Hi Corbs, I like the hat by the way! It's an interesting analogy that you have used. I'm not so sure that you would be quite as complacent if you had bought a car that you really wanted in the colour that you really wanted to find that the dealer had allowed the manufacturer to overspray it in a slightly shiny, dirty brown colour obliterating any details, badges etc. My complaint is not about the wagons, I think they are excellent but when it comes to the weathering there has been an obvious communications breakdown between Hattons and Oxford Rail as Hattons didn't receive any production masters of the 'heavily weathered' version. My complaint is that the issue has been passed straight on to the customer. As I said previously these wagons have been long awaited for my own layout and for a club layout based on Peak Forest with fully interlocked signalling etc. I have started to 'improve the wagons' as in my earlier post but just in case you missed it I'll attach another photo of one of my pristine hoppers which I had previously weathered to match in with the Mercig masters plus a reweathered 'lightly weathered' hopper and a reweathered 'heavily weathered' hopper. Yes, perhaps I'm old school, and perhaps I shouldn't have expected much in the way of weathering for £1, but the Mercig masters promised so much. I'm now going to renumber all of my heavily weathered hoppers (9) and then work through renumbering my other 9. Hope this helps to clear up the issue.