Factory Colour Samples

You ' re correct Stfan,
the source is the Christie ' s South Kensington auction of 14 September 1995.Then,
the collection of Geoff Moorehouse,
the first owner,
was auctioned with lots of pre - production factory trials,
tools etc.etc.Geoff worked in the Meccano factory as a product designer in the 1970s,
responsible for the initial design of Dinky Toys.Another batch of colour trials
from
a former Meccano factory draughtsman was auctioned on 27 September 1996,
also at Christie ' s.Remy - Meeus must have done some successful shopping on these occasions (
as he did for instance at a Phillips auction on 19 April 1989,
where
he bought possibly all first owner Julien Loffet ' s wooden prototypes
).Kind regards,
Jan

I have to disagree with some of the comments here guys.I have just acquired the Christies catalogue
from
the Fine Toys auction of Friday 27th September 1996.Whilst it contained a lot of drawing,
mock - ups,
colour trials
and working ideas none of the samples on my spreadsheet listed earlier were in that auction.If they were they are not listed in the catalogue.[img] / images / sites / default / files / old - forum - images / Colour_Samples.jpg [/img] Some of them are listed in Ramsey ' s but unfortunately the information in there is not accurate.What I am trying to establish is how many paint samples with tie - on labels are in existence,
it must be more than twelve.Dave

Hi Dave,
I ' m sorry to have apparently caused some confusion.I confirmed the 1995 auction as an important source of these items.The subsequent auctions I mentioned were examples of auctions which also included some of those basic production items of Meccano ' s,
of which so many came onto the market in that period,
and which were not necessarily the auctions on which the particular items in question (the labelled colour samples) were sold.Kind regards,
Jan

Hi Jan I am not being critical,
I asked a specific question
and everybody then went off in a different direction ' I still am no nearer to finding the answer.I will post the question in the Journal to see if an answer can be found.Dave

Mok-ups vs colour samples vs pilot lot models.Michel Viville was 19 years old whe he joined the drawing department at Bobigny. He gives us some light about the different types of models. When it was decided to make a new model, the very first thing done was a mock-up often wrongly called a prototype. There are different types of mock ups : the wooden ones and those,made from modified existing models like this 2cv ref 538 with non opening bonnet which was the mock-up for the # 500 with opening bonnet, jewelled headlights and open tilt. These models could be finished in any colour which was available at the time. These models were often sent to the artist who made the drawing for the boxes and the catalogues. This explain why very often the drawings are in a different colour from any of the models sold.The second stage was to make the master model carved in wood but this is outside the scope of this post.[img]/images/sites/default/files/u184/1425-MatraJaune.jpg[/imgWhen the tools had been made, a dozen or so models were cast, painted and assembled; again the colour was what was available on the painting line at the time. The aim of these pre-production models also called pilot lot was to verify that all the parts fit and that the moving parts worked properly. A good example is this yellow Matra 630 which of course could only be issued in French Blue only.[img]/images/sites/default/files/u184/1403-MatraOpen.jpg[/imgWhen the first Matra M530 was assembled at Bobigny it was found that there was an interference between the bonnet and the headlights. The Dinky R & D manager called Matra to discus if there was a mistake somewhere. The answer from Matra was that they had not yet opened the bonnet when the headlights were raised; the actual car was modified but it was too late for the Dinky.The colour samples are different from the mock-ups or the pre-prod models. Only one or two were made with any colour. The British colour samples had identifying labels as discussed widely above but the french ones did not have labels. It is then extremely difficult to say if a model with a veryrare finish is a colour sample or a pre-prod models.