John Beugels

So many dumb prices... So much fail. Difficult to pick an immediate lead contender. Look at lot 1323.. a whole flock of dewoitines thrown in with some random caravelle. 60 Or 1314 with three autogiros tossed in with a few shooting stars. Ooh 80 Getting expensive. Erm, just a note about 1157. The plane and box may be original - but I made the flash and pennant.

Well I hope you're right. Experience has it that traders love these multiple lots and hoover them all up. Individual bidders might only want one or two pieces out of a group, but a trader will happily outbid them because they can sell off all the pieces individually. A dealer won't hesitate to throw down 300+ on a batch with a bunch of good dewoitines and things because they'll look to sell each for 100 Dealers have a ceiling and generally don't bid without fair confidence of doubling their money. So, for example, a dealer will look at 1322, count up the planes... ballpark 60 for each and half that... so say their top bid will be about 300-350. That's likely to be well clear of what a private bidder will be prepared to drop on a lot..... although the same private bidders might have bid 100 for each of those dewoitines individually. But it's the way Vectis have these uber rare 30s models randomly thrown into a lot with a basically worthless 50s caravelle - makes me think more incompetence than crookedness. Of course I hope for the best for their client but I just checked with a couple of dealers who apparently already knew about this auction and are popping corks.

I agree....I also looked through all the pre-war items listed and could not believe how low most of the prices were that were listed. Not sure if the market has fallen that far, or is that reflective that there are few serious Dinky airplane collectors......realized prices will be interesting! Best regards, Terry

What I find about Vectis is that they are not experts, they do not know about the rare variations and do not advertise them. If they did, I think that some prices would go up. Also they copy some errors from Roulet's books.I spent a whole day with John, he was pulling fantastic Dinkies out of his drawers one at a time and explained to me all the details and variations. We had a great time together.I am proud to have recorded a lot of what John tought me and to be able to broadcast this around as a tribute to John. Yes, it is so sad to see such a collection broken up and once more the drawings will be sprayed world wide and the information that they contain will be lost for many years if not for ever.

David T John was certainly the greatest specialist in Dinky Toys aircraft. He did a lot of research and shared it very kindly. He wrote many great articles in The Journal and you can read them here /journals John is certainly a great loss to theDinky comunauty. Jacques

Last 23rd of August was the anniversary of John's passing away. I sent Ina a remembrance email, which she appreciated very much.

Never met nor talked to John but feel very privilaged as I was at the auction, not realising at the time the importance of the collection, but did buy some of his items. i will know, when looking at some of my models, will think of the pleasure and research his collection contributed to himsef and still contributing to we collectors. The present castodian David