Morris & Stone, Morestone, Modern Products, Budgie and Seerol
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In the 1940's Morris and Stone were a small Stoke Newington, London based toy wholesalers much like the well known Moko company, They were distributors for many small toy manufacturers, Later the Company name was changed to the more familiar "Morestone" and in the mid 1950's they introduced a range called the "Esso" series to compete with the Lesney 1-75 range, This was in partnership with ex Lesney founder Rodney Smith and a factory was set up in Hackney, They also sold a small range of Dinky size vehicles and some Noddy items, The company were also closely involved with Modern Products that supplied castings for them, In 1961 Morestone were taken over by S. Guiterman & Co and the name of the Company was changed and they then became Budgie Toys and continued to produce the same range of toys, Guiterman went bust in 1966 and Modern Products continued to produce toys under their own name, Eventually Modern Products bought the Budgie trademark and sold "Budgie" toys up until the late 60's when Hot Wheels were introduced and that was the end of the toy range, Some pieces such as the larger Taxi, Bus and Rolls Royce were adapted to be sold as tourist souvenirs and some of the larger pieces were put back into production in the 80's but except for a few road rollers no miniatures were made after 1969. |
The full Morestone "Esso" series and display stand, photograph courtesy of my good friend Keith Cholmondley of Ontario Canada.
The State Landau was made as a souvenir for the 1953 Coronation
Morris & Stone Esso Series
The Esso Series Boxes
# 1 AA Motorcycle Patrol
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# 2 RAC Motorcycle Patrol
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# 3 AA Land Rover
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# 4 AA Bedford CA Van
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# 5 Wolseley Police car
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# 6 Cooper Bristol Racing Car
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# 7 Mercedes Benz Racing Car
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# 8 Volkswagen Saloon car
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# 9 Horsebox Services
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# 10 GPO Karrier Repair Van
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# 11 Morris Royal Mail van
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# 12 Volkswagen Micro bus
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# 13 Austin Taxi
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# 14 Packard Convertible
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# 15 Austin Countryman
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# 16 Austin-Healy 100
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# 17 Ford Thames van
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# 18 Foden Dumper Truck
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# 19 Rover 105
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# 20 Plymouth Belvedere
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Modern Products
# 22 Bedford TK Crane Lorry
Budgie Toys
To Be Continued.........
