Lesney

[michaeld1.401]

I have a matchbox commer no. 50, all red bottom half, including grille,,,, is this a factory error?

Thanks...

[DrJeep]

Probably a repaint. Or maybe someone took the silver paint off with a solvent (nail varnish remover, for example). We need to see a picture!

[Idris]

Models without silver trim turn up fairly regularly. Often they seem to be distributed randomly amongst the different variation codes, suggesting that they are production errors, i.e. examples which did not receive their silver trim and slipped through QC. However, there do seem to be some models where significant numbers of untrimmed versions of the same variation turn up, suggesting a deliberate decision by someone at the factory not to trim those particular examples.
In my experience, untrimmed models tend to command much lower prices than their trimmed brethren, but I know at least one Ebay seller who would argue that they still go for good money.
Any chance of a photograph?