The Great Database of Corgi! ToyPedia documents every Corgi model ever made Having all but polished off its Dinky guide with the help of some 25 volunteers, ToyPedia® – Toy Collector’s wiki-based online database of collectable toys and models – has set its sights on Corgi. Th
News-Antique.com - Dec 08,2011 - ToyPedia, which has been described as “Wikipedia for toy collectors and modellers,” ultimately aims to contain listings, descriptions and images for every toy ever made, and one of the first brands on its list was the ever-popular Dinky Toys. Now, with the listings of Dinkies (including the British, French, Spanish, South African, Chilean Dinkies and the brand new Dinky collectible series!) complete, it’s Corgi’s turn.
The Dinky listings – in excess of 20,000 individual items – were compiled with the help of information provided by Dinky expert Jacques Dujardin, plus Toy Collector members scattered all across the world, including members from as far afield as Canada, New Zealand, the UK and mainland Europe, plus images provided by Christie’s and 14 other auction houses. Similarly, the Corgi listings will be compiled by volunteers and member-experts. They will, however, have the added advantage of Corgi still being in existence and providing access to its archives – a huge help in cataloguing the company’s prolific output since the demise of Mettoy, the original parent company. The downside is, of course, that since Corgi’s still going strong, there are far, far more items to catalogue than Dinky had, and listing them is also more complex. Corgi’s Martyn Weaver estimates the company’s output since it began in the hundreds of thousands of individual models. “It’s a huge amount to catalogue,” he said, “but a great project. Corgi is part of our cultural history and to have its entire output since inception catalogued in one place like this is a unique archiving opportunity that we seized once we were asked about it. Producing a book that covered absolutely every variant of every Corgi toy ever made would be impossible as it would weigh more than a ton, so this is an ingenious alternative. We’ll be helping in any way we can.”
The process is already underway, with about 75% of the early Mettoy era models catalogued and work ongoing on the later models, with several of these ranges also already listed. But even with such a mammoth task at hand, the volunteers luckily don’t need to worry if they do miss a model, since the ToyPedia interface allows information to be updated and altered on an ongoing basis, so if one of the 100,000 does get skipped by accident, it’s no disaster.
Besides Corgi themselves, the project also has backing from Marcel Van Cleemput, author of The Great Book of Corgi and ex-Chief Designer from 1954 to 1983 for the range during the Mettoy period and afterwards, ex-Corgi Development Director Paul Lumsdon from 1998 to 2011 and Wolfgang Gehrt who is a member of the ToyPedia Advisory Board and is currently co-writing a book on Husky models and Corgi Juniors. “This is a very exciting – if somewhat daunting – thing to embark on,” Lumsdon said. “But having seen what’s been achieved with Dinky, I’m sure all concerned will be more than up to the task!” Adam Dhabi, the Corgi project coordinator adds “We are assembling
