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Tinman wrote: ...Since then, many assumptions have been made and a few want us to consider their assumptions as fact. There is one fact here: The two line green van has been challenged by several collectors over the years. However, no one has ever presented any proof that the model isn't real.

My second point; where are the mint fake two line Blue trucks? The two line blue models always sell for way more and are in high demand. Also, with the spread rivet, it's really simple to pop off the base an make a fake two line blue model out of GPW and SPW green trucks.

Some counter points: Guide listings; there are several model variations discovered late in life that didn't make it into early guides. None found play worn; same goes for the 2c Muir Hill dumpers ... they were discovered late and all (so far) are mint. It's possible that stocks of green two line Pickfords trucks were sold off after being discovered in the same way as the Muir Hill dumpers.

As for attacking a decent and honest person with a life long history in the hobby ... that is uncalled for and shameful. Simply because someone can't remember specific details about a model's history is no reason to attack a person or their honesty.

I had nearly eight thousand 1-75 models in my collection before I began to sell them off. I had reliable memory and/or records for about 15% of those models. Even some of my hard to find and more rare models were in the 85% group where I too would have to give the answer: "I have no idea." I guess that makes me an evil person too!

The real facts known about two line decal green trucks are simply that they exist and no one has any proof that they are fakes or original factory assembled models. When people combine hearsay, rumor and folklore with assumptions all you have is an opinion. An opinion does not become fact until sustainable evidence is presented. While there is some circumstantial evidence pointing to doubt, the variation is still quite possibly genuine.

I too share these sentiments Tinman and thanks for this absolutely profound and well collated write-up.I feel that some of us have become so stereotyped in our thinking that our judgements & criticism gets clouded and too often for reasons that we ourselves cannot explain cos all seems to get sanctioned by the ruled-heart without the co-options to apply common sense and our psyche and also expect others to accept without question or argument.I am sometimes guilty of this.....
PS: This is just my view & feelings and not directed to any specific person or entity.
numi

Heres a similar 2-Line Green Pickfords that fetched over $500 recently.
numi

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matchbox-46B-Pi ... 1516659402

numi wrote:Heres a similar 2-Line Green Pickfords that fetched over $500 recently.
numi

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matchbox-46B-Pi ... 1516659402

You need a lot of faith (or a total lack of understanding of what you're buying) to spend that kind of money on a model which has a major question mark hanging over it.

My own standpoint on this variation is that I do not trust it for two reasons:
1) it was not catalogued when current (although, as shown by e.g. the Yum Yum SF 19d, models can and have slipped through the net), and
2) the lack of playworn examples (although Kwakers has come up with a credible explanation for this by drawing an analogy with the Muir Hill-decalled 2c).
I think the balance of probabilities is against this model being genuine but, since there is no concrete evidence either way, everyone must make their own decision as to whether it is collectable or not. Matchbox collecting is a broad church and we must respect that fact that not everyone will share our opinions, no matter how reasonable and/or self-obvious they may seem to us.

Good well thought out post by Tinman and comments that I can agree with written by idris.

WE have no idea how many blue 46b have been sold that are actually 1980s decal swaps - unless look closely at the metal with a microscope for residual traces of glue where a larger decal once sat then its very hard to tell if they are decal swaps.Also when Lesney sold off their surplus decals they were less than 20 years old and had been stored in cool dry conditions away from circulating air and chemicals that can age decals.Today it is possible to buy 40 year old sealed in blister Airfix kits and find that their waterslide decals perform as if they have just been made.When these 2 liners were sold off by the factory they were most likely in prime condition and if they were used in bulk then the mid 1980s was an ideal time to do it.

Muir Hill decaled 2cs were all sourced from the most impecable source imaginable - the Muir Hill company! However green 2 line Pickfords were not sourced from anybody connected to Pickfords - they surfaced in USA where nobody knew that green was the colour of Pickford´s main rivals so would not be chosen by the company that still used navy blue well into the 1990s.

