514 and 917 Guy Van Spratts (1953-56)

This was the only Guy Van I owned as a child and it is still my favourite.
 
 

Hi Dave, my rating 1-6 would be (in attractiveness, not in rarity): 1. Slumberland 2. Lyons 3. Spratt's 4. Ever Ready 5. Weetabix 6. Golden Shred Only 1 and 4 present in my collection! Kind regards, Jan

You are similar to me, it is not about rarity, or value, it is the one I owned and it will always be special. Dave

Now I see your reply, still, no automatic email notification on this received! Jan

Good to see the Guy Vans are alive and well! My favourite is the Weetabix version - again the one I had as child. The others followed later in my collecting. The following in order of the best in my opinion. Weetabix, Golden Shred, Lyons, Spratts, Ever Ready and Slumberland Michael

Moved from 917 to 514

This is just a test reply to see if it works. I also really like the Spratts version, but like Jan, my favorite is the Slumberland, followed by the Lyons.

Hi, Some time ago, I did a restoration on a very chipped Spratts Van and was surprised to find the van section of the toy was originally painted yellow of the Weetabix vesrion even though it was originally the Spratts colours. Ron F

Also in reply to Terrys request regarding the hand painted red strip underneath the text strip transfers some photos in Christmas style of my Spratts . Looking very closely I can conclude that mine has the same hand painted strip, applied after application of the transfers. Although very neatly done, the top line is seen waving accross the lower red line of the transfer print. It is hard to find an explanation for that procedure, because this hand painting had to be done very accurately, the width of the lower red line marking the limits within which the top of the hand paint strike was allowed to wave. The hand painted red surface of mine is very smooth, so very hard to see the difference with a sprayed paint layer, except for the waving top. Only by manipulating with the light and the position of he model it is possible to show both the differences in shine and shades of red of hand painted and transfer print areas. Kind regards, Jan

Jan---Thanks for your followup post. To me, this is one very strange, possibly unique happening with Dinky Toys. The only explanation I can fathom is that all of those Guy Spratt's Vans were made in one large run or batch, and that the original painting did not include painting that lower strip all the way to the bottom.....that it was like the upper stripe, narrow, and would have had the cream color below. Maybe it was always supposed to be red all the way down, and they then had to hand paint each and every one of them as they show. If they had been completed in different batches, surely they would have changed the spraying mask to include that area. What is surprising to me is that no one has bothered to report or discuss this before........

Hello Terry I must confess I never looked that closely to my two Spratts vans - until now! So, I got both out, and you are quite correct with one of mine similar to that described by Jan. My 514 (with unfortunately no quality control stamp) has the red transfer stripe top and bottom seen when changing the light source, with the added paint to the bottom of the box van, the care taken to keep the line straight not taken, as one can see the wavy line of the red paint-work that moves into the red transfer line. My other example has no discernible bottom red transfer instead the red paint is very carefully applied with extreme effort taken to keep the line straight. I am wondering if it was a later issue 917 when something happened with the original transfer that somehow lost the red lower line. As for not spray-painting this area? There must have been a good reason why this process was not used, one possibility is matching exactly where the mask should cover. I am sure there is at least one member who can offer a plausible explanation. Perhaps it was easier and simpler to have one of the ladies apply the red paint, judging by the skill of them with other models. (I have a classic photograph of one young lady with two paint brushes in hand, touching up or adding silver to a model!) Kind regards Bruce (150) #730 27 December 2015