Postcards from Beaulieu

Part 1: Treasure Hunting

By Stephen Paul Hardy, Devon, England

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

Billed as the biggest outdoor sale of motoring items in Europe, the Beaulieu International Autojumble (BIAJ) remains one of my favourites in the annual calendar of events. Having returned home only a couple of weeks ago from attending BIAJ 2024 combined with a long weekend’s camping, I thought that I’d commit my impressions down on “Epaper” promptly whilst they were fresh in my mind…

Previously I have posted albums of my photos from both the Spring’ and International’ events on my Facebook page, but have taken the decision that from now on, I will be publishing my coverage here instead. So this is the first of several, themed and serialised, articles from BIAJ 2024 captured very much as series of “Postcards from Beaulieu”

After an indifferent (to say the least) summer in terms of English weather, it was a pure joy to have blue sky and full sun over most of the BIAJ weekend. A pleasure enhanced by overnight temperatures dropping to near freezing with the threat of early morning frosts prompting the first leaf falls of autumn. Perfect conditions for autojumbling in shirt sleeves and photos!

The historic Beaulieu Estate with its legendary motoring connections  sits at the heart of England’s ‘New Forest’ in the southern County of Hampshire. It is here that the two annual Beaulieu Autojumbles (Spring and early Autumn International) are hosted at the heart of the Beaulieu Estate adjacent to its renowned attractions. The absolutely brilliant aspect from a visitor’s point of view is that the single admission price accesses both the Autojumble and all the attractions including the famous National Motor Museum (NMM). This  makes attendance potentially a truly family outing affair or, equally, superb opportunity of relaxing with just solo “me” time. And a big bonus is that the range of on-site facilities for day-out eventing are superb in all respects.

Although we had visited both the current “new” NMM and its predecessor as family outings on several occasions in the late 1960s and early 1970s (and many more times in my post teenage years since), the first BIAJ I attended was either in 1983 or 1984 (exactly which escapes me) with some friends from the USA who were over on a visit to the UK for what was, at that time, Europe’s largest VW enthusiast’s event of the year. I remember we had as much fun at the International Autojumble as we did at ‘VW Action’ that year. Something that hasn’t escaped my memory of that day however was the joy of being able to buy the then newly released WIKING ‘Feuerwehr-Packung-Veteranen Nr.2600’ 3 vehicle set from Rod Ward who took ‘Modelauto’ all the way down from Leeds to the event as a stall. A set that would otherwise have been nigh-on impossible to have found – and a very exciting ‘treasure find’ as a result.

With 23,500 motoring enthusiasts attending this year’s event combined with the great weather added up to making the weekend feeling vibrant and buoyant. For me personally as a remainer, the effect Brexit has had on reducing the international mix of trading stall holders is deeply saddening. However, the vibrance of this year’s event was heightened by the significant numbers of international visitors mingling in the crowds and populating the various car parks with enough variety of registration plates sufficient to delight anyone keen on noticing them.

In addition to the numerous Dutch plates, I noticed equally predictable plates from Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany together with ones from Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and as far afield as Hungary. At last the dual knocks of the worldwide Pandemic and Brexit are, to some degree, now ebbing sufficient to feel the ‘international’ in BIAJ is back again at least in visitor participation if not in traders.

It is a reality that the ‘sliding window’ effect that we have pondered over, several times, is very evident in many ways and not just in model car collecting. This applies equally to the Beaulieu Autojumbles. That classic influence of ‘rose tinted spectacles’ distorts the memory, but I would guess that the halcyon days of the classic Beaulieu Autojumbles were in the 1980s and 1990’s before the resource of internet access changed the face of collecting and sourcing spares & replacements irreversibly and forever. On the flip side however although the number of traders may be down on those hey-days, the amount of recent investment in the improvements to visitor facilities, etc., in many ways make the events better than they have ever been.

What hasn’t changed is the sheer fun of the ‘treasure hunt’ and the personal one to one interactions that can only come from being at the events: unexpected real life Joie de vivre!. I count amongst those joys down to earth conversations with many people including the ‘Automotive Alchemist’, Andy Saunders, and his wife who this year were displaying ‘TETANUS’ and ‘ANGELINA ICON’

Over the past few years, the ‘treasure’ finds that I have had have been various and often low key in terms of quantity & cost – but very specific. And on one occasion whilst mooching at the BIAJ 50th Anniversary in 2016 produced a key to unlocking secrets behind a chapter of automotive history through just one page in a modest item of Dutch literature “de VW” from May 1970.

It is though all too easy to get carried away at events like these and buy things that you otherwise might not have done: a sort of “souvenir-cum-can’tfindanythingI’mreallyintosothis’lldoasconsolationitis”. Spontaneous indulgences that have no doubt prompted many a domestic autopsy after the event! But without sounding smug, I’ve manage to navigate my way through the sirens of temptation calling out from many a stall over the years such that when a treasure find does actually turn up it’s all the more pleasurable as a result.

I browse with the deliberate mindset of not looking for anything in particular which seems to keep the eye and mind open and receptive – especially to the unexpected. And so it was this year on the Saturday that I noticed a small box on one of the international trader’s stalls with a mixed collection of small Groschenauto toy cars. After careful browsing and deliberation, I chose just four of them with the intention held in reserve of returning on the Sunday after ‘sleeping on it’. Lesson one reinforced: if you see it, be decisive, there and then. By Sunday the stall had gone overnight! Maybe in this case that was not such a bad thing as the potential second batch were very much ‘second choice’ items, whereas in my own mind I was exactly right to have been decisive with the four I had bought.

Each were examples of early series Groschenauto in the style of Heinerle/Manurba (Manfred Urban, Bamberg) and KOHO (Koch & Hofmockel, Nürnberg) and highly likely products of the former. In roughly HO scale, they have high gloss hard plastic bodies in bright colours and similarly high gloss ivory-white wheels on wire axles (Drahtachser). All four were in super condition and just a delightful and surprising ‘find’. My photos of them are far from ‘studio’ shots having been grabbed whilst still camping but they are sufficient for the purpose.

After a a bit of internet searching when back home they were all were fairly readily identifiable :

(The Mercedes was identical to two other examples I have in the early issue Little Town Planner sets by Hoffmann Modellspielwaren.)

I would never have guessed that I’d find any of these early version Groschenauto at a Beaulieu Autojumble – let alone in perfect condition. Items not particularly of interest to most collectors in the UK they were for me perfect, unexpected, finds. Moreover ‘treasure’ doesn’t have to be expensive – although price like beauty is in the eye of the beholder – but at £10 for all four, I was vey content indeed!

Now Sunday at both the Spring and International brings with it the “Trunk traders” field of stalls and a veritable, fresh, Aladdin’s cave of ‘treasure’ hunting opportunity. For me that field yielded a boxed Rio 1/43 in perfect condition for just £8. That ‘find’ though I am going to leave for another time to talk about because it is one of those sort of models that places my conscience and consequentially my emotions firmly between “Devil and deep blue sea…”

Of course most of us leave events like BIAJ with those fantasy thoughts of “…if I could (afford, accommodate etc., ad infinitum…)” as I certainly did … but more on that in Part 2.