No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

British made Matchbox Superfast 1969-83
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Kiwi78
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Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:36 pm

No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by Kiwi78 »

Well, it was finally in the mail and things didn't turn at all out as expected. The auction was listed with these pictures:

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The seller said he does not think it is the real deal because the rear rivet doesn't look right to him. The buy it now price was 15 dollars and he said good luck to the buyer. So he was as honest as he could have been. No fault there.

I looked at the picture and because of the lighting and picture quality I saw a metallic blue superfast. Of course I thought it can't be genuine because, as we know, metallic blue Lincoln Superfasts come up for sale as often as pure bred unicorns. I bought it anyway because why not, and I was perfectly settled on getting a decent custom of: a metallic blue Lincoln Superfast.

What came in the mail was not a metallic blue but a mint green superfast. Immediately my reaction was "hang the flippin' heck on there!". So I examined the rivet in question, the one that "didn't look right". We are talking about the rear rivet here and I could see what the seller meant.

It has a circular scratch around the rivet hole which normally indicates a custom and calls for caution. On top of that the rivet doesn't seem to sit entirely straight in the hole and caused a minute dent in the base.

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My problem was that the front rivet looked absolutely fine and genuine so how could a base swap and custom have happened?

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I picked up my regular wheels metallic blue Lincoln which I know is original in all parts from factory and checked the rear rivet to find - circular scratching and residue around the rivet hole.

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My reasoning: since the metallic blue regular wheels has those scratches and is in fact original, I believe that during the conversion process to superfast and possibly as a side effect of the riveting machine that issue was carried over.

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The paint on the car is matching the paint on the rivet and as I said, there is nothing at all wrong with the front rivet of the superfast copy. Again, since the original regular wheels and the suspected custom superfast have those scratches, my very strong conclusion is that the mint green superfast is original.

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Last edited by Kiwi78 on Wed Oct 08, 2014 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kiwi78
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:36 pm

Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental mint green

Post by Kiwi78 »

Very strong conclusion of course doesn't mean that I'm absolutely 100% positive so it would be very nice if the collectors here could take a casual look at their 31 Lincolns, regular wheels and superfast. I am quite interested in those circular scratches or markings around the rear rivet holes because together with the factory original front rivet they make the best point for me to call it genuine and not a custom. Thank you.
Kiwi78
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:36 pm

Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by Kiwi78 »

Ok, I went back to work for the upload, so here goes:

Regular Wheels front rivet

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Regular Wheels rear rivet

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Superfast front rivet

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Superfast rear rivet (the dodgy one which will most likely raise many voices saying "sorry, it's a custom"). Remember how I said the front rivet looks fine to me, so...how?

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The car in question:

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numi
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Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by numi »

Home brew!
numi
numi

One cannot do much with all the monies in this world but can do much more if he strives toward contentment.
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fixer
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Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by fixer »

Mmmm front rivet is very suspicious too
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Dr Jazz
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Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by Dr Jazz »

Hi Kiwi

Must admid it looks dodgy. I dont like those rivets at all. But I would have taken the same gamble for 15$ :-)
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johnboy
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Location: Hertfordshire, England

Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by johnboy »

It looks like a home brew to me too. Like Jazz, I might have had a little gamble though :)
John
There's nothing regular about wheels
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SMS88
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Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:23 am

Re: No 31 Lincoln Continental turquoise

Post by SMS88 »

Easily worth the $15 you paid, it would take that much time to make a copy as good as this one!
When you can NOT see any obviously enlarged holes in a baseplate making it easy to see that the baseplate has been pushed over an already spun rivit the alternative way to create a fake is to glue in 2nd hand rivit posts from a donor model of the correct colour. Sometimes just the normal pressure of fingers attempting to pull the baseplate off can reveal if rivits have been transplanted.
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