Moisture is bad news when hot liquid metal comes into contact with it as it causes blow back explosions within the die. This moisture probably came from the cooling jackets within the die structure.

Here is the upside down view of the Bedford long tray rigid that I have.





The roughness of the die and those shutlines is obvious.




Plane Jane look from the rear.



They still sell well on eBay. Well last time I looked for them.

Jacques Wrote:


Nobleco.
Do you mean that your truck with tow hook has no bosses either side of the hook or that your truck has no tow hook. A large picture of the underside of the truck with tow hook and no positioning bosses would be welcomed if it exist.


My model is the same as the pictures above this post. No Hook and No Bosses, just a plain back end and it has smooth grey tires.

I am unsure of the box differences as I am not really into mint / boxed mostly for budgetary reasons. I have seen the Black wheel variety come up twice in all the years I have been looking. I got mine a couple of years ago. When it arrived it certainly did not look like it had been tampered with, but the axles were so rusty and bent I had to remove them and replace the axles. 


I am certain in my own mind it was an original issue though. I cannot see it not being so, as so many other Dublo models had all three types of wheels.


Jacques would likely be the "go to" guy for information on this though. the box that came with it is the red one but badly damaged. If I remember rightly I sent a picture of it to Jacques for inclusion in his CD.


Cam

Cam

Interesting about the Bedford Flatbed.

My research suggests that there were probably 5 models out of the range to have all three types of wheels fitted and there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast pattern to it.

Hugh. Is that not surprising and is a bit like Matchbox at times.

It seemed to depend on what wheels showed up on the assembly line on a particular day.


Cam

I agree Cam

Cam

There is a vague relationship to time/date of issue. The first wheels were the grey plain, then came the grey treaded and last were the black treaded.

But, as you say, it was a bit of a lottery!!

This is a shot (not a very good one) of a Dublo Dinky diorama I did for a couple of exhibitions some years ago.






The problem with showing DD is their vulnerability to going missing, so it has to be under glass which is a pity. The other thing is the continual use of the original boxes and that is why all of my models are kept in repro boxes so as to preserve the originals.

That is a good idea Hugh about using the repro's for that purpose. I like the diorama and the glass box is another good idea thus keeping those little inquisitive fingers at bay as we really don't know where they have been.Just me having a bit of a joke. Were the buildings from kit forms or did you make them to scale yourself.

Jim

The buildings are Superquick and Metcalfe with a bit of doctoring. The thing about using repro boxes is that the card on DD boxes can be as thin as 0.016" on some of the early models, it seems to have increased towards the end to about 0.019" but it's still not enough to make them sufficiently robust to withstand time and too much handling.

Some boxes suffer more than others so some years ago when a number of people asked me to exhibit my collection I decided to use repro boxes for storage and opening and closing - and keep the originals in a separate (shoe) box for display only, minimum handling and no opening and closing.

Very nice indeed and those buildings look great. Thanks for showing.