New This Month on TC LookSmart's Forgotten Ferraris, Another Audi Anniversary, ToyPedia News, New Prize Draw, Milestones and Hobby Talk!
LookSmart's Forgotten Ferraris - and another Audi Anniversary!
As we announced last month, we've teamed up with LookSmart again, this time to take a look at some of Ferrari's more obscure cars. The first two of these, the Ferrari 365 Beach Car and Pininfarina Mythos, are already up on the site and there's plenty more to come.
Shortly, we'll also be starting another new tie up, this time with Audi again (you may remember we joined up with them for a promotional blog and auction to mark their centenary a little while back). This time, we'll be marking 30 years of quattro. And yes, it has been around that long - amazing, isn't it?!
ToyPedia Upgrades, News & Thanks
This past month, we've carried out three tweaks to make ToyPedia more user-friendly.
First of all, now when you hit the ToyPedia homepage, you won't see the choice of "Makers" or "Interests", just the open list of "Makers". We need to do some more work on the "Interests" list to make it work properly, so we figured why not make things easier and just have the ability to browse by Maker right now. You can still also use the search function to find what you're looking for.
Secondly, we know how annoying it was when, for example, you were on the fourth page of the "Makers" list, clicked on one of the brand names, then clicked back on "Makers" and it would take you back to the first page of the list. Now it'll take you right back to where you were before, so no annoying extraneous clicks to get back to there!
Thirdly, if you're in ToyPedia and click out onto, say, the forums, when you click back on ToyPedia, the browser will have reset itself - previously you'd get the ToyPedia homepage with the browser showing where you were last, which was confusing! All these also make it much easier to add info or pictures, too, of course, so please feel free to do so!
In addition, we also have this great new page, also shown in the screenshot above, featuring lots of entries that need pictures, description or other information - why not check it out and see if there's something there that you can help fill in?! It's going to take the whole community to turn this into the resource we all want it to be, so please pitch in and help in any way you can! By the time you read this, we should have passed 40,000 entries, so come on down and help us with the next 40,000!
Also, thanks to some people who've already helped and who're in the process of helping. David and Carole at Quality Diecast Toys gave us some fantastic images to illustrate the Triang Spot-On section from the stock in their online diecast shop. Quality Diecast have been selling vintage diecast by mail order since 1983 and they've got lots of great examples of hard-to-find Spot-On models (and plenty else besides) up for sale on there, the images are great and really enhance the Spot-On listings as you can see for yourself here.
Gary, over at GarysCars, meanwhile, is giving us his photo database and info. After many years of being one of the best resources on the net for listings of Playart, Corgi/Husky, Lego, MINIX, Zylmex and more, he's having to shutter his site - but the info will live on in ToyPedia!
So many thanks to David, Carole and Gary - and we look forward to having lots more people to thank next time round - you, maybe? :)
New Prize Draw: Thomas Gunn Miniatures Stuka's Above Set
Courtesy of Thomas Gunn Miniatures, we have five of their TG009(A) Stuka's Above sets to give away!
Launched in 2009, Thomas Gunn stand apart from others in the collectors' toy soldier world. Born from the desire to improve upon the quality of 1/30 scale figures currently available, Thomas Gunn produce no more than 300 of each piece ensuring exclusivity and regular new releases. Attention to detail, value for money and outstanding quality are what makes them tick.
Stuka's Above comprises three FJ's with an aerial recognition flag, letting the Luftwaffe know that they hold the ground below - all made to the company's usual incredible standards of detail. As per usual, all you need to do to enter is post in this forum here. Winners will be drawn out of LaToya's hat at random. This draw closes on August 31st, so be sure to enter before then!
Milestones, Tripping and a Tie-Up!
We've also had a few milestones this past month. To start with, we deleted our 21,000th Spambot registration attempt! They're always trying to sign up, but fear not, we're keeping vigilant and not letting them through!
On a more positive note, this month saw our longtime member RVREVO cross the 2,500 forum posts mark. This is a double whammy as it moves him into first place as our most prolific poster AND makes him the first to make more than 2500 posts. Congrats, REVO!
On top of that, we've just topped 100,000 images in the galleries and we're about to hit 4,000 users - we'll be able to make that announcement in the August newsletter for sure!
Lastly, the tripping in the title refers to our member Baskingshark, who's just come back from a trip to New Mexico where he attended the Matchbox Collectors' Community 2010 Gathering of Friends - read all about that here, it sounds like it was huge fun. And the tie-up refers to Hobby Talk, another hugely popular site for collectors and modellers, as well as RC and Slot-Car fans, with whom we've forged links that'll see us sharing functionality, information and other great stuff. If you haven't checked out Hobby Talk, make sure you do so - you're bound to enjoy it!
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