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Information

General

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Living in the UK and buying from Hong Kong

e-mail me

General

Firstly, I would like to welcome you to the world's leading website for news, information and photographs of the model buses from Hong Kong, China, Singapore & Japan.

I do hope you find this site both useful and enjoyable and to help in both these respects, I would suggest you take a moment or two just to read through this section along with the Site navigation section immediately below.

One important point I would like to make is that I do not sell or buy models - the site is solely for information.

Corgi and Exclusive First Editions (EFE), both UK based companies, issued their first Hong Kong liveried models in the mid 1990's, albeit the accuracy of their castings was a little dubious, both basically using existing castings of UK buses - their scales varied between 1/76 and 1/64.

In 1997 Corgi launched their new tri-axle Leyland/Volvo Olympian casting and the release of various colourful liveries soon followed, with a keen interest being shown by many model bus collectors both here in the UK and in Hong Kong, where many of the models were initially released, being commissioned by the Hong Kong bus operators themselves. It was in 1998 that I became interested in these models and the creation of this website followed later that year.

With the level of interest being shown by collectors, several new model bus manufacturers emerged in 1999, these being Hong Kong based companies with quantities of many of their models being made available in the UK. The year 2000 saw seventy-four models released in Hong Kong, many in all-over advertising liveries, as standard liveried models were not always licensed by the bus operator. The market settled down and by 2004, both Corgi and EFE had withdrawn from the Hong Kong market, leaving just the Hong Kong based companies. During 2008, only seventeen models were released. By 2013, the number of new releases had increased to seventy-one, and during 2016, no less than one-hundred and fifty-two models were released! This trend has continued with 2019 seeing the same number of releases as 2016. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 saw the number of new releases drop to one-hundred and eighteen.

Back to the website, and in particular to the main section of the site, Diecast Models - each model released is generally included in three main listings as detailed below. Each listing basically contains the same information, but in a different order: -

Model Manufacturer	these pages list each model produced by the model number allocated by the manufacturer - where the bus operator allocates its own model number, this in shown in brackets below the manufacturer's number
Bus Operator	these pages list each model in date released order - where the bus operator has allocated its own number, this is shown first with the manufacturer's model number being shown in brackets below
Vehicle Type	these pages list the various variants of each vehicle type and is generally in date released order

Approximately two-hundred models were generally available in the UK in the early years, out of a total of just over one-thousand five-hundred models issued to-date (December 2020). Any quantities available in the UK are indicated in these listings in brackets along with the release dates, which are also shown also in brackets, where known.

The Notes section at the foot of each page, where applicable, provides general information.

Site navigation

This site comprises of various sections, all of which are fairly obvious by their title, links to which appear at the top and bottom of most pages:-

[diecast models] - [information] - [links] - [news] - [plastic models] - [resin models] - [trams] - [xtra]

[diecast models] - covers all diecast model buses and service vehicles - many of the earlier models were issued in the UK as well as Hong Kong, but more recently, the models are only issued in Hong Kong - the background colour of these pages is cream

[home] - this page has now been removed and replaced with the current News page

[information] - a guide to the site and its various sections, an explanation on how to navigate the site, its background, acknowledgements and contributions and the legal bit

[links] - simple enough, a page of links to other related websites and photo galleries

[news] - now combined with the Home page, this will take you to the current month's News - a separate News page exists for each month - it also features both a 'Search the Site' and 'Site Map' facility

[plastic models] - covers all plastic model buses - the background colour of these pages is pink

[resin models] - covers all resin model buses and service vehicles, most of which are only issued in Hong Kong - the background colour of these pages is pale green

[trams] - covers all model trams - the background colour of these pages is pale blue

[xtra] - covers topical items on the real bus scene plus a look at other models, books and souvenirs

As mentioned above, clicking on the [news] link at the top or bottom of a page will take you to the current month's News. To access the previous month's News, click the left-facing spinning arrow. To access the next month's News, click the right-facing spinning arrow. There is also a facility to view a specific month's News.

Also mentioned above, the [diecast models], [plastic models], [resin models] and [trams] pages use different colour page backgrounds and are divided into several categories, listing by Operator, Vehicle type, etc. Once you have reached the required Model page, clicking the left-spinning arrow will take you to the previous model in the same vehicle type, clicking the right-spinning arrow will take you to the next model of the same vehicle type, or the next vehicle type.

To recap.........

