522, 922 and 408 Big Bedford Lorry (1952-63)

Some photos made of my maroon/fawn Big Bedford Lorry. A good and boxed example, which I reshod with new (but original) tyres yesterday, because the originals were browned and brittle. In my eyes this model, which I have owned for 25 years already, made a revival and looks like new again, so I made new photos for my catalogue. Having this example in hands again after a long time, the numbering strikes me. The box is a 408 (of 1956), the fawn rear, however, has the early pre-1954 number 522 cast in, besides, showing clearly a smaller 5 and bigger 22. The red chassis shows a small rectangular raised cartouche. What was there initially? Kind regards, Jan

Jan, as you can see in the accompanying photos, the original number 522 was placed on the chassis of the Bedford Lorry in the place of that cartouche, instead of on the cargo bed.This allows the chassis to be used as a basis for all other versions of the Big Bedford, like the Heinz versions that appeared in December 1955 as number 923 as Dinky Supertoys with a Dinky Supertoys base. And with the cartouche without number on the base, exists both a Dinky Supertoys base and the Dinky Toys base. According to GBofDT the Big Bedford Lorry was given 9-9-53 sales number 522 and 15-7-55 sales number 408, while the 522 was already introduced in MM of October 1952, almost a year earlier!! A proof that production dates and annotation dates on the Meccano drawings do not always correspond.In the renumbering around 1953/54 it was initially given temporary number 922, which is a Dinky Supertoys number, after which it got number 408 around 1956 to come in the Commercial Vehicles range. As far as I know the 522 was always a Dinky Toys with a Dinky Toys base. Strange that the 522 was always a Dinky Toys and the 923 suddenly became a Dinky Supertoys. Another proof of how Meccano Liverpool struggled with the classification.That's how I explain it.Kind regards, Jan Oldenhuis, 30 October 2020

Thanks, Jan, for the trouble taken to sort this out! Strange that Meccano took the trouble - apparently in the course of 1955 - to replace the cast number, but not change it, neither into 922, nor into 408, Kind regards, Jan W By the way: congratulations with the Bedford Article in The Journal!

Recently Jan W wrote something like : It is never that simple. For the Big Bedford trucks, there were two different dies : On the first die, there are two ejector marks at the very rear of the chassis. This chassis is always marked 522 and was fitted to the 522 trucks only. On the second casting, the die has been modified, the ejector marks have been filled in, they can hardly be seen and new ejectors have been tooled not at the very rear of the chassis. This chassis is or is not marked 522, it was fitted to the 522 and 922 On the second die, the word DINKY is not line up as on the second die, this is an evidence that the second die has not been modified, this is a new die. This chassis is never marked 522 and was fitted to the 408 trucks The third die has been modified to read DINKY SUPERTOYS, this chassis was for the the Bedford van Heinz only. So we have two dies and two variations. Comments and additions welcomed. Jacques

Jacques, this is a very nice discovery. Research like this is what makes the forum so interesting and valuable. Many thanks. Jan Oldenhuis