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I know the rules about posting details of ebay listings whilst they are live but this surely merits a mention.

Too good to be true? What do you think?

I just love the opening line of the description of all ebay listings this seller has:

"I grew up surrounded by Matchbox cars because of my father’s life-long collection. Today I have the honor of getting his treasures back into the hands of fellow collectors…"

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Matchbox-13D- ... 3ce73d2a13

This is the same seller who is listing the SF#12 in blue

I am more interested in the blue Land Rover. I have been looking at it for a little while now and stopping myself from bidding on it for right now.

Tony

I will pass on the reverse color 13 Wrecker, the base rivets are showing metal fatigue all around the outside of both of them. As on any rarity, if certain areas are not factory perfect, as in the lack of perfectly spun base rivets on this one, the model does not meet my standards as original. If this were a stock colored Wrecker, we would probably not give these rivets too much concern. The outer ends of any rivets can appear that way if the factory operator applied way too much pressure for too long a period of time while spinning them. It did happen, and we can find a few 'stockers' with similar looking base rivets on them. When buying a rarity for large amounts of $$, I like to see perfection on all factory rivets and axle ends as well as casting details and colors. A double standard? YES! Cheap mistakes can be displayed on a shelf with a smile. A questionable expensive rarity we buy always remains questionable, and I find it impossible to smile and be happy with them if they are not a perfectly done factory example. That is how I have collected and always felt about any Lesney rarity, others may not agree.
After seeing those base rivets, I never even bothered with the body colors or axle ends, but did see the late boom and winch ejector were proper castings for a '1970' Wrecker. (Why did he bother with having 1965 in the listing at all?) kwakers

I agree with "Kwakers" regards the very rare models having to be perfect in all areas, because of the large sums of money involved and that we do all accept lower grade 'Common' models in our collections because of the lower sums of money involved. It is however a shame that we may have in-advertantly passed on some very rare models, simply because of a slightly inferior rivet or axle-end finish and that is going to be very difficult to overcome!!

Ghosty.

P.S. Had a look at the reverse wrecker and for me, I don't like the look of the rivets or the very clean axles for the age of the model.

Someone must be willing, it has a bid on it.

It looks like it could be one of Joe Stone´s Christmas 1969 reverse wreckers although my eyes are drawn to the stickers white not looking 100% right

As requested, I have moved the blue SF12c Safari Land Rover discussion to a separate thread (here).
All the discussion regarding how best to unpick the two topics has been deleted.