Original Steed brollies and how not to pack a Corgi Gift Set

I seldom win at normal auctions. That is because the amount I am prepared to spend is too low and that is, in turn, due to the extraordinary additions for fees, tax, packing and more tax. A £200 bid turns into an invoice for £348! (30% fee, £30 packing/delivery, 20% VAT). Now £200 might have been a good price, a bargain even, but £348 more often than not isn't. So I do the sums and set a maximum to take account of all this - and lose.

Just occasionally, on a rainy day at some village venue with no internet connection, I am successful and once or twice I do win over the internet just by good fortune. Two of these occasions have been when I've won an Avengers Gift Set, each with the early green Bentley, original boxes in reasonably good condition but lacking the original packing pieces.

Whenever I send this set to customers, whether the models are lovely or chipped or the boxes reproduction or original, I wrap the cars separately and placed away from the box which, itself, is wrapped to prevent damage. I know what damage can be done if this is not done as the first set I won some years ago arrived and I found the box card had been pierced several times by a Bentley mudguard moving around and chips had been made to the white Lotus paintwork.

So on this second occasion I wrote to the auction house and the packing company they recommended, very clearly requesting that they take care to separate the models and the box.

Here's what arrived:

Although they had gone to great lengths to protect the exterior of the box from damage from the outside, I could see as I opened the box that everything was inside the GS40 box. The reason I started taking photos at this point was that I could hear and feel a rattle, movement inside the box, so was already concerned.

Inside the well-wrapped outside packing you can see here that the two models are not where they should be and seem free to move around.

All that had been added to the box were two loosely crumpled pieces of thin white paper, leaving the models plenty of scope for movement.

As it happens the damage was nothing like as much as I had feared. The cars had uprooted Mrs Peel and that had torn the flap where she stands, worn some of the wheel placement holes more than they were before and produced a small chip on a rear mudguard of the Bentley. I also thought that movement had rubbed some paint off the Elan S2 text in the casting but I think that had been deliberately done by the owner. It actually looks quite good and I thought it was a transfer at first, before I looked more closely.

The box appears to have survived. It was already a little worn but has all its flaps and, apart from some possible dents here and there, I cannot really complain about anything in that respect.

I have written to the people concerned and expressed my annoyance that my instructions were not followed and hoping that they'll be more careful when packing similar items again. I'll ask for a little compensation but don't expect much as with models that have been played with it is always difficult, in the absence of good auction house photos for comparison, to show fresh damage.

On a brighter note, I now have three two original umbrellas! 

I had two one before and this set had the third another. It is not at all easy to distinguish originals but I think I can now do so. Replacements are either metal, which are obvious, or plastic and there are two things to look for in the plastic types: the detail in the furling. handle and the tip. Originals have quite fine and detailed furling marks where the material wraps around and the tip is well-shaped. The reproductions I've looked at often have almost no definition and poor finish at the point. Both appear to have remnants of plastic from where they were detached from a sprue. Originals at the top, many reproductions at the bottom.

You will see two originals on the left are quite clearly different under magnification. I have to admit to believing that the third was original too and only now as I study the enlarged images have I realised that is not the case. So I still need one more! (And I must edit the listing I made yesterday.)

Because it is so difficult to distinguish these in a display of a Gift Set I have offered a substantial reduction in the set price for anyone who is content with three reproduction brollies and maybe then I can keep the two until a third appears one day.

 

Bubble-wrap and Sellotape!

I have just spent about ten minutes struggling to unwrap a Ford Thames Airborne Caravan. It was a nice shade of lilac and mauve but it was a long time before I could see that.

The problem was not that I had the wrong glasses on, nor was there any alcohol involved nor was it midnight and I'd forgotten to turn on the light. No, the seller had wrapped the damn thing in many layers of bubble-wrap and taped each layer with several inches of clear Sellotape. Not only did this produce an extremely tightly packed item, reminiscent of the inside of some golf balls, but also something that proved well nigh impossible to unwrap!

I receive several packages each week and, more often than not, the senders have to add Sellotape to bubble-wrap. I don't get terribly annoyed with most as they just add a small piece and I can, with care, remove that. I still find it totally pointless and some modest swearing is usually involved but this latest package turned most of the air in the village blue. Indeed, neighbours would have needed to consult a medical dictionary on more than one occasion.

This was truly annoying, frustrating and downright stupid. Totally unnecessary and it actually nearly resulted in damage to the little model as I fought to remove the Sellotaped bubble-wrap. I needed a sharp knife to cut through the bubble-wrap as efforts to find where the tape might start proved entirely fruitless on every occasion as I slowly whittled down the layers. As I gouged my way through the bubble-wrap I did have to take great care not to slice through the mauve paintwork or scratch a window. The final layer was wrapped so tightly that the suspension was under some pressure and you could almost feel the axles returning to their correct resting point as it came away. Had this been a Mustang or Imp then I dread to think of how the brittle plastic suspension would have held up.

So this is a plea from the heart, and also on behalf of my neighbours, especially at this time of year when the delicate ears of young children may be offended.

Please stop adding Sellotape (or any other brand of ruddy clear tape for that matter) to bubble-wrap. It is not necessary. 

Just roll up the model in the stuff and pop it in amongst some newspaper or whatever packing you might use, seal the box and all will be well. The bubble-wrap will not, if you've packed it reasonably tightly, unwind itself on the way, even if it has to come from Kneitlingen in Germany where the roads are not always smooth. The model will survive, quite happily in un-taped bubble-wrap. I will then be able to do my bit for the plant by re-using it. Add Sellotape and large areas of the stuff become instantly unusable and finish up causing me even more problems as I have no idea which of the many recycling bins it should go in.

I trust I have made myself crystal clear.

I shall now lie down and try and calm myself before the post arrives in the morning.