens" had the distinction of being disassemblable, "just like the real thing", a feature that made them more educational, more desirable ... and larger and much more expensive than most of the competition.

Shackleton and Abbey Corinthian

First-hand information on the Shackleton business is difficult to come by. According to online sources, the company started production of wooden-cabbed Foden models in the late 1930s, started producing their next generation of diecast metal Foden models in around 1948, and shut down in the early 1950s. This raises the question of how Abbey Corinthian were able to promote and sell the models in the middle and late 1950s – did Abbey simply buy up all the stock and parts, or did they also buy the machine tools and restart manufacture themselves?

The Shackleton Fodens that we've seen have heavy promotion for the Shackleton name on the box "ANOTHER SHACKLETON TOY", but have Abbey-Corinthian printed manuals that present the models as Abbey Corinthian products with "(Shackleton)" in brackets after the product name.

External links

• Shackleton Fodens (planetdiecast.com)
• Shackleton Toys (rodgersantiques.co.uk)