MrWolf

Quite. Had a quick look: "Vintage Dandy annual, 1980, £40 + £2 postage. We have about 100 such comic annuals at the back of the shop, 3 for a fiver is the going rate!

Wasn't that given away with the introductory copy of one of those £2.99 for the first month then £17.99 for the next twenty five years magazines? There will be loads about.

Having spent time working in Africa, I once convinced someone that there was a town in Somalia called "Dafuq" Comes in handy in cases like this.

Bury Port & Gwendraeth Valley Railway. It had a very tight loading guage, even the Great Western had to abandon their standardization and hack about their locos and brake vans. A similar problem was had by the LMS in the midlands with the Leicester & Swannington Railway. They kept a pair of original spec Midland Railway 2Fs going right to the end as nothing much else would fit through Glenfield tunnel.

I wonder if it's possible to un see something? Those pictures should put anyone off taking drugs...

Top to bottom, pre WW1 style galvanized cask. Galvanized type with angle iron ribs, used for highly flammable liquids at least up to the end of WW2. Galvanized type with applied shaped ribs showing side plug. Common type for oils and kerosene WW1 onwards, this is a 1930s example. Note the pressed reinforcing ribs of the upper and lower sections.

The 55 US gallon oil drum was first patented in 1905, replacing a type of steel barrel that looked like a wooden cask, which cost much more to make and tended to leak. They became popular in Europe during WW1 through military use and became commonplace. Early ones often have a plug halfway up from the top as well as a drain and vent plug in the top. Hope that helps. Rob Wolf

They do, it might be better to commit that cardinal sin and simply not bed it in as you would with your masonry buildings. BTW, I have found a wills pagoda in my stash, it might have to be done! There used to be some really good pagoda kits on the market, complete with windows etc. Naturally, the invoke a bidding war on ebay...

I suspect that the raised base it sat on would've been only the thickness of a single brick, slightly inset to allow rainwater to drip away and not collect around the lower edge of the corrugated iron, otherwise it would rust like a bean tin in a salt mine. Standard practice with steel buildings. The black paint around the bottom is more likely to be dark brown, it was used occasionally on items that saw a lot of traffic such as the bottoms of engine shed and signal box doors. The bottom of that hut, once it did start to rust, would receive attention, rather than a full repaint.

Not at all rare. Worth £10 on a good day if it works. It's actually a pistol drill although you could get an attachment to convert it to a pillar drill. I remember borrowing one from my great uncle back in the 80s to drill out a broken stud in an engine. It would drill a hole to Australia, they were so well made but capable of breaking your wrist like a twig if you didn't respect the amount of torque. I still wince when I see one and remember it snatching!

The first coaches I ever had were 20 year old Triang clerestories, detailing them is what got me into modelling. I've also got an old K's A31, it's in the queue for surgery. As for the weight, I'm glad I used 9mm ply for my layout boards! I think the only brown vehicles you can't get new are syphons C and F. An old K's plastic syphon F just made £41 on flea bay. Don't get me started on the demise of the likes of Coopercraft. You could do a lot with them once you had binned the wheels.

Knowing my luck, he will have and SWMBO will hit buy it now. She's rather partial to er, unusual bits of antique furniture. She'd then sit cross legged in it like a skinny Buddha and eat her breakfast. (we've had that conversation)

They're still some of the most useful coaches for bashing into representations of actual prototypes. I cut and shut them, fit Dean bogies, detail and paint them. The panelling is really well moulded, considering that the moulds are approaching 60 years old. Despite the popularity of the GWR with modellers, we are no longer well served with kits for wagons and coaches, which is probably why old K's and D&S kits are fetching daft money on eBay. There are plenty of these about in rough condition for not much money. I can't justify spending a fortune on etched kits and as with some of my other interests, I like bringing things back from the dead!

Tempted to message the seller and ask him if when he nicked this from Alcatraz, did he get the electric chair that goes with it?

We hope you're daft enough not to do your homework and simply wave money at us, because you're a serious collector and you've got to have it no matter the price in case someone else gets it?

It's dealer obfuscation for "second hand".

Exactly, it's just like buying a new car that's an "ex demonstrator" it's got 500 miles on the odometer and dozens of Joe's have kicked the tyres. Hence, it's up to a grand under book price. POA is short for Price Only After We've Felt Your Wallet....

Amen to that. In fact, whenever I see superlatives used in the title I immediately think that the vendor is using diversionary language. The vintage vehicle trade is rife with it and my other pet hate £POA

Ebay can be odd like that. Demand for certain items seems to ebb and flow and some stuff is unsellable. I had 3 attempts at selling an original, NOS ignition unit for a post 1968 Triumph Bonneville. I was asking for a starting bid of £15, just to get rid. Other people were asking £90 buy it now. Unfortunately, it may be original, but they weren't the most reliable thing and everyone fits a modern electronic unit. Ding. No sale. Just because it was old and unobtainable, didn't stop it being junk.

Gentlemen, I think we have a winner! This is the O gauge version.

Well done, I no longer have a provender wagon to check. Another possibility is that it's some kind of cask wagon or acid jar wagon, kits have been made for both over the years.

Yes, that's why I felt guilty about mentioning the pinch bolt on the balance weight!

I could be wrong (and I am sure someone will point it out if I am!) but it looks suspiciously like an old Coopercraft GWR provender wagon, a large capacity vehicle designed for delivering hay bedding to goods yard stables in the days of the company's cartage services. It would probably have collapsed in a heap if filled up with that much coal. Upside is there would be a lot of top quality kindling as a result...

True, I should probably have just said: "There isn't half some junk on eBay" but then I would expect someone to dust off the "One man's junk..." chestnut. I recall thinking that the van looked a bit empty before setting off to an autojumble and filling it up with odds and ends from my scrap pile. No prizes for guessing what sold first for way more than it would have made over the weighbridge!

Perhaps because society is so terrified of offending anyone these days what he means by "Excellent build" is more like "Hasn't fallen apart yet" ? I am all in favour of such warm and cosy language, nowadays I don't refer to someone as "butt ugly", I call them "visually offensive" instead. Disappointingly, despite my efforts, they still act all offended and generally butthurt. You can't win.