A fence too far

A few years ago, I acquired a Dutch post-war toy Bailey bridge. It was composed of soft-metal side panels painted green and small wooden planks and small metal pins. The brownish discoloured instruction paper was written in Dutch language that predates 1953 as is obvious from the old spelling form. So, it must have been produced directly after WWII. I wasn't sure what to do with. For some time I decided to leave it as is. As a distant memory of the troublesome liberation of this flat land with its rivers and canals. A toy that was played with to reenact the temporary bridges which were laid to move the tanks and trucks over those rivers and canals. A few weeks ago, I finally decided to do something with it and create a fence from the soft metal side panels. I will keep all the items unaltered, so it can be restored to a toy Bailey bridge at any time. But in the meantime the panels can function as a fence; a fence too far. Now, the whole shape is still rough and I still need to paint the wooden connectors, but nevertheless, I like to have re-purposed this old toy on my layout with old trains.

Toy auction at Bouwman and son

Last Saturday, the bimonthly toy auction was held at Bouwman and Bouwman in Brummen. I was curious about this auction and wanted it to visit for quiet some time, but since Saturdays are busy days I rarely had the opportunity. Nevertheless, last Saturday we went to visit it. We arrived half an hour prior to the start and that gave us the time to register and get an auction number and to walk down the alley and see the items in the display cabinets. We knew why we were coming and we verified the visual quality of the items we were interested in.
At about 11 hours in the morning the roughly 35 men and 5 women sat down on folding chairs and were waiting for the auctioneer to start. Unfortunately the blue Windows screen was stuck and they were busy for another 20 minutes to fix it. Then it finally started. There were 430-something lots and it went pretty fast. First, the lot was crudely described, then the amount was named that was already 'on the table' due to internet bidders. Then the amount was repeated and they asked if someone was willing to bid more on the table, etc etc. Anyway, I was waiting for lot 188, two Paya luggage cars: 1359 and 1362. There were no internet bids, but someone else in the room overbid me, so in the end I got them for 50 Euro. We had to wait through all the lots. And there were so many Dinky toys cars, dolls, VW Bansai vans etc. Anyway, around 15:00 hours the auction was finished. The chairs were folded. The folks lined up and our bidding numbers were called and we had to pay. The total costs were the bid plus 30% provision and VAT. Surprisingly most paid cash. Then we got a receipt and we could form a second queue for the goods and then finally we got the Paya luggage cars. We got them straight from the cabinets and we were allowed to inspect them and pack them back in the original boxes.

These Paya luggage cars are reproductions from the eighties as is clear from the Märklin couplers and their shining mint condition. On Historytoy website the original version from the interbellum can be seen. They are beautifully made and highly detailed. The dark blue carriage with a dark grey roof has CIWL emblems and is named baggage car, PH 1362. The doors open, the two sliding doors slide, it has internal lightening and sprung buffers.

The sea-green luggage car Paya PH 1359 has texts "equipajes" and "correos" on the sides. It has a light-grey roof, opening doors, internal lights and larger unsprung buffers. Additionally curious, the 1362 cars navigates my Merkur curves with ease, but the 1359 car doesn't. Apparently the trucks can hardly rotate since the base plate sidings are much too close to the trucks. So the latter car will probably remain to be a display piece.

In the end we had a great day and found ourselves two beautiful Paya luggage and post cars. I do not think that I want to visit these auctions regularly, since I do need to witness two blokes up-bidding on twenty varieties of VW beetle toy cars again. But it was fun for one time.