Accessory Pack Road Signs – possible new variation

[Idris]

Way, way back, almost lost in the mists of time, I remember Dick (Kwakers) making a throwaway comment in one of his Lefora posts that he had once found a box of Accessory Pack road signs with striped poles. These were bought new from a normal retail outlet during one of his trips hunting for obsolete store stock, so there can be no doubt regarding their authenticity.
Recently, two interesting lots have gone through Ebay.
The first was a boxed set of road signs, all of which have striped poles.

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The second was set of road signs which contained a single striped pole example, but one having a white (rather than a black) decal area.

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I think these striped poles almost certainly represent late pre-production examples which leaked out of the factory with the initial release to the shops, the stripes being dropped from the normal production issue for reasons of cost, although it is also possible that after a day or two of snail’s pace production, management decided to drop the stripes, meaning that such examples might also represent a very limited initial production run. (Adding the stripes would be a lot more time consuming than adding trim to a model because the signs would first need to be placed securely in/on some kind of rotating assembly in order to enable them to be spun whilst the stripes were created.)

Besides Dick, has anyone else ever come across these striped poles? Does anyone else own a (part) set? Can anyone shed any light on the black/white decal area variation?

[Sir_Matchbox_96]

Hello Idris,
that's an interesting story. I never saw any single white striped Road sign, neither in Germany nor in German ebay.
I recieved my first road signs this year from kay, of course the standart, non-striped, ones.
Looking at the second listing with only one striped road sign, it's very hard to tell if the decal is damaged, or white paint is above the decal.
As all of us recognize, the road sign of the second listing looks different to the ones from the first listing. Besides of the (maybe) white decal area, it also has a stripe between plate and triangle added.
But we can be sure that non of these striped road signs looks absolutely the same, because the white colour was hand applied. So maybe an employee felt free, painting the decal area, too.
That makes the thing a lot harder.

I think these striped poles almost certainly represent late pre-production examples which leaked out of the factory with the initial release to the shops, the stripes being dropped from the normal production issue for reasons of cost

I agree with you in that fact Idris: Painting the triangles red (+painting white stripes), applying 8 different decals, wrap than into a sheet of paper and put them into a box seems a lot of work for eight small road signs.

Maybe someone from the forum got one of the auctions?

Greetings,
Linus

[Idris]

I've just had a look at the feedback from the second listing. Unfortunately, Ebay has now seems to be anonymising buyer IDs in the feedback listings (when did that start?), so there is no way of contacting the purchaser and asking him/her to share their knowledge with us.

[AJR]

It also allows seller or his friends to bump up his own items.
I recall many years ago a seller (a high street model shop actually) had a Lotus Lokstation G scale turntable for a start price of 99p with collection in person only. The RRP of this item new was near on £1,000. The bidding went up rather rapidly and at the end of the auction, the item made £800. However, the highest bidder then decided to pay and so it was offered to the next highest bidder (a friend actually). He bought it at £790 but I looked into it deeper for him as I smelt a rat. Their was only two bidders ding donging it out. The other bidder used the excuse that he would be unable to pick up personally. Further digging and the postcode of the other bidder was a very close match (within a few streets) of the seller. Further, if only two bidders, surely the "shill" bidder should have been removed and the next highest offer should have been just 99p. Friend was happy to pay the price but I started a long battle with eBay to sort out the seller who I could prove was shill bidding on his own auctions (even on some I had been bidding on). Not long after, eBay revised their system whereby it made it harder to track sellers activities and therefore easier to scam the customer. That seller is still on eBay and tends to realise higher than normal prices for its auctions.

[kwakers]

My striped signs are very uniformly done, not the work of a hand painted artist, but done with a mask I am sure. There was just a single unsold boxed set with the signs wrapped in their original factory paper in the store we found ours at. U.S. Pioneer Lesney collector Pat Lamagna and his wife had 'cleaned out' all other discontinued models from that store, so I suspect he may have had several other sets of these that were sold to East Coast collectors in the early 1970s. kwakers

[Idris]

My striped signs are very uniformly done, not the work of a hand painted artist, but done with a mask I am sure.

That fits in with my impression of the boxed set sold recently on Ebay - note the slightly greyish tinge to the white bands and the way they fade out at the edges rather than finishing abruptly. This is why I think they must have had to be placed into some kind of rotating assembly/jig for painting - very time consuming for such small value items.

[Tinman]

Unfortunately, Ebay has now seems to be anonymising buyer IDs in the feedback listings (when did that start?).

They've been doing that for quite some time now.

[Idris]

I've been thinking about these striped road signs. Although it is tempting to define them as late pre-production/initial issue, does the evidence really point in that direction?
First of all, the TuT listing photograph in the first post clearly shows a B3 rather than a B2 box. Second, when Dick was buying up obsolete stock, is it credible that he should find initial release examples still on the shelf?
It is quite possible that TuT simply stuffed these signs into a spare box, and it is also possible that Dick's examples represent stockroom clearance. However, it is also possible that these striped poles were issued later in production, and I would therefore like to ask all members who have examples to post details of the accompanying box type (if still present) using Pat's B2/3/4 coding.

[motorman]

Is it possible that TuT added the stripes Hugh?.....after all that is how he acquired his pseudonym.

[Idris]

Is it possible that TuT added the stripes Hugh?.....after all that is how he acquired his pseudonym.

No, I don't think so. Looking at the original listing photographs (which I saved) again, it is clear that the stripes have fuzzy edges. I therefore think that they were mask-sprayed in some way, presumably with the mask stationary and the sign rotating.