Seeing blue when my screen says green.

 

"Oh dear," I said in a note to my friend Andreas. We share many stories of success and failure in looking for Corgis and comfort and congratulate each other as appropriate. "I've bought yet another deep green Land Rover and a broken trailer. . . but at least the tin Chipperfield's canopy will be useful." I had seen the Ebay listing above and rapidly made an offer without looking very closely, thinking it might be the elusive and valuable 351S model. The seller had responded quickly to accept my modest offer which tended to endorse my view that I must have made a mistake - seeing blue when I am shown green. I did look again and, indeed, convinced myself that I had definitely made a mistake and that was when I wrote to Andreas.

When the parcel arrived a few days later I was in no particular rush to open it and left it on my desk for some time while I unpacked some others. Finally I thought I might as well take the items out and see whether the trailer could be repaired and think of something to do with what may well have been my 104th deep green Land Rover.

Imagine my delight when the bubble-wrap fell away and a genuine, 351S RAF Land Rover rolls on to my desk! I did actually cry out something like 'Yay!' quite loudly and rushed to tell my wife all about it. Yes, neither my eyes nor computer screen had deceived me on this occasion and I have a really very nice example of this extremely scarce model. Yes, it has been played with, it has lost its hook, RAF roundel and plastic canopy but it is real and I'm happy.

Even in this picture it still looks very much like a normal 438 in deep green, doesn't it? It is only when you put the two together that the difference becomes clear.

The framed rear window is an important identifying feature which can often distinguish between a real model and something someone has made to look like one.

The base is just like any other 438 or 406S with normal wheels.

I do wonder whether there are many other Series II RAF Land Rovers which avoid attention and arrive almost unannounced to surprise collectors.

Blue and rather rare again

What is it about blue and Corgi Toys? This has come along and you're probably already saying That's the wrong shade of blue and you'd be quite correct. It is neither the super rare RAF blue nor the RAC blue that were around at the time. However, look underneath and you'll see that the original colour was, indeed, RAF blue and so this I firmly believe is a genuine #351S that in good condition and a nice box would be worth four figures.

Unfortunately, it looks as though this had an accident that may have scratched the paintwork and smashed the rear screen and some kid has at some stage made a pretty reasonable job with some stripper and the old Humbrol. The base has not been removed. The tyres aren't original but they look pretty good so I'm not worried about them. I may add the RAF roundel but, even in this state, it is such a scarce item that I wouldn't risk messing up the paint further by attempting the remove one blue and put on another, tempting though that is!

It seems impossible to know what to price this at so I've just left it on the site inviting 'offers'. And if no-one wants to fill that hole in their collection I'm quite happy to keep it with the other 55 Land Rovers I seem to have accumulated! Oh dear, did I say 55? Heavens.

#351S - the base is intact and that's definitely RAF blue original paint inside the wheel arches.