Any Books for Aspiring Danbury & Franklin Mint Collectors Out There?

[Opposite Lock]

Hi all,

The title says it all.  I come from a modest "pressed steel" antique toy truck background (my best piece being a "survivor" 1925 Kelmet White "Big Boy" dump truck (picture to follow, at a later date), and now I've been bitten by the diecast bug.

While I thought I wanted to concentrate on only higher end 1:18's like AA and CMC, I'm pretty taken with the detail and model variety of the Danbury and Franklin Mint offerings.  (And yes, I realize I'm 20 years to late to the "Golden Years" of affordable, high quality diecast by the likes of AA, etc....)

And I have three questions:
1. So I wanted people's thoughts on whether one can find happiness splitting their collecting between the 1:18 and 1:24 scales?

2. But more importantly, I cannot find a single book, like a "Collector's Guide to Danbury and Franklin Mint" diecast model cars and trucks.  Can anyone recommend one?

3. Failing that, I wondered if anyone had a large amount of DM and FM brochures they'd like to sell?

Thanks again, and I really like that this board embraces the DM and FM products, to the extend that I've seen, so far!  And the "vibe" (as the kids say" seems very laid back and welcoming here, which is nice.

Thanks in advance.  

 

[mr moto]

Try posting something in the "Diecast Corner" section. That might get some more response.

[BDSchindler]

On 8/23/2025 at 2:56 PM, Opposite Lock said:

Hi all,

The title says it all.  I come from a modest "pressed steel" antique toy truck background (my best piece being a "survivor" 1925 Kelmet White "Big Boy" dump truck (picture to follow, at a later date), and now I've been bitten by the diecast bug.

While I thought I wanted to concentrate on only higher end 1:18's like AA and CMC, I'm pretty taken with the detail and model variety of the Danbury and Franklin Mint offerings.  (And yes, I realize I'm 20 years to late to the "Golden Years" of affordable, high quality diecast by the likes of AA, etc....)

And I have three questions:
1. So I wanted people's thoughts on whether one can find happiness splitting their collecting between the 1:18 and 1:24 scales?

2. But more importantly, I cannot find a single book, like a "Collector's Guide to Danbury and Franklin Mint" diecast model cars and trucks.  Can anyone recommend one?

3. Failing that, I wondered if anyone had a large amount of DM and FM brochures they'd like to sell?

Thanks again, and I really like that this board embraces the DM and FM products, to the extend that I've seen, so far!  And the "vibe" (as the kids say" seems very laid back and welcoming here, which is nice.

Thanks in advance.  

 

I was a 1/18th scale collector for a number of years but after running out of room (at an alarming rate) I ended up selling them all and turned my sights on 1/24th scale.  I became very good friends with known master modelers that were also the head designers for Franklin Mint (George Bojaciuk) and Danbury Mint (Rick Hanmore/Doug Whyte). I was much happier as a 1/24th scale collector over 1/18th but that's just my opinion.  Diecast also suffer from impurities in the Zamak (pot metal that diecast are molded in) that causes paint to eventually peel off the bodies down the road.

I wrote for Toy Cars and Models Magazine (aka TC&M) as well as the mis-managed The Car Room Magazine (TCRM) for several years focusing on 1/24th scale diecast and had amassed a collection of some 3,000+ models between those 2 manufactures as well as a host of others like GMP, Lanes, RSC, 1320, Icons Inc, Revell-Monogram (Yes, they did several different lines of diecast in 1/20th and 1/24th scales) Maisto, Burago and more.

More to your point, there is no "Collector's Guide" to FM or DM products.  If you were to collect FM diecast, I'd advise going more for the older models.  Somewhere around the late 1990's/early 2000, FM lost their sight after George Bojaciuk left FM and the attention to detail went into the toilet.  The older FM models hold their value while newer ones (the last I referenced) were worth less then 1/2 their retail price.

DM, on the other hand not only stayed tight with the detail (which was phenomenal for massed produced diecast) their collector value stays way higher than what their retail price originally was.

I have no more Brochures as I gave them all to a local collector and have sold a majority of my collection off.  Now, I much prefer building over just buying and putting a diecast model on display.