Just had a look at the $504 auction link shared by numi - I have just learned that the green 2 liner is C Mack´s 46b code 8 which reminds me of comments read long ago probably on mcch nearly 10 years ago which implied that one C Mack listed in his guides a handful of variations regarded as fakes by Harold Colpitts et al because he owned them and sold them. This means that at least one (perhaps a lot more than 1 ) 2 line green 46b used to be in C Mack´s collection. IF the earliest known recorded green 2 line 46b were owned by C Mack and his Californian friends then we have a time & point of origin of the 1st published reports of this variation.

SMS88 wrote: Muir Hill decaled 2cs were all sourced from the most impecable source imaginable - the Muir Hill company!

That's not true. The Muir Hill promotion never took place and all of the models sat (unopened and unused) in their original boxes. In the 1980's a dealer/collector aquired a couple of cases and sold them directly to collectors via magizine ads and ads in club bulletins. Any collector who responded to the ads could obtain one for about $35.00. About 2007ish a woman surfaced who claimed her father had retired from Muir Hill and she found a case of these in her late father's attic. She sold them off through the mcch for a little over $100 each. None of the 2c models (with the Muir Hill decals) were ever distributed by Muir Hill and (to date) all have them have gone straight from their original cases into collectors hands.

SMS88 wrote: However green 2 line Pickfords were not sourced from anybody connected to Pickfords - they surfaced in USA

I've never seen any evidence to support either of those comments.

SMS88 wrote: Just had a look at the $504 auction link shared by numi - I have just learned that the green 2 liner is C Mack´s 46b code 8 which reminds me of comments read long ago probably on mcch nearly 10 years ago which implied that one C Mack listed in his guides a handful of variations regarded as fakes by Harold Colpitts et al because he owned them and sold them.

There was a thread about Charlie's silver 12c Landy in which Mark Curtis complained that he thought the flaking paint was proof that the model had not been factory painted. He concluded that Charlie was selling a fake and using his reputation to sell it at a premium price (as well as authenticating the model via his reputation). Harold Colpitts was never mentioned in any of those mcch discussions. During the time when Mack was bankrupt and on hard times, he sold off nearly all of his regular wheel collection. From time to time, there were some various models that people complained about. Most of the complaints were about wheel swaps and model conditions being less than advertised. During that time period, it did seem as if several people were "stung" by some less than genuine models being sold by Mack.

Mack was never an "expert" at spotting fakes and seemed to have bought a few over the years. As an example, I made one of my fake reverse color wreckers for a mutual friend of ours. When my friend showed off the wrecker to Charlie, he was convinced the model was real. The thin booms, the real gray hook, the faux mask spray trim and the yellowish background on the decal had Charlie so convinced that my friend had to point out the drilled rivets. Mack commented that the wrecker was: "Good enough to fool a lot of people!" It was good enough to cause Mack to overlook the drilled rivets while inspecting it ... something many here would have spotted straight away.

So the question that remains is did Charlie sell off some dodgy models (that he knew were dodgy) during his time of financial crisis or did he fail to spot the wheel swaps (etc.) and simply pass them on in good faith?

When the mcch started out, Charlie Mack had his own forum on that site. Charlie would answer questions and participate in some discussions. This was a big draw to get US collectors to join Curtis' fledgling web site. Curtis and Mack had a falling out over financial issues. Just as he always does, Curtis banned Mack and deleted his forum. From that point on, Curtis would resort to bashing and maligning Mack at every possible turn.

Much of what Curtis wrote and implied about Mack was not based on direct facts and mostly composed out of petty anger and jealousy. The same way Curtis has continued to operate and it's that huge Curtis ego that's driven mcch into ruins. I would place little trust in Curtis' comments about Mack and his honesty or in any of Curtis' comments about Mack being based in verifiable fact.

SMS88 wrote: This means that at least one (perhaps a lot more than 1 ) 2 line green 46b used to be in C Mack´s collection. IF the earliest known recorded green 2 line 46b were owned by C Mack and his Californian friends then we have a time & point of origin of the 1st published reports of this variation.

"What this means" is that you are guessing again and drawing you own conclusions from your own guesses. I recommend that you direct your question straight to C. Mack and ask him how many two line green Pickford vans he owned and where he got them from.

SMS88 wrote: This means that at least one (perhaps a lot more than 1 ) 2 line green 46b used to be in C Mack´s collection. IF the earliest known recorded green 2 line 46b were owned by C Mack and his Californian friends then we have a time & point of origin of the 1st published reports of this variation.

I am loath to get further drawn into this discussion, but I simply must make an additional comment/correction to some of the opinion presented. This leap frog comment based upon classic circular reasoning leaves me scratching my head in bewilderment. Do you have any first hand knowledge of how many two line 45b models Mr. Mack owned (if he even owned one at all)? Or, how many examples of this model were owned by his un-named friends?

You must know that Mack did not own all the examples of models he featured in his publications (be it regular wheels, superfast models, etc.) and that models were borrowed for photographs and examined in the collections of others. You can't just make up facts and statistics and then expound upon them to make a point.

SMS88 wrote: Also when Lesney sold off their surplus decals they were less than 20 years old

I am unaware of any sell off of decals until Lesney went bankrupt and was bought out. That would make the 46b two line decals twenty years old.

SMS88 wrote: and had been stored in cool dry conditions away from circulating air and chemicals that can age decals.

You're guessing again. You have no knowledge of how those decals were stored or where they were kept.

SMS88 wrote: Today it is possible to buy 40 year old sealed in blister Airfix kits and find that their waterslide decals perform as if they have just been made.

I can personally testify to the fact that this is not true either. I have a large stock of early 1960's AMT car decal sheets and Airfix aircraft sheets. All of them are barely useable. They were all kept in air conditioning, away from sunlight and ambient air. They are stored in the same protective envelopes one uses for stamps. Even after applying a commercial restoration solution and coating them with a clear coat of lacquer, most of them still break apart and disintegrate. I have been able to salvage and use very few decals from those sheets and the ones I did use, I did so with great difficulty.

Tinman wrote:

SMS88 wrote: Muir Hill decaled 2cs were all sourced from the most impecable source imaginable - the Muir Hill company!

That's not true. The Muir Hill promotion never took place and all of the models sat (unopened and unused) in their original boxes. In the 1980's a dealer/collector aquired a couple of cases and sold them directly to collectors via magizine ads and ads in club bulletins. Any collector who responded to the ads could obtain one for about $35.00. About 2007ish a woman surfaced who claimed her father had retired from Muir Hill and she found a case of these in her late father's attic. She sold them off through the mcch for a little over $100 each. None of the 2c models (with the Muir Hill decals) were ever distributed by Muir Hill and (to date) all have them have gone straight from their original cases into collectors hands.

SMS88 wrote: However green 2 line Pickfords were not sourced from anybody connected to Pickfords - they surfaced in USA

I've never seen any evidence to support either of those comments.

Thanyou tinman for filling in some fascinating details. An ex employee of the Muir Hill company would have a much better chance to get cases of unused Muir Hill promotional toys that anyone else who didnt work for the company unless of course they bought them from the company or were gifted them by the company!
Earlier comments in this thread are my source for the information that green 2 line Pickfords first reports of this variation surfaced in California in the 1980s to the best collective knowledge of members of this forum - I have no reason to 2nd guess those members.
I had a US made plastic Willys Gasser car as a child and even when building it in the early 1970s perhaps 5 years after it came out of the factory ,some of the decals split when they came off the backing paper and didnt stick properly to the car.I also had a US made 1/72 Dauntless dive bomber which is the only plane I ever made out of about 30 planes which ever had decals which flaked off - I never assembled any other US made kits although Soviet decals were equally prone to break up and not stick properly as soon as they left the carrier film. Quality UK made decals used much less brittle carrier film and signifcantly more adhesive than any US made decals I have ever tried to apply regardless of age.
My Mack comments are merely intended to point to the earliest published details (known to me ) of the green 2 line 46b unless of course anybody here has anything that pre-dates Mack (which is of course possible). Interesting to know the Mark v Mack story - I discovered mcch christmas 2004 so didnt know that before!