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SR sign ??

Discussion in 'Railwayana' started by sir gilbert claughton, Oct 30, 2017.

  1. sir gilbert claughton

    sir gilbert claughton Well-Known Member

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    what do you think of this ? have you seen another

    points for - paint colour - countersunk screws. letter quality

    points against plate size metric 27 x 15 cm . lack of weathering . slightly odd choice of words. no "by order"

    if genuine it has been kept inside , possibly in a signing on lobby - like Seaford which had residential property adjacent to the line .

    probably another fake but.....

    23032471_1926536030921608_2792129446739425773_n.jpg
     
  2. tor-cyan

    tor-cyan Well-Known Member

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    Sorry its a fake, I have one on my shed wall.
    Bought it for 15 notes from local junk shop owner who had several other ones, GWR do not enter signal box, LNER close gate, and the ever popular Irish railways.
    He said he got them from the estate of an elderly railway enthusiast and that they where the real deal, having explained to him I may have been born yesterday but I had stayed up all night reading the hand book,and showed him pictures of other fakes. he admitted he bought them from an Indian suppler who had assured him that they where real.:rolleyes:
    So from an original asking price of £75-£80 I walked off with the southern one for £15 and very nice it looks next to the other fakes I have :)

    Colin
     
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  3. sir gilbert claughton

    sir gilbert claughton Well-Known Member

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    i concur

    pal of mine bought it in a boot sale . he wont have paid much , being a tight git
     
  4. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Apart from the well "established" trade in fake clocks and cast iron, it is now spreading to non-ferrous objects. Makers plates supposedly by Manning Wardle are amongst these/ There is a Facebook page about Railwayana Fakes. Well worth joining.

    Paul H
     
  5. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    Manning Wardle plates and a number of other worksplates have been available from Procast for some time (their cat. is on line) so it is not surprising that some enterprising individuals try to pass them off as the real thing. The greater nuisance I find is items which are mis- or "economically" described in auction cats, which one perhaps can charitably ascribe to ignorance in some cases. For instance very rarely do auctions describe SR nameplates as "skimmed" (many Arthurs, Schools and Nelsons plates were skimmed to remove the service dents) yet this is very important to most buyers and is not always evident from the image. A number of SAR cabsides are replacement plates, so genuine in the sense they may have been carried, but not the original plate. There was a German worksplate at a recent auction which appeared to be a casting from a casting, rather than an original, which presumably was not noticed by the successful bidder. If you are new to an area of the market, take advice, the new kid on the block is an easy target for the less scrupulous. And if you think the auctioneer is your friend, he isn't, he is the agent of the vendor. I like the anecdote I was told of one of the major dealers many years ago in the early days of railwayana collecting who, when someone to whom he was well disposed enquired about a particular plate, told him "This one isn't for you.":rolleyes:

    Does the facebook group you mention allow people to report fakes prior to an auction? There is a temptation to "trash and cash" if so.
     
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  6. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    I think it does but this seems preferable to keeping quiet and watching people be cheated. It is valuable as pictures are posted showing items which have been distressed and other telltales to watch out for.

    PH
     
  7. Mogul

    Mogul Member

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    I bought 2 on ebay. One for £8.50 and another for £12 when the first got nicked. I've always considered them to be just a modern bit of fun and hadn't considered them to be attempting to pass themselves of as original as I've never come across anything remotely similar that they would purport to copy. But then there are some unscrupulous people out there.
     
  8. Mandator

    Mandator Part of the furniture

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    Why on earth did BR think collectors wanted skimmed plates?
    I have owned both a skimmed and an unskimmed King Arthur and certainly the unskimmed was far more attractive. On the Skimmed plate the lettering was reduced to less than a mm in places. I also owned a B1 plate and this had been skimmed but on the edges and back only.
    I was very suspicious when purchasing but the provenance seemed to check out. Apparently it was purchased for display on a wall but having a curved back caused problems so it was skimmed. Shame really. I was able to compare my plate to the plate mounted on other side of the boiler and the casting marks matched up, even to slight imperfections in the pattern. Even to this day I still have that slight nagging doubt however.

    Re SAR plates. I managed to persuade my late father to desist from bidding on a nameplate because the detail in the Springbok (part of the plate's detailing) looked too indistinct. Having seen pukka plates I was very suspicious as railways always seemed pride themselves on the quality of their castings. This plate was being sold thro. an auction house and I must admit I was surprised it sold for the sum it did.

    Don't think old hands are immune to being caught out. When bidding starts people can get caught up in the buzz.
    I am still unconvinced by many of the "rare" shedplates that seem to have cropped up of late. Yes, many might be genuine but I have seen newly cast plates being sold in the late 70s that would be nicely weathered now.

    Even paperwork is being replicated. I understand that carriage prints have been passed off as the real deal but are modern "repros" on similar paper stock.
     

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