The Top 20 Scarce List

I thought it might be helpful to look at just what the Scarce List Top 20 would look like. This excludes the commercial lorries and military equipment and specific colours. I have had to put the Pop Art Mini at the top as it seems to command such crazy prices that it must be the rarest although I have not seen any production figures. You do sort of wonder whether it really is that rare but I will go along with it for now.

No.	Model	Produced
349	Morris Mini Minor PopArt Mostest
406S	Land Rover
500	US Army Land Rover	17000
351S	RAF Land Rover	25000
281	Rover 2000TC	48000
242	Fiat Ghia 600 Jolly	49000
305	Mini Marcos GT850
216M	Austin A40	56000
322	Rover 2000 RAC Sun Rally	66000
422	Bedford CA Van 'Corgi Toys'	67000
214M	Ford Thunderbird	72000
333	Mini Cooper S RAC Sun Rally	73000
421	Bedford CA Van 'Evening Standard'	74000
277	Monkeemobile	82000
423	Bedford CA Fire Tender	83000
356	VW Army Personnel Carrier	95000
202M	Morris Cowley	98000
403M	Bedford CA Van 'KLG Plugs'	99000
404M	Bedford CA Personnel Carrier	99000
211M	Studebaker Golden Hawk	99000

Land Rovers take positions 2, 3 and 4. #406S I didn't even realise existed and it isn't even mentioned in many of the reference books and, whilst I don't know the production figures, I reckon it is a reasonable guess to say it will be pretty damn low. If you missed my earlier post, #406S is a yellow Land Rover Mk 2 that preceded #438 by just a few months.

No.3 I do have figures for and I have a boxed #500 Land Rover but cannot tell the difference between this and #357. So the first one I have numbers for and which is identifiable is the RAF Land Rover Mk2 with interior and suspension. It came out at the same time as #406S but disappeared shortly afterwards.

The Rover 2000TC is the metallic purple Whizzwheels one and will surprise quite a few people but it really was not around long and maybe that paint flaking as it does led to an early cut in production.

The little Fiat Ghia 600 Jolly is the yellow one that mysteriously gets issued separately to its sister #240 and stays around for just a year or so at most.

The next one I have added in as another guess. From observations over the last year or so I can honestly say that I have only seen one or two of these for sale anywhere. It is the Whizzwheel version of the #341 model released a little earlier and was not around for very long at all. The Mini Marcos can be found in white and, very rarely, blue in a set with a car transporter. I have a feeling that the blue might even top the list if we were looking at individual colour versions of cars but, without any information on that at all, I cannot really know.

The short lived and not particularly popular Mechanical versions are all near the top of the whole list and six make the Top 20, topped by the little Austin A40.

Both RAC Sun Rally cars make it, putting two Rover 2000s in the Top 10! Amazing.

Five of the trusty Bedford CA vans make the Top 20 too. That could explain why I found it quite difficult finding them myself and they all featured in my 'wanted' list well into a year after I started trying to get everything. Indeed, I am still looking for #423 Fire Tender.

None of the Army stuff sold brilliantly - if I had included equipment and heavy lorries etc, then the Top 20 would have been mostly military items of one sort or another! As it is, just the little VW Microbus in Army Personnel Carrier form makes it with the two Land Rovers.

The big surprise for me is the Monkeemobile making the Top 20. As a big fan myself of the TV series and (most of) the band's releases I wouldn't have thought its sales would have been particularly low. I can only guess that it was a bit late appearing. The Monkees were at their peak in 1966/7 but this didn't emerge until December 1968 by which time the band were not getting the best of promotional support.

Remember that this is not a list of the most valuable Corgi Toys. That list would have all sorts of rare colour variations of what might be otherwise quite common models and I have not thought about the various commercial editions, like the yellow Colemans Mustard mini and vans with special brand names on. It's just about production numbers and none of these listed were around for very long.

406S

500

281

305

216M

422

214M

333

421

277

423

356

403M

404M

211M