Broughton wrote:This is a very interesting story for me, who isn't really versed concerning pre-pros and so on! Since I know Hardy, and sometimes bought a few of his items, I always wondered, where he got all those "rare" models? And in such quantity?.......
Would it be possible to get a statement from him in this forum??????
No - he posted here when the forum begun but due to unwanted publicity and some folks disagreeing he decided to keep a low profile and focus on running his business discretely.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS - we have all the pictures we could ever wish to see of the buggered genuine pre-pro and the ruined original glazing unit inside its new home - no need for seller´s spin,our own eyes show us the same glazing unit in a pre-pro caravan and currently on ebay in a standard issue
The fact that the original hand paint job was done very neatly without splashing a drop on the glazing combined with the fact that this was found with 3 other glazed examples opens up the possibility that this repaint was actually hand done in R&D for the simple reason that they had no more glazing units available and wanted to see light gray on a glazed 23c. Poor Hardy comes out of this saga looking like a person who destroys playworn pre-pros to make ´mint´ customs
POOR HARDY BULLSHIT MICK!!!!!! HARDY Willfully took the only known 'ORIGINAL' surviving glazed Caravan and immediately destroyed it without any thought but profit. Everyone here, think long and hard about that, the ONLY KNOWN survivor. Any concocted story to the contrary is a pure lie. Has anyone else ever spent even $100 on a model they desired, and then drilled factory rivets to take it apart within days of it's delivery to them??? Hardy's finished product is a fake, and HE has exposed himself as a producer of fraudulent pre-pro Lesneys. This act of his would be like Jason drilling the plastic base off his newly found Refuse Truck pre-pro to install a stock steel one to that red truck body, or perhaps like drilling apart that new pre-pro 74 Bus to install it's pre-pro interior into a Mint stock colored body. The finished product would be unique, BUT FAKE. NO KNOWN CARAVANS EXIST WITH GLAZE AND RIVETED AXLE ENDS, PERIOD. Thank God for the other three originals coming to light.
Hardy not only looks like a person who destroys GENUINE playworn pre-pros MICK, HE DOES, He DID, and he has no remorse about his senseless acts. He DID make a 'MINT' custom Mick, and it is for sale as one of his impeccable 'originals' for a huge profit. Hardy now has to concoct new stories as time goes on to justify in his own mind why the model he created (Fake variation not even known to have ever been made at the factory) should still be of value.
Poor rapist, Poor murderer, Poor Bank robber, Poor child molester, Poor creator of expensive Lesney Fake pre-pro models. Somehow the descriptive word here does not fit at all Mick. 'The U.S. Lesney Sheriff', Harold Colpitts, would have removed a Lesney collector from our community over far less of an act as this one in the 70s. God rest his soul. kwakers
kwakers wrote:POOR HARDY BULLSHIT MICK!!!!!! HARDY Willfully took the only known 'ORIGINAL' surviving glazed Caravan and immediately destroyed it without any thought but profit. Everyone here, think long and hard about that, the ONLY KNOWN survivor. Any concocted story to the contrary is a pure lie. Has anyone else ever spent even $100 on a model they desired, and then drilled factory rivets to take it apart within days of it's delivery to them??? Hardy's finished product is a fake, and HE has exposed himself as a producer of fraudulent pre-pro Lesneys. This act of his would be like Jason drilling the plastic base off his newly found Refuse Truck pre-pro to install a stock steel one to that red truck body, or perhaps like drilling apart that new pre-pro 74 Bus to install it's pre-pro interior into a Mint stock colored body. The finished product would be unique, BUT FAKE. NO KNOWN CARAVANS EXIST WITH GLAZE AND RIVETED AXLE ENDS, PERIOD. Thank God for the other three originals coming to light.
Hardy not only looks like a person who destroys GENUINE playworn pre-pros MICK, HE DOES, He DID, and he has no remorse about his senseless acts. He DID make a 'MINT' custom Mick, and it is for sale as one of his impeccable 'originals' for a huge profit. Hardy now has to concoct new stories as time goes on to justify in his own mind why the model he created (Fake variation not even known to have ever been made at the factory) should still be of value.
Poor rapist, Poor murderer, Poor Bank robber, Poor child molester, Poor creator of expensive Lesney Fake pre-pro models. Somehow the descriptive word here does not fit at all Mick. 'The U.S. Lesney Sheriff', Harold Colpitts, would have removed a Lesney collector from our community over far less of an act as this one in the 70s. God rest his soul. kwakers
Kwackers,
I think you missed the heavy sarcasm in Mick's post. I'm sure he was using the term "poor". in reference to Hardy, ironically.
After all, looking at Hardie's price list, one would hardly guess that he is poor.
But seriously folks, Hardy must be slipping a few cogs.
With his experience he should have been able to recognize and appreciate that the entire play-worn Caravan was an ultra special experiment from the Lesney workshops. Instead he mutilated this model in a misguided attempt to do who knows what. Trying to understand his motivation may be an impossible task. The explanations have not stood up to scrutiny or the test of reason.
Now all of Hardie's stock has become tainted and his word is suspect.
In the meantime, we continue the hunt for the next undiscovered pre pro to fill in the missing links in Lesney development.
In all fairness to Hardy/Harvey (which is it?), every story has two sides and, given the principle of innocent until proven guilty, he must be given the right of reply if he so wishes.
However, at the moment the evidence appears to be so damning, it is very difficult to see what (if anything) he could possibly say in his defence.
Idris wrote:In all fairness to Hardy/Harvey (which is it?), every story has two sides and, given the principle of innocent until proven guilty, he must be given the right of reply if he so wishes.
However, at the moment the evidence appears to be so damning, it is very difficult to see what (if anything) he could possibly say in his defence.
Photographs of that glazing unit in both 23cs are clear solid enough proof for most here and we have had a reply via Christian F - the only defence is the right to do what you like with your own toys. The consequences of such public actions are loss of confidence in the integrity of ebay seller Harvey known as Hardy in the 3D world.
SMS88 wrote:Photographs of that glazing unit in both 23cs are clear solid enough proof for most here and we have had a reply via Christian F - the only defence is the right to do what you like with your own toys. The consequences of such public actions are loss of confidence in the integrity of ebay seller Harvey known as Hardy in the 3D world.
Irrespective of what has been said and the evidence which has been produced, he should still have the right/opportunity to defend his actions if he so choses.
SMS88 wrote:Photographs of that glazing unit in both 23cs are clear solid enough proof for most here and we have had a reply via Christian F - the only defence is the right to do what you like with your own toys. The consequences of such public actions are loss of confidence in the integrity of ebay seller Harvey known as Hardy in the 3D world.
Irrespective of what has been said and the evidence which has been produced, he should still have the right/opportunity to defend his actions if he so choses.
I agree, this is every human beings right. Guilty or not.
I cannot agree with Mick or Jazz, Hardy has made his actions very public on this rare Lesney, as well as his various and conflicting tall tales about it along the way. We have had pictures of every chapter in this book on our beloved Caravan's phenomenal discovery in an English attic in a box, and then it's subsequent 'passing' at the hands of Hardy. That poorly painted Caravan with it's factory glaze would have been the center piece of anyone's Lesney collection. Collectors like Tinman and I have spent a lifetime looking and waiting for any example of this crosshatched glazing Caravan to be found anywhere in the world. Previous to this discovery, ALL glazing units were thought to have come out of the Lesney R & D department without ever being installed, and the sole model in that grainy photograph was known to be the only 'Holy Grail' of this glazed Caravan ever seen. For the collector world to have been shocked by ONE appearing on EBay, that was the fulfillment of dreams to many of us 'old men' of the hobby. We now knew that one Caravan with windows had 'made it' when we saw those factory spun roof rivets. No 'Fake' there, a TRUE survivor that would be mythical to any of us in the collecting community. That Caravan could have been the centerpiece of an auction just like the Large Dump Truck was that the Japanese collector had protected so many years. That collector knew that Dump was a singular survivor, just as Hardy knew this Caravan was. If on receiving the Caravan from the Seller Hardy really thought as he now says, he could have offered it on the market again simply doubling his money on it, but PRESERVING it in it's present condition with it's factory glazing intact as riveted in the Lesney factory.
Hardy quickly drilled out the roof rivets to get the glazing that he bought it for. He didn't wait a month, he didn't talk with world collectors he deals with every day about it's survival with the enthusiasm of the new protector of such a wonder, he destroyed it's integrity shamelessly. He revealed his original plan by the swiftness of completion of this careless act.
There was a museum owner who had a very original 1921 Automobile that was produced 40 miles from his business. He proudly displayed that original so that collectors like Bill Harrah from Reno Nevada with his 2500 car collection could only dream about owning it. He wanted 40,000 when the car was worth 15,000, and it had to be sold only with a 200,000 package of overpriced cars if anyone was interested in it. Walt enjoyed protecting it with a passion, just like the rest of his collection. He did have the remains of only the second known survivor of that car hidden at his house that few people knew of. After watching Bill Harrah restoring incomplete cars at a cost of 4-5 times their market value, but to preserve them, Walt got worried. He went home one day and cut the second car's chassis into small pieces, and then quickly scrapped them. He now knew he might always have the singular survivor out of that auto factory in Sidney New York. The motor and transmission survive, the front and rear ends of that second car were buried in his back yard by the widow Grace unknowingly years later. After the passage of only 15 years, few are left alive who know of Walt's shameless act of destruction. His motivation and apparent reasoning? While he was alive, no one else would ever own another example of that Hatfield Automobile. Do aspects of that story sound familiar to anyone? I think they may, because I have related it here for exactly that purpose.
Whatever 'fairness to Hardy' means Idris, there will never be an acceptable explanation for the senseless act of that humble Caravan's destruction. Hardy bought the Caravan, he paid for it, then he quickly destroyed what may have been the only survivor of factory experiments with those windows as far as ANYONE knew. We collectors all suspected the motivation behind the destruction once we learned of it, GREED. The glaze was to be transferred into a Mint body! We all wanted to believe Hardy's listing disclaimers, and we all wanted to know that he is always truthful and honest as he states there, and also that his models are ALL as pure as the driven snow. What about now lads and lasses?? No defense will be accepted here, the story has been shocking and quite clear from the start to this 50 year collector. We all can see the dangerous part of the non-truth, Hardy has it on full display for anyone to see right now. I know a disbelieving collector in Pennsylvania who will now get the rest of the story from me along with the latest base shot of the Fake........Cheers! kwakers
