andrew barclay well tanks

Back in may a series started about building one of these locos.

Well last week in a junk shop on the south coast I saw a works plate for sale. It was Andrew Barclay No 1609 dated 1918. Twas cast iron painted blue with the lettering picked out in white. Looked genuine I was tempted to buy as it would looked good on the workshop door but £30 was beyond my pocket. Looking on line to see if there was a loco No 1609 I found there were two sellers on ebay offering the identical product. So is there someone knocking out replicas or what. Does anyone know.

The following link might be worth reading - Andrew Barclay plates

Korby,

Keith's link says it all really.

For what it's worth, one of my customers bought me one in the mistaken belief he'd found a bargain at a boot sale. There seems to be a flood of them on the market and they're all the same plate; they seem a bit too thin to my way of thinking and cast iron doesn't seem to be the correct material. There are a lot of fake plates about at the moment, railway related and otherwise.

Most loco's seem to have brass worksplates although the later 1950's Barclays had aluminium - I have two of these, one on either side of a loco! The Railway Executive/BTC registration plates were usually cast iron as far as I am aware.

Kind regards,

John.

As far a

Thank you for your prompt and helpfull replies, quite why any one should produce these fake plates is a mystery.

Decent iron castings would not be cheap so the profit margin would not be much. Pity really as it would have looked good on my rather scabby wooden workshop shed. If I visit the shop again and he still has the plate for sale will try to beat him down on price. Many thanks Korby.

Korby,
This eBay seller http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/26cm-Cast-Iron-Blue-Oval-Andrew-Barclay-Sons-Co-Railway-Train-Wall-Sign-Plaque-/261366014104 has them listed at £12.95 which gives you a target for your bargaining.

Described as having "slight chips to give an antique look", currently the seller has 4 available with 79 sold, so they seem to be very much a mass produced item. One wonders why out of all the thousands and thousands of loco plates that the manufacture chose to reproduce this particular one.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 10/09/2015 23:31:08