Birthday bids

Vectis Auctions recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of Corgi Toys with a special sale including four private owner collections: The Leicestershire Collection, The Essex Collection, a private owner collection and a Mettoy/Corgi Former Employees collection. As such, you can imagine there were some stellar pieces up for grabs.

One of the most unusual pieces was a Corgi No. 191 1/18 scale McLaren M23 Formula 1 Racing Car ‘Texaco-Marlboro’. Although the standard No. 191 isn’t that rare (in fact one sold for just £40 in the previous lot) this one was unique because the model had been fitted with a figure of famous Formula 1 driver James Hunt. This is believed to be the only one ever produced because the vendor had this specially made by the designer at Corgi and then fitted. In mint condition, there was plenty of interest in this piece of Corgi history and it sold for £1,100.

Talking of Corgi history, the sale also included the opportunity to pick up some black and white proofs/publicity shots from some classic Corgi models, including the Batmobile, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and lots more. Grouped into mixed lots, most sold for around the £100 mark and would certainly look fantastic in a frame.

Elsewhere we were back on fairly familiar territory with some top quality pieces. One of most impressive was a Corgi No. GS40 The Avengers Gift Set including John Steed’s Vintage Bentley with figure and umbrellas, plus Emma Peel’s Lotus Elan S2 (white, with black interior) and figure. Condition was near mint and it sold for £1,140 – way above the £300 to £400 pre-sale estimate.
Another sought after Gift Set was the No. 38 Rallye Monte Carlo set including a BMC Mini Cooper S, Rover 2000 and Citroen DS19. Now, just bear in mind this lot sold for £1,050 (double the low estimate), you may be surprised to hear the conditions were generally excellent plus to near mint but the Mini had slight surface corrosion marks to the skid plate. This begs the question how much a mint set might have fetched.

Finally, seeing as we’re on a bit of a Gift Set theme, was the No. 36 Oldsmobile Tornado that came with a Gladstron Sportsman Speedboat on Trailer ‘Swordfish’. This time the condition was, as you might expect, near mint to mint with a mint polystyrene tray and near mint outer sleeve. Estimated at £200 to £240, it sold for £624.