YYS4BOB's collection.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Where on earth did you find those Bob. They are wonderful and they make me very GREEN with envy

Ghosty.

[YYS4BOB]

It's a long story, & they've travelled a fair bit before I finally got them.
They were originally sold by USA E-Bay seller rwctoys on 23rd May 2016. There were 6 models allied to the advert listed by him. I got the Opel, but was outbid for all the others by an American collector known to me . He subsequently sold them on except for the Cadillac to a Canadian collector (also known to me). After a time they were offered on E-Bay by him, but only on E-Bay Canada. They failed to sell and the price slowly came down until they were withdrawn from E-Bay. Contact was made and a deal was done. Only took 4 days to arrive in the UK from Canada, a minor miracle. I'd love to know where the others are.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thanks Bob for a bit of the back story on what I consider very rare models all put together in that picture (with of course wrongly described 1906 Rolls-Royce and 1909 Thomas) for the planned 1973 re-launch of the range. Some of them may well be the very first version of the model, models that we now class as a 'Woodgrain' models because of the design of the packaging for them.

The Crossley RAF Tender in the normal colours (not the plated version), was introduced during 1974 and the same or a similar model (with crimped axle-ends), appears in the 1974 pocket catalogue fitted with tyres displaying tread on both shoulders. If it is the same model from the above picture then these tyres (the 'One Size Fits All' design), were modified in 1973 to have the tread on both shoulders instead of the tyres with the tread only on the one shoulder as you mention.

My 'Transitional' and my earliest full production examples of the Y-7 Rolls-Royce (introduced in 1973) both have the twin shoulder tread design tyres but in theory full production models could exist with the single shoulder tread design.

Can you remind me of the very early tyres you have on a Y-16 Mercedes-Benz that you showed me at an earlier Sandown toy fair.

Ghosthunter.

[YYS4BOB]

The same tyres on the Merc as on these models.
Also two of the rows of models have "flipped" pictures as the spares are on the wrong side of the cars. How this picture ever got released to the public beggars belief.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Promotional material and Yesteryear activity was in chaos at the end of 1972 due to the suspended production while Lesney concentrated on the Superfast range. Production did not start again until September 1973 with the Y-3 Riley and then only a half plated version was released in Germany and late 1974 in the UK.

The first pocket catalogue to show actual production Yesteryears was the 1975 issue (designed, produced and printed in 1974). Up until then it was those crimped axle-end models shown in each catalogue!

It would not surprise me to find out Lesney allowed someone else to handle Yesteryear marketing at that time and Lesney did consider stopping the Yesteryears range alltogether, it was the miniatures range where the interest and money was for them!

So in retrospect they (or somebody) did well to actually get some promotional material out into the public arena, even if it contained errors

Ghosthunter.

[YYS4BOB]

A bit more detail on the models. "Chisel cut" rivets on the base of the PHV & Stutz.





Comparison of tyres for Kevin.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Thank you Bob. I am still fascinated by those strange tyres and why they did what they did with no obvious benefit!

Ghosthunter.

[matchboxmarcel]

Bob, real super news that these are now in your collection where they should be.
I remember the sale of some years ago.

marcel

[Moyboy]

Tyres had to be modified as otherwise they would have had to go on one way only - to time consuming. By casting tread on both sides they could go on anyway. How would the tyre machine seen in the Matchbox videos select only one side ?

[YYS4BOB]

Why would you make them "one sided" in the first place? Pretty short-sighted don't you think?