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I picked this up recently. It is a GPW 17a as Nick's variation code 3, except it has the early decals (i.e. no outline). I've checked Nick's 17b listings and GPW appear to be only known with outlined decals.
My initial reaction was that it was a fake, but there's nothing obviously amiss with it. (I did think that the axles were a little bright, but they're the right shape and the crimps look standard. I've found photographs of a 17b with identical axles and I'll add a couple of photographs of that in a separate post for clarity.) Furthermore, it was sold as a playworn no. 17 Remonals Van at no premium.
Comments please!

17b with matching axles.

Hi Hugh
It's a very interesting conglomerate of stored components. Early body casting 17a, GPW from 17b and it seems to have FC axles from early 17a. Perhaps someone has been doing the warehouses cleaning by Lesney . I'm sure at 99.99999% that this a little bit odd model is genuine.
Antonin

I would greatly advocated amendments by the codes by 17a. The code 3 should be changed to code 15 or code 16. This model was chronologically made ​​as the last one and therefore should have the last code in a row.
Antonin

Diecast wrote:I would greatly advocated amendments by the codes by 17a. The code 3 should be changed to code 15 or code 16. This model was chronologically made ​​as the last one and therefore should have the last code in a row.
Antonin

I agree.

Hi Hugh
please has your model FC axles or is it optical illusion only?
Antonin

Diecast wrote:Hi Hugh
please has your model FC axles or is it optical illusion only?
Antonin

I'll check this evening, but I'm pretty sure they're dome-headed.

I have checked the photo from John Walter on the Nick´s 17a side once more. In my opinion, it is not body casting with no infill on the sides (blue or red variations), but it seems to be the variation with the infill on the left side (and perhaps on the right side also). That meens it should be the variation between red and green models. It would be nice to have more photos, that I could determine the variation more precisely.
Antonin

Hi Guys.
I believe George has a similar piece, it is a 17a casting that is exactly the same as a maroon 17a, It was a leftover casting that was not assembled until the 17b was in production so it got the GPW normally found on the 17b, Georges one differs in that it has the outline decals and Hugh's one does not, I think we can now date it to exactly the time when the outlined decals were introduced and both types of decal were in use.

Hi Nick
I fully agree with you. I would only make ​​a small correction in the type of body casting. In my opinion it is very probably the body casting C (according to Stannard). I would like to ask Hugh to check the body casting by his model. I suppose it will be the same body casting (C) as by the model of John Walter.
Antonin