The Dinky Toys Avro Vulcan Delta Wing Bomber No. 749/992. Scale 1/197. 1955.
This large toy, modeled after the first Vulcan prototype that had the straight leading edge of the wing, created a lot of issues for the Binns Road, Liverpool factory. Initially numbered 703, later 707, then 749 when, owing to its massive size, it was decided to use aluminium in place of the normal zinc aluminium alloy. Later, still another number, 992, was assigned and appeared on the shop drawings along with the use of ‘SUPERTOYS’ in place of ‘DINKY TOYS’, but as it turned out both were only used on the packaging, not the casting itself for some reason.
The Vulcan photo above shows the underside of Evan Spelfogel's original Vulcan.
While some reports have described various wing tip differences supposedly due to aluminum manufacturing and tooling problems, every confirmed original Vulcan casting I have seen (with one exception, see it below) has the same outline as the original 1953 shop drawings. Some others have been found having various angled cut-off wing tips but this was more likely due to attempts to fix play damage than casting variations during production.
This photo above shows the squared wing tips as shown on the Meccano shop drawings
Reportedly during production, the wing tip areas in the tooling were blocked up and the castings became unusable. Some attempts at hand refinishing by rounding the tips was tried but this effort failed, and all further production ceased.
Above is Max Hundley's Vulcan reportedly found and refurbished from the Meccano scrapbox at the factory for display at the London Toy Museum's Dinky Toys display. This example shows the rounded wing tips, probably done at the factory in an attempt to correct casting faults that eventually compromised on-going full production. All acceptable toys, probably less than 500, were shipped into Canada for sale to avoid commercial problems in other regions.
Dave Shelton, a Canadian collector has had many variants of the original Vulcan and discovered, quite inexplicably, that they vary in weight considerably noting that the heaviest casting was 159 grams and the lightest 139 grams.
The Vulcan toy was never mentioned in Meccano Magazine, and only appeared in the 1956 Canadian catalog. The entire episode was quickly forgotten, or so it was thought at the time. But then, slowly some of the original Canadian Vulcans started to turn up for sale with toy dealers and auction houses in Great Britain and caused a lot of excitement and collector frenzy. Over time these examples have found places in collections and while still considered extremely rare, they are occasionally seen for sale. Cast underneath the toy is ‘AVRO VULCAN - DELTA WING BOMBER - DINKY TOYS - MADE IN ENGLAND - MECCANO LTD - 749’. The original box had the number 992, not 749, and there are two versions of the box, one with a white Vulcan and another with a grey/silver one but the Vulcan toy itself was always silver. Caution should be exercised when buying a Vulcan as this toy had been reproduced in white metal.
