Rarity List

QUOTE It is interesting, for example see what Roger Gillham thinks, or what Phillippe thinks about his own tastes, but I mean that it do not have to follow.
Hi Jose,
I think that a listing is possible indeed. Problem is that Europe is very insular, especially the UK (after all it IS an island... ) and in UK, most collectors know only of... Scalextric or only care for Scalextric items, a minority bein aware of or interested by "other" brands.
I bet you that if you ask Roger Gilliam about the Pactra brand, he will tell you that they make paint.
The difference with the smaller number of American and to an extent, Japanese and Australian collectors, is that they are interested in the whole lot, a perfect example being... Bernard Sampson.
Or me.
But as I repeated, I am (personally) LESS interested in Scalextric or other Euro brands because first, there are already plenty of documentation about them, second, they are addressing a TOY market, while I am more interested in the HOBBY side of it, and last, there is little documentation other than period publications about American, Japanese, German or Italian brands inspired by the American production of the Classic Era.
If you look at my 5-minute attempt to a listing in the opening posts, it DOES have Scalextric items. A Gilliam listing would have little else other than Scalextric items.
Point made that a good listing is possible, if the factor "Rarity" IS followed by the factor "Desirability"?

What is" rarest"? I guess we need some definition of the terminology. In my opinion, rarest can be applied to a pre-production model (of anything), be it a slot car, in the sense that only one exists. In this case, I could include my COX Ford GT40 MkII, but since nothing of its true origin is known, I'll let it out of this matter.
So rarest can be a pre-production, or some model of which very few were made. In the case of very few, if you are willing to pay the price, and of course, a lot of money, you can get one. OK? So, in my humble opinion, "rarest" can be applied to something, even if it has been produced in some quantity, that you cannot find anymore and that you wouldn´t sell because it is impossible to put a price on it. This is, for instance, the case - for a 1/1 car- of the yellow ´65 Le Mans "Ferrari 275 GTB/C Speciale" also called ´65 GTO, chassis # 6885, a very special 275 competition Berlinetta built for FIA homologation, with a 250GTO front end -or nose. Only one still exists, this particular one, and the owner, who does not want to sell it, says he has a "one car collection". This can be a definition for "rarest".
With regard to models, I would say, at least for me, that the rarest slot car in my collection is the Estrela Ferrari P2 in kit version, mint, in its display box (see pictures on my site):

http://www.paceautorama.ppg.br/detail.asp?...84&fid=2947

Let me explain my way of thinking. In a country that does not respect its old historical houses and monuments, that demolishes them to build ugly, common and conventional new buildings, that has almost no memory, That has been a Portuguese colony for a very long time for maximum exploitation reasons, why would "toys" be preserved? If you think that COX made millions Ford GT (all combined, that is 1/24 and 1/32 in Kit or RTR forms) and Estrela managed to produce only some 100,000 of it (this is a very small local quantity). Estrela slot cars were, most of the time, copies of existing bodies and usually adaptations - mechanically - of existing other brands. In addition, people here were never so fond of assembling them, and when they (these slot cars) were somewhat used or broken, they were just considered as "old toys" and thrown away most of the time. For the abovementioned reasons, it is very hard to find a good model in reasonable conditions. I agree the slot car I chose is not the most beautiful model. But I think this Ferrari kit, mint in box, is extremely rare, and one cannot put a value on it, because one would not find another one in such condition. I, personally, have never seen another one, in my opinion, it is priceless, and I wouldn't sell it anyway. As you can see, "rarest" is very difficult to define!

very enjoyable thread all - thanks!

if i may add in a question ... and this will surely make some of you cringe but what are your thoughts on 'rarity'
when it comes to a very common car in a seldom seem color??

should that be up there on rarity list?? just curious - as some of you know i like to collect cars in color variations - i don't ask myself why - i don't know, i just enjoy it

and i suppose i should use the word 'collect' loosely, as for me they are toys to be tinkered with - i don't consider any of them to have any great value other than for my personal enjoyment - to each their own, but around here nothing stays 'mint in box' for long!!

i suppose in thinking of this as i type it - first one would have to be sure the 'color' was actually in production and not a test shot ... ...

for instance i have a revell ferrai in dark green - only one i have ever seen - and have no idea if it is a test shot or a 'rare' production version?

revell's blue firebird was a production version - i have seen maybe three in last decade ... but they must have produced many many of them -
indeed i suppose it is in large part subjective - although there is certainly no arguing with many of the cars listed here!

sorry if this was already brought up in the thread - was just thinking about it and thought i would ask others their opinions

cheers, Ron

Hi all.
Just want to pass a quick comment regarding Europe being very " insular " as per Phillipe's post.
I have a few slot car mates here in London with individual collections exceeding well over 600 cars each. I mentioned U.S brands such as COX, Classic etc.. to them on a few occassions & was puzzled with the reply.. a reply from seasoned collectors mind you.... they had no idea what COX is ! this I percieve may well be a fairly common trait here on Scaley Island.
One factor I feel is of worthy discussion is that of compliance in regards to rarity.. in this, I guess I want to mention, is there a strong mutual comprehension of a car bordering on rarity.. eg. several prototypes that surface and drop out again.. but are still known to be in circulation. Being in the U.S, I'm sure you are aware of the sporting collectible company Beckett. Beckett is the ultimate destination for professional grading, pricing and news coverage devoted to all things collectible (basketball cards mainly).
I'm sure this has been blasted and discussed before but is there an appraisal system for slot cars & kits.... a way of having ones cars professionally graded...
How Rare is Rare .. well lets take a little peek & see what we can see.
Of course there will be critics who jump up and down spouting .. This is preposterous..who dare even consider such . .Why that's blasphemy.. any more & we'll have you drawn & quartered... this I presume will open pandora's slot box but a car naturally looses a certain amount of rarity as its condition deteriorates.. or am i mislead. it may merely looses value..but still holds its rarity. You might be standing there with only a guide flag after Fido (the neighbors dog) has just chewed your ChapE2 up into little wee pieces. (nevertheless... still a very rare guide flag)
On a more personal note, I really enjoy the way this thread is holding a dynamic sway to 'RARITY' & other factors that I am sure will be bought to light as the discussion delves deeper.

ENJOY

on a lighter note ... Approx. 2 months ago I had five boxes of rare cars sent over from Japan... Only three have arrived the wait has become unbearable..... I think I can kiss them good