Superfast Casting # 29

[nearlymint]

Interesting find Jason, i cannot recall seeing the mini with D/D wheels!!

Apparently from TP-6, although I have never seen one before. J

[motorman]

Interesting find Jason, i cannot recall seeing the mini with D/D wheels!!

Apparently from TP-6, although I have never seen one before. J

You are correct J, they are hard to find in fact I have never seen one in the flesh or indeed one for sale. A nice htf variation to have.

[vetrad]

That's a nice one J, only seen a few of those. If I recall correctly, the only packaged one I have seen was in a Canadian blisterpack. I got mine from a fellow collector in one of those little countries in the EU, so I suspect it was also available there too (maybe in those arrow cards).

Here's a pair of Brazil issues for fun.

-David

[Matchboom]

Time to participate has come. Hi all and congrats for this amazing site. Learning something new everyday. Ok here's a 29b that always puzzled me. No mention of it that I know of prior to march 2005, when Stefan L from Sweden puts two mint examples for sale. Over a dozen of examples have been seen on eBay and Vectis since then, including some in average to poor condition. Legit ? Fake ? Stefan L version is that Lesney made those gold Mini's for a swedish company which imported british cars : Scan Auto. I got mine from Vectis UK in july 2014. Cream interior, orange wheel strips. Base is tarnished but rivet looks flawless (to me). After many macro pics taken, I managed to read A24 and A55 inside two of the wheels, if it may help Ghosthunter's reflection. Talked about this strange variation (as strange as lemon yellow 19 A to me, and same beautiful) with Graham H and Rob F at Sandown Park : One goes for legit, one goes for smelly joke ! What about you fellas ??

[mbox2000]

Hi Matchboom. Interesting color. What do the labels look like, if any?

[Idris]

Stefan L version is that Lesney made those gold Mini's for a swedish company which imported british cars : Scan Auto.

The story I've heard is that these models were produced for a Scandinavian promotional issue which was cancelled.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Hello Matchboom, welcome to the forum and pleased to hear you are enjoying the topics so far. Thanks also for mentioning the wheel mould numbers on the 'Gold' Mini in your pictures and while we can use them to help us identify model dates or periods of production within a model's 'Time-Line', at the moment we do not have a problem as far as I know, with this model's introduction as all versions from new have the Wide 'Superfast' design. It may help in identifying when the 'Gold' model was made in relation to the other versions in Orange-Red and Red colours and for that you will need as many examples as you can get, so you can record all the mould numbers and put them in Alpha-numerial order ('A' obviously being first!), and if you know you have got the very first issues of the Mini, you can use their wheel mould numbers as your start point.

I don't collect or have any examples of the Mini, but many forum members do, so maybe some of them may like to post some wheel mould numbers on here for you and what issue model they have recorded them on.

The #29 Mini was first introduced during 1971, but I have never seen any examples with the Narrow 'Superfast design, suggesting it was late 1971 as many models from this Year still have Narrow wheels, but other models in the range from 1971, are known with the Narrow and Wide 'Superfast' design.

It is interesting that the Two numbers you have revealed are numbers that most certainly would have been used for Narrow wheel production, so it seems Lesney did not re-tool for the Wide wheels, just modified the moulds already in use, I would have to look at the actual style of the letter and number on the inner wheel surface to clarify this further.

Thanks for bringing this forward,
GHOSTHUNTER.

[vetrad]

I have heard the same as Idris about a promo issue that never happened. Although, the gold color was a common color used on trial models in the early 1970's. Regardless of the intentions of the factory, these appear to be a short run of factory trial models which were made in modest quantity.

(NOT CORRECT) I think these are early issues as all of the gold Mini's I have seen have the early brown wheel strip (holding the axles) which correspond to the first issues of the bronze model (NOT CORRECT).

An orange wheel strip was used in the later issue bronze models and all of the other examples (except the two packs, where the wheels strip suspension was removed).

-David

[nearlymint]

I think these are early issues as all of the gold Mini's I have seen have the early brown wheel strip (holding the axles) which correspond to the first issues of the bronze model. An orange wheel strip was used in the later issue bronze models and all of the other examples (except the two packs, where the wheels strip suspension was removed).

-David

Looks like an orange wheel strip on this one from what I can see. J

[vetrad]

Haha. I checked mine and it has an orange wheel strip too. I thought I remembered it as brown. That would suggest the models production was in the middle of the models life. Thanks for keeping me honest J.