DevilsAdvocate wrote:I agree. Also if pre-pro I would assume that the exhaust brackets would be missing? Is that a reasonable assumption?
Since the first two of Nick's codes are without exhaust brackets, yes.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:What I'm curious about is if two models with the same production number such as 52a Maserati and 52b BRM ever have overlapping production?
Not to the best of my knowledge, although I suppose there might be a slight overlap as stocks of the new model were built up ready for release. On the other hand, we know that models were not released simultaneously throughout the World, so stock-building was probably unnecessary.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:One of the things that sold me on it being authentic, besides what I have already shared, is that 1 or 2 of the decals are a little askew, which seems counterintuitive to a fake.
Fakers are getting cleverer and are constantly finding new ways to part collectors from their money. However, I think that skewed decals must count in this example's favour.
An individual hell bent on faking something can not be stopped in my opinion. However in this case, I agree with what you mentioned, that the alignment plays in the favor of this particular model.
I was hesitant when I purchased this model, but took the risk and under much closer inspection truly appears to be the genuine article. Now on the surface, something that is not in favor of mine is I would have expected it to be in an E-type box rather than the early F, but that is assuming the boxes were printed at the same time as whatever particular model was made, but from real world experience, I can easily see the boxes being done first, to make sure that the process was streamline and ready to go for the final mold, so can see it joining this car at the factory in that relative time frame. And as you said it seems that the 5 on the box implies that it was the intended number from the beginning, but again it is easy to imagine old stock from the previous model being misplaced and reused later, such as the #3. It would also seem more than plausible when doing a yearly or quarterly inventory you discover a sheet of decals that slipped into a stack of paper or what not, or was at someone's work station under something. I know how far my own stuff on my desk can get pushed back many months at a time under a pile.
I will say that the box and model themselves seem to have had minimal handling aka box in attic for decades.
I suspect one of the best ways to authenticate it is if another convincing model is found, but when making 100,000's even millions of these different cars, a single sheet of decals would yield the proverbial needle in the haystack relative to total quantity produced.
Either way, I am really happy with the model and the uniqueness of it. I would be open to selling it if the right offer was proposed, but I am perfectly content adding it to my own personal collection, which is reserved for very unique pieces, Such as my mint Bulgarian Miura in green.
Idris - One thing is confusing to me, if Nick accidentally transposed the "with guides" and "no guides", then would that imply that the early ones without exhaust brackets would have no guides(which is what it currently states), but from the error you mentioned it would suggest that it had guides. Also, Do you know if Nick does the codes in cronilogical order relative to production time or are they random?
DevilsAdvocate wrote:Idris - One thing is confusing to me, if Nick accidentally transposed the "with guides" and "no guides", then would that imply that the early ones without exhaust brackets would have no guides(which is what it currently states), but from the error you mentioned it would suggest that it had guides. Also, Do you know if Nick does the codes in chronological order relative to production time or are they random?
The guides are decal guides and were engineered to assist the manual location of water-slide transfers. Once the decals had been replaced by labels, they became problematic since they prevented the labels from sitting smoothly on the body. The solution was therefore to delete them. Hence earlier versions have guides whilst later ones don't.
If you were ever lucky enough to find a really early development model, there would probably be no guides but, since such guides were standard Lesney practice, they were almost certainly added to the tooling very early on.
The order of the listings is semi-chronological. For the most part, the order sticks to that proposed by Stannard and makes sense in terms of model development. (Remember that it is easier to remove metal from a die than it is to add metal. Hence later variations will contain water metal - such as strengthening webs - than earlier ones.) However, matters are confused by models being constructed of multiple components and Lesney;s chaotic stock-keeping, resulting in there being issues which appear to be out of timeline, being a combination of earlier and later components. This appears to be especially prevalent towards the end of a model's lifetime, presumably representing stockroom emptying and thereby the rediscovery of boxes of forgotten, early castings.
DevilsAdvocate I too like to collect the racing cars and was the losing bidder on this one. You mentioned that you might be interested in selling, PM me I might buy.
Hubcap
