Photographed a few months before the blog
started and while I was still getting my head round digital photography they
aren't the best shots here, but they aren't the worst either!
As far as I know this configuration was
never issued as a retail item, even with painted crew.
The canvas tilt or cover is in an unusual
deep turquoise or what interior designers call aqua! (that's 'water' in
English!), while the wagon is a wood-brown, not so wacky, along with the wheels
in a different shade.
The undercarriage is another more-'sky'
blue, and the accessories are also browns, with a set of unpainted crew,
missing reins and whip. The purple vinyl was - however - used within the Wild
West range toward the end; some Deetail
Mexicans and Apaches spring to mind?
The team though is fully painted, but -
again - missing the reins. The Gun team had by then (1972) been given this
team, and if not (happy to be corrected!) the existing Stage-coach had been
using it for some years.
The feeling is the team was taken from the
production line of one of the other sets and added to this otherwise test-shot
mock-up. Other clues are the thick layer of dust on an otherwise un-played-with
model and the lack of arrows on an otherwise undamaged model.
In the first two catalogues issued with the
wagon ('72 and '73) the wagon is shown as brown with a cream/neutral/manila
canvas tilt, but only as an 'artist's impression', from the 74 catalogue
onwards the familiar dark-blue wagon with pure-white cover, cream tools/barrel
and a black undercarriage is always photographed.
In both cases the wheels are red, the
undercarriage going red in '77 to match. Both (wheels and frame) dun in '78 and
dark brown in '79. How these changes played-out in the shops in anyone's guess,
or even if they all made it to a retail release, but brown wagon and turquoise tilt
doesn't seem to have ever featured.
I suspect therefore that this was a
test-shot, maybe playing with colours, but more likely just a 'check-fit', and
probably came from one of the big Britains
'archive' sales in the early part of the new century. I may even have been told
that at the time, but if I was - have forgotten so in the intervening years!
Whatever - it's different!
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