Here is what alerted me to the Seller being more than just a lucky Estate sale Buyer Choobox. He told me that he really had no knowledge of Lesneys at all after I bought the first lot from him, he was 'just a Train collector'. The hidden silver plastic wheeled model in that group I bought from him he had purposely told me had common GPW on it when I questioned him in an E Bay message. When I received it, they were the 'rare' silver plastic, but they looked wrong to old kwakers in both their outer diameter and their perfect finish. I got a reasonable deal on this whole lot of NMint later models, but also found an original 20A that was perfectly 'restored' in it. Perhaps the Estate sale was that of a 'Faker', or just 2 fakes in it I thought??
There were two other groups I picked out to study and buy, and one had a non existant 8D Silver plastic roller Cat Crawler as it's 'Front' model. That model was so perfect, only a tiny spot of tacky paint, and those 'perfectly' painted rollers gave it away. If the rollers had been left black, and the paint given another week to dry, ANY expert would have been fooled by this perfectly restored 8D Cat, even under the closest examination.
Jaskelrod's Post on the 6B came only two weeks later, and I recognized the expert workmanship on that GPW 6B immediately. I have known Jason as an E Bay Seller for several years now, and he has helped me with many needed variations over that time. Seven months earlier, Dykastpa had told him that the rare 6B was out of a collection he personally had from years ago. So, 2 collectors, and two totally different stories Bill had given us. A bit of the best hocus pocus restoration magic on Lesneys from an expert train modeler was bad enough, but 2 'different' tales of his life's stories out of his mouth to Jason and I? Shame on him, but now he has left us without any doubt as to both his character and his own guilt in being the source of these quality fakes.
I will continue my study of this man and his future Lesney offerings, and I will always cherish my 4 'perfect' fakes from this Seller as of today. One is perhaps so well done, even kwakers cannot prove it is fake as of yet. Bill has sent me back to school after 51 years of carefully studying Lesneys.....
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