Andrew
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Sorry I've been a bit quietHello again, sorry to have been a bit quiet recently.
Just thought I'd re-introduce myself to those who have forgotten while I've been away and those who've joined recently.
I'm Andrew from Abingdon, my core interest has always been Corgis, but have recently been aquiring a huge number of small scale models, Matchbox, Hot Wheels, Juniors etc. The collection is now sitting at well over 2000 units across 48 brands.
My current project is making an Access database of my cars to allow searching by toy maker, car make/model, year of toy production, model year and variant of car, features like wheel style, place of manufacture, base style etc. Once complete I intend to add this to my website - which is not receiving any updates while the project is ongoing.
Currently there are 1,928 models logged in tha database, each having 12 photographs from the same 12 angles, if you count both thumbnails and full size pictures that is over 46,000 pictures I've processed so far. I cannot seem to stop buying huge mixed lots off ebay and have about 4-500 models waiting to be processed.
This project, though time consuming, is proving to be huge fun. Buying the cars in the way I do I can pick them up for pennies, so the cost is not great, by selling one boxed Corgi RAF Land Rover I paid for hundreds of Matchboxes & Hot Wheels. I'm also learning a huge amount about cars as each make/model has a short history section which I research from my 1955 to 1986 Observers books of Automobiles and Wikipedia.
So now you know why I've been quiet!
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sandie seward
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Andrew, that sounds like one huge "Labour of Love" to me. Jolly good luck with it all. You have far more patience than I have! 
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keesie25
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Re: Sorry I've been a bit quietAndrew, we know you.....no need to re-introduce, because you are the guy with the Jaguar and the stone wall.........
About the database you are talking about, I am using the one you have now and then, and it is nice to get information from. This is Corgi only of course.
The RAF Landrover you sold must have been very mint, in order to get all these other models!
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Andrew
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Re: Sorry I've been a bit quiet | keesie25 wrote: | Andrew, we know you.....no need to re-introduce, because you are the guy with the Jaguar and the stone wall.........
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Don't remind me - I still have not had the damage fixed, although my lovely Jag is looking a bit second hand these days - i've taken the milage from 25k to 65k in just over a year!
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keesie25
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Sorry for that, slight joke. Still, I am eager to know what you will come up with, the database concerned!
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Andrew
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| keesie25 wrote: | | Sorry for that, slight joke. Still, I am eager to know what you will come up with, the database concerned! |
I've been spending a lot of time getting the data in as it can take 10 minutes or more per car - that's over 300 hours so far not including photography.
However now I've got some critical mass in there I'm starting to write the querying tools. So far you can select a make, say Ford US, and a model, say Mustang, and you get a screen of thumnails of all the Mustangs in date order, 24 thumbnails per screen. You can then select up to four of them and get a screen which cycles you through all 12 pics of all four models on screen at once, so you can compare details, view by view - really useful when comparing baseplate details.
I've also got a 'by model' view where you choose an item from the collection and get twelve thumbnails clickable to full size and three tabbed pages one giving details about the toy, one about the real car and one about the specific example.
I'm going to write searches by toy maker and range, phase (e.g. Regular Wheels Matchbox, and all the sub-ranges in Hot Wheels) and also by year of make of toy and car, and anything else that takes my fancy and is stored in the database.
Once the database is populated with the whole collection and the Access application written (another six months at least) I will re-write it as a website, which means I will have to learn another programming language first as I've done all my web work to date in Front Page and I don't think it will support what I want.
So just a trivial task then.
A
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MISTER C
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 What have you done with Duncan he's still AWOL   .....still nice to see you back Andrew 
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Andrew
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| MISTER C wrote: | | What have you done with Duncan he's still AWOL .....still nice to see you back Andrew |
I've not seen the lad in months - I'll give him a shout next time I'm off to a toy fair
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Gaz
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Andrew, Andrew..... Ohh yes, I remember you now.
Welcome back Andrew, please don't leave us again. 
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Andrew
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| Gaz wrote: | Andrew, Andrew..... Ohh yes, I remember you now.
Welcome back Andrew, please don't leave us again. |
I'll do my best!
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ALI-G
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Welcome back Andrew
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Andrew
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| ALI-G wrote: | | Welcome back Andrew |
Thanks Ali - lets do another fair soon
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ALI-G
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Sounds like a good idea to me 
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Mark G
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Good to see you back Andrew, was wondering where you had been!
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Andrew
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| Mark G wrote: | | Good to see you back Andrew, was wondering where you had been! |
Feels like I've never been away
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keesie25
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Don't exaggerate....
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