As allways I went by nightcoach from Amsterdam via Belgium to Calais.
Then by ferry this time to Dover and about 2 hours to London Victoria.
I had booked this journey months ago and the return ticket Amsterdam-London only costed me 25 euro which is aprox 22 gbp.
All went very well and we had a very early arrival at Victoria this time at 5.15.
I had enought time to buy the London Transport ticket. For 8.50 gbp only you can use the whole London Transport system in zomes 1-6 which has a very big reach from the centre.
Esher is just one station outside zone 6 but I always travel to Esher with it and never had problems.
At 5.45 the underground via Wimbledon to Esher and a short walk to the venue.
At 7.00 the gate opened and as the weathe rwas very good there were many outside traders on the tribunes of the racecourse.
A prewar Dinky Meccano car iwith cardboard box was quckly sold at 300 gbp. The seller also had a quite similar model in a wooden box
There was a plastic rocket for sale for over 1.200 gbp and when I somewhat later wanted to show that to some german collector friends who I came across the rocket had alreeady been sold.
In this 1st hour a lot of very rare toys are always being sold at very high prices.
I took this photo for Ghosthunter. I don't know if it is rare.
At 8.00 the doors opened and dealers were setting up their tables.
I met Garry Matthews who was one of the main contributors of the white book and has made the new tables as published in the last MATCHBOX CLUB annual.
He said he didn't spent much time on more tables but will do after autumn. He does not expect w new white book will be printed as to expensive but he thinks more of his tables will be printed in future MATCHBOX CLUB annuals.
I took some photos of the Vectis stand which was not completly ready when I took the photos, hence the slightly mess of the Dinky cabinet.
The Matchbox cabinet did show quite some pieces of the Ultimate Grizzly collection from german collector Ralph-Egbert Richter which will be auctioned today and tomorrow at Vectis (tuesday sept 16 and wednesday sept 17th)
The catalogue is nice and shows the 2 very rare tan Margirus Crane models. The catalogue was on sale and was very popular at 30 gbp. I had reserved one also.
Graham Hamilton (Rockerton Toys) didn't have a table and only atended as a dealer.
John Moore had his usual stall of Matchbox as was Bob May in that corner.
Overall I think there were less Matchbox models on sale. I bought 3 Regular Wheel models from 1966, all with E3 box for a 1966 display to arrive. This display is a general Matchbox display and I want to populate it as shown in the UK 1966 trade catalogue. That's with 3 Models of Yesteryear models, 8 Regular Wheel models and 1 Major Pack model.
Here is a quick photo of the 3 models I bought in another cabinet as the 1966 cabinet did not yet arrive.
At 8.30 I met Bob Tutt who had a big box for me with UK Ebay wins of recent months. This was all very well packed and as he collected them for me this saved a lot on postage for me. I could put this under the table of Rob Freeman who had a bog and nice stand of Early Matchbox Superfast models.
Bob showed me his 3 recent Vectis wins which he collected at the Vectis stand. The Mercedes 540K is a superb model and was once auctioned at Christies as part of lot 536 in that may 8th 2003 sale. It is amzing models from that sale has now come Vectis and man wonders what happened with all the other superb models of that Christies sale. As they were part of only a few lots they must have been bought by one or only a few collectors.
At 10.30 the doosrs opened for the public who did not buy an early bird ticket. I had a brief meeting with a collector at 11.00 and left the event at 11.30.
I went to Victoria Coach station to store the box with my UK Ebay wins and then by underground to Acton Town (west of London) where the London Transport Museum has a special depot.
The museum houses at Covent Gardens. (central London) but at Acton Town there is a realy big depot which is rarely open.
This weekdn they had 2 special open days.
Commision was 10 gbp which was not that cheap but there was a lot to see.
The vehicle part was not the biggest part.
There were architectmodels of underground stations, an enourmous collection of old Station signs and old (some very old) maps of the underground system.
(only a small part is on the photos I took)
There were complete Motorblocks of old busses, trams, and underground trains. There were signs, There were old (wooden) sale counters etc etc.
In the limted free space there were stall for the day with dealers selling old postcards with busses and photos. They sold tickets and old maps and there were even some Models of Yesteryear on sale.
Outisde there were free rides with a train for children and the 1st Routemaster bus.
In the depot I also very much liked the standard underground trains in dark red for the Picadilly line of the 20ties and 30ties. Some were still in service in the 60ties.
In the depot they had restored trains but also quite some wagons had to be restored.
At the entrance of the depot it was clearly stated that this is not a museum but a depot.
The most important was however a recently restored WWI bus which was army green.
As you can read of the backside of the early Y2-1 boxes. 2.500 of these B type of busses were build (only 4 exist still today of which 3 are part of the museum's collection (1 in Covent Garden and 2 at the depot) 1.300 were shipped to the south-west of Belgium and north west of France during WWI and this new restored b Type bus looks like such a WWI bus. It was possible to go on top of this bus which I did.
The bus will be on display in Belgium and France later on september.
They had a nice special leaflet printed for that (and that did also contain french and dutch language )
I had a chat with a few of the volunters.
They ended up as far as africa.
In the war some even were used as pigeons housing as the pigeons were used for sending message to other troups.
I have made many photos but it was very dark in the depot and also very little space around the many many items.
This part of an exihibition of which artist got a free hand to make a model of the new London Double Decker Bus.
[/URL]A lot of old machinery etc of which many of you will more know then I but it looked impressive.
[URL=http://s103.photobucket.com/user/matchb ... e.jpg.html]
More on the special open depot weekend can be read here at their website:
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/muse ... n-weekends
More on the museum itself at Covent Garden.
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/
More on the restored B Type bus in WWI colors etc:
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/p ... battle-bus
After my visit to the dpot I made a brief visit to the Tate Modern and Harrods. I was to tired to make a journey on the new London Double Decker busses. They look nice, especially the rear side with conductor where you can pop up and off from the platform.
Next Sandown is november 15th and I already have booked my ticket. 22 euro, a new record for the return journey from Amsterdam to London.
The coach back from Victoria at 21.00 was crowded but silent so could get some rest. I also had a good rest on the ferry. At 7.30 i was back in the dutch city of Utrecht.
I made a short visit to my home as wanted to join my montly walk with the walking group. (22km) When I went home from that in the late afternoon I fell asleep in the train and only got from the train 60km beyond my station as this was the next intercity railwaystation. It costed an extra 1 1/2 hour to get home.
Now to unpack my big box with aprox 25 UK Ebay wins which was bought by Bob Tutt to Sandown for me.
marcel