A click of a left-facing spinning arrow will take you to either:-

the previous model of the same vehicle type or that vehicle's summary page
the previous book
the previous month's News

A click of a right-facing spinning arrow will take you to either:-

the next model of the same vehicle type or the summary page of the next vehicle type
the next book
the next month's News

Clicking on the

button will always take you to the top of that particular page.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following for their kind co-operation in providing news, reviews, photographs and information :-

ABC Models, Bus Fan World, Philip Chan, Citybus, the late Don Craggs, Stuart Dobie, Mr Kwok of 80M Bus Model Shop, Gakei, Edward Hong, Jacky Ho, Gareth Jones, Joe Kwong of Jotus.com, Grant Ng Kwok Kuen, Jacky Lau, Dennis Law, Lee Tin Yau, Bobby Liu, Donald MacRae, New World First Bus, Ray Ng, the late Peter Owens, Andrew Shirley, Terry Stapley, Chelton Tsze, Alan Wong and Keith Wood.

Visitor's own Model Reviews are always most welcome, as is any other information or photographs of the models or the prototype vehicles.

Site background.

This site is designed using basic HTML, the aim being to keep it simple, thus enabling pages to be loaded quickly. It is best viewed at 1024 x 768, true colour or above. With IE4 or above, ensure that your text size on the 'View' menu bar is set to medium.

The site went live on 5th November 1998, the counter being added on 28th December 1998.

In October 2006, owing to mounting problems with my Internet Service Provider, Orange, I purchased webspace from a web hosting company and the site was moved to www.orientalmodelbuses.co.uk.

The site celebrated its 10th anniversary in November 2008 - on 31st March 2017 the site closed for six months for personal reasons, but it was re-launched in early October that same year - the site celebrated its 20th anniversary in November 2018.

The site celebrated its 25th anniversary in November 2023.

The site was created and is maintained solely by me in my spare time, and is NOT my full time occupation!! I do not sell models, and it is not run for financial gain, but as an aid to fellow collectors in providing the latest news, information and photographs.

Site statistics

418 hits were recorded for the month of January 1999 - the 100,000th hit was recorded on 28th August 2000, with August 2000 also being the first month since the site was set up to receive in excess of 10,000 hits. The 200,000th hit was received on 24 June 2001.

June 2013 saw the highest number of visits for the 'Home' page at 28,084.
June 2013 saw the highest number of visits for the 'News' page at 42,861.
3rd November 2010 saw the highest number of visits in a day for the 'News' page at 2,746.

Comprehensive statistics can be viewed by clicking on the icon at the foot of the current News page. The table below give an overview.

Home/Current News Page
Year/ Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total

2024	20,252	17,882	15,588	15,650	17,678	15,809	16,113	15,461
2023	19,443	15,308	18,285	19,678	20,367	20,125	21,928	19,679	16,097	18,719	19,249	20,658	229,536
2022	29,267	23,560	21,943	21,707	20,970	20,190	21,239	20,603	19,027	20,771	19,054	18,661	256,992
2021	22,949	21,713	25,621	26,912	28,369	27,643	28,523	27,136	23,818	27,736	25,220	26,778	312,418
2020	19,989	17,734	18.329	20.267	20.906	21,881	24,135	24,960	23,111	22,068	19,868	21,729	254,977
2019	17,812	16,373	17,778	18,421	19,533	18,251	18,319	17,853	17,662	17,487	19,116	19,891	218,496
2018	17,280	14,721	14,459	16,100	17,174	16,014	16,517	16,367	13,390	15,949	15,709	16,078	189.758
2017	31,680	25,709	23,246	6,000	the site was off-line during this period					7,644	11,585	15,033	120,897
2016	32,537	30,404	32,499	28,789	27,992	29,222	30.202	30,671	29,139	25,758	25,505	30,408	353,126
2015	32,450	31,651	34,224	33,079	35,627	32,510	36,022	33,327	30,704	33,839	30,075	33,665	397,173
2014	39,179	31,769	36,999	32,238	35,984	38,014	35,034	31,469	32,504	34,348	23,450	32,027	403,010
2013	36,670	30,629	35,419	34,091	42,222	42,861	39,813	33,103	35,127	33,762	36,659	39,885	440,212
2012	32,453	26,220	30,827	28,981	39,300	36,897	34,781	30,082	29,990	30,157	29,938	32,205	381,831
2011	30,390	26,472	30,550	27,012	33,085	29,141	31,143	29,198	30,183	29,410	22,608	30,767	349,959
2010	27,932	26,791	27,282	23,306	27,236	26,902	29,725	25,085	26,905	25,817	27,720	26,177	320,878
2009	24,565	17,651	23,886	24,442	27,314	28,339	28,766	27,182	23,284	25,027	22,066	25,457	297,979
2008	20,559	17,412	18,720	18,067	17,733	19,595	19,365	17,620	20,722	22,560	23,034	22,789	238,176
2007	17,337	16,663	16,661	14,587	17,119	21,085	20,087	21,081	18,144	20,147	17,730	18,660	219,301
2006	27,359	22,322	24,299	26,166	25,147	23,404	21,984	22,295	24,140	25,056	19,459	17,681	279,312
2005	14,802	12,712	13,416	13,910	14,712	14,777	16,523	19,007	17,802	20,257	25,203	23,106	206,227
2004	15,621	12,046	14,212	14,384	14,733	11,953	12,608	15,842	13,419	12,483	13,657	14,984	165,942
2003	15,705	10,326	12,912	10,542	11,452	14,045	14,876	13,995	13,425	12,114	13,826	14,359	157,577
2002	11,167	8,460	6,991	7,781	9,384	9,260	11,256	10,753	11,444	13,720	11,767	11,771	123,754
2001	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	11,428	11,428

Contributions to the Site

I welcome any news, information and photographs relating to the contents of the site. Generally, the maximum size photograph I use on the site is 2048 x 1400, with a file size of about 400kb. The copyright of all photographs submitted should rest with the sender and they should not be taken or copied from any other source. Photographs will be acknowledged and if requested, a copyright watermark applied.

Buying models

The availability of models can depend on who commissions the model, who produces it and obviously how many are made. Corgi really started the interest in Hong Kong buses when it issued its three-axle Leyland Olympians in 1997 for the various Hong Kong Bus operators, to celebrate the Handover of Hong Kong to China. Many of these were produced in large numbers, generally over 10,000, and whilst being initially difficult to get hold of here in the UK, the operators had agreements with Corgi which has seen most of stocks of unsold models being returned to Corgi, and appearing at considerably reduced prices several years, or sometimes months, later. Collector's Model releases were generally available at 'normal' prices both in Hong Kong and here in the UK. EFE has issued a handful of Hong Kong models, most of which had been released previously in Hong Kong by other manufacturers, MBE, Drumwell, etc. The number of model manufacturers has decreased over the years and now the majority of KMB models are issued by 80M Bus Model. Model 1 is the other main model manufacturer, generally releasing New World First Bus and Citybus models. Resin models increased in popularity during the early 2000's, when there wasn't the range of diecast models, but the number of new releases has decreased considerably of late.

There are several bus model specialists based in Hong Kong - the following four all have English websites:-

Jotus Model Depot - specialise in mail order, accepting credit cards through a secure site
80M Bus Model Shop - have several shops in Hong Kong, all of which are well worth a visit. Also offer a mail order service.

Network Shuttle - have several shops and again specialise in mail order, accepting PayPal or major credit cards through a secure site

MSD Bus, Shop 61-63, Apple Solo, 14 Kings Road, Tin Hau, Hong Kong Island, (opposite Exit A1 of Tin Hau MTR Station)
All the above regularly provide this site with news and photographs of new models and further details of each can be found on the links page. Should you decide to use any of them, please mention this site.
If you are experiencing difficulty in obtaining a particular model, please e-mail me, and I will try and help you find it.

Legal

I have attempted to seek the appropriate permissions to use the various photographs on the site, however, if your photograph appears, for which I have not sought your permission for its use, please e-mail me and it will be removed immediately.

All the information included on this site is provided in good faith and I cannot therefore accept any responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.

All photographs are copyright of Oriental Model Buses unless acknowledged to another source. You are NOT welcome to use any material or photographs without prior written permission from the owner.

As a matter of policy, I do not allow the use of any of my photographs

for use on auction sites such as eBay.

The following are some of eBay's copyright guidelines:-

eBay Guideline: Contrary to popular belief, the fact that material is posted on the world wide web does not mean it is in the "public domain" or otherwise free to be taken, copied or used by others. Creators of web content probably have copyright, trademark and other rights in the material they create. Copying, modifying and possibly linking to content created by others could expose you to legal liability.

eBay Guideline: No Copying Allowed! When you prepare your auction listings you generally should use only material (text, photographs, etc.) and trademarks/names that you created or own yourself or licensed from the owners.

eBay Guideline: No Unauthorised Linking to Photos! You cannot link to somebody else's picture (so it appears in your auction) without the owner's permission.

Living in the UK and buying from Hong Kong

For full details of charges that may be incurred by UK residents when buying from overseas, visit the UK Government's website, in particular the section for HM Revenue and Customs :- 'Notice 143: A guide for international post users'.

The Royal Mail may also charge a handling fee in addition to the above charges, all of which are collected by the Royal Mail.

[diecast models] - [information] - [links] - [news] - [plastic models] - [resin models] - [trams] - [xtra]

This page last updated Saturday, 7th September 2024