290 Double Decker bus Dunlop complete creme!

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thank's Chris, you can see Five models in front of the Ladies tummy waiting to be given the Second colour.

GHOSTHUNTER.

[Fred7A]

That is indeed a great item, especially in such lovely condition. It looks very striking in this colour scheme. Interesting to read about the Berlin connection, which I was unaware of. I'm not sure whether these adverts were actually printed - at this time Meccano were using spirit-fixed transfers which don't show a backing film. This is one reason why reproduction decals tend to look "wrong" when fitted to old Dinkies.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

I had always been under the impression the signage was a decal instead of printed, but if this can be proven as being printed (a simple screen printing method), on the example shown by "MrGoodies", then that will be of some concern.

The wheels are dating the model as pre-61, when the spun alloy rims started to be fitted to the bus, but the lack of the catalogue number on the base still puzzles me, there may well be some transitional models produced before they moved from #29c into #290, but the roof box was not cast onto the roof from 1956 to about 1960, yet the model we are commenting on has the roof box!

This is looking like a very unusual variation emerging, do we not have any Dinky bus experts here...

GHOSTHUNTER.

[starni999]

Hi all,
The casting timeline with these models, like many Dinkys is simply not possible to set in stone. There are numerous examples of " impossible" variations that are 100% genuine. In the case of these buses the small / large windows, roofboxes, model numbers, and hubs come and go in the timeline seemingly at random.
It should not be possible to find a type 2 bus with all red "Exide" finish, yet they exist. Meccano had at least two, and maybe more die sets for popular models like the 29c / 290, if the current die was damaged during a run, the old one was brought back in till it was fixed. also castings were made in batches of 10,000, if only 9500 were needed to fill orders, the 500 old style castings sat in the stores and were brought out, painted and assembled even years later when needed, thus really weird variations do turn up.
Chris Warr.

[dinkycollect]

                                

This is an export model in the colour of German buses of that time but not only from Berlin, other towns used the same colour but recent German buses are now finished in a darker colour. It was probably issued at the request of one of the German importers There were at least three in Berlin, Hamburg and Dusseldorf but probably also in Munich and Stuttgart. Some of these cream buses have also been found in Japan, South Africa and Austria.