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Hello,
I do own various 256 East African Safari VW's.
Recently I sold one of my spare rhinos to another collector.
In order to send him a really good one, I compared all of them, believing there would not be any variation.
Visually indeed, there wasn't.
Nevertheless one of them had a little bit different "touch and feel" : the surface did feel more "silky", surface was more "natural" than the typical "plastic" feeling.
I decided to send him this one, because unless being 100% sure I had only originals - now I struggled a bit and sent him the "silky" one, believing to be on the safe (original) side.
I do own one, which is a repro for sure, surface being much brighter in colour - easy to identify.
Question:
Ar there rhino replicas existing which are so close to the original, one can not distinguish?
Is there a one and only item in order to easily distinguish an original versus a "perfect copy"?
Did Corgi itself change the material thoroughout the production?
Best regards
Wolfgang

This model was made for about Four Years, not really long enough for major changes to the tooling for the Rhino, unless the original was badly damaged and a new one was sourced. The accessories for Corgi Toys from this period were supplied from home or away plastic injection moulding companies such as the passengers for the Corgi 'Classics' Daimler coming from Hong Kong and once you rely on a supplier so far away, who knows what goes on in those far away factories.

On past experience with Corgi Toys, I believe all your Rhino models are genuine as is the same with the figures from the 'World of Wooster' and 'The avengers' sets which I collect, both have different looking figures, so clearly painted by more than one person on production.

Ghosthunter.