RW51c DOUGLAS

[Ergomatic]

Hi,

In january I found that on Ebay. Since that I checked the playworn RW51c-s on Ebay and about 70% has a normal or minor damaged label.
The size of the label is the same 40x7mm, without board 39x5,5, the distance between the start of D and end of S is 36,5mm, the character size is 5mm. The surface of the label is gloss and shows a minor wear.
What is your opinion?

Thanks, Peter

[johnboy]

Hi Peter, we discussed these some time ago but I can't find the thread on the old site. I think Harvey and Hugh (idris) found this label variant, but I can't remember what the conclusion was, Hugh will know I'm sure.

[Idris]

We've discussed these before, but I think it was late in the life of the Lefora forum.
The jury's still out on this one, with it either being a promotional for/by Douglas (unclear whether it is a Code 1 or 2), or it is something that someone has done privately (in which case it is a Code 3). If memory serves, there are now about ten of these known, about half of them mint (they came from the same dealer who bought them all together) and the rest playworn which seem to have come up for sale individually. I think there has even been one through Vectis. The fact that a significant number are known, both mint and playworn, from a number of different sources spread over a significant time period is, for me, a pointer that we are looking at some kind of Lesney- or Douglas-authorised promotional rather than the survivors of a fleet of lorries created for e.g. a model railway layout (c.f. the "Muir Hill" 2c Dumper). However, no hard facts have come to light and, at the time, we were unable to establish what the Douglas fleet colours were and what the company logo looked like (i.e. was it white letters on a dark background, or dark letters on a light background).
Here's a photograph of a slightly cleaner example:

[kwakers]

Very nice model Ergomatic!! Your example shows consistent aging of it's labels on this play worn example, so it gets my vote as authentic, as does this new variation that has only been found in England so far. Numi has already proved that these black background labels are dimensionally correct by overlaying them with stock ones on the LeFora Forum, so they are now genuine in my mind. Whether they are treated like the promotional Beales models or not, matters little to me. Luckily I forget who was the collector who did not buy me a mint one of these at an English Toy meet 3 years ago when a dealer still had 3 of them (?) left.......Dreams can come true, but only if you open your wallet and buy them when you see them. Even if they were Fake, some dumb Santa Clause believing Caveman Yank would have bailed that collector out on one of these oddballs at a good profit, not mentioning my name of course......... kwakers

[numi]

This is a very interesting "variation" Ergomatic.I passed on 2 of these Douglas tippers yet they started to fetch some good prices and increased interest.Perhaps there is something that these buyers/collectors know which we dont.
Nice find.
numi

[Ergomatic]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply Hugh, John, kwakers and numi!

So I do not make a howler if I change my avatar for that Dougla Tipper.

Thanks again and greetings from Hungary!

Peter

[GHOSTHUNTER]

"Idris" wrote..."Wev'e discussed these before"...I've just been into the 'Lefora' site to grab this information and I was thrown out three times, each time with a Malicious page warning!

Will try again when its dark, that seems to work sometimes.

Ghosty.

[johnboy]

"Idris" wrote..."Wev'e discussed these before"...I've just been into the 'Lefora' site to grab this information and I was thrown out three times, each time with a Malicious page warning!

Will try again when its dark, that seems to work sometimes.

Ghosty.

The site seems to be riddled with problems and very bad response times (I've had warnings of rootkits/worms/trojans/viruses etc) so be careful out there Ghosty. I tried searching the other day for things that I knew were there and no results were returned. So in desperation I searched for "matchbox" and guess what, zero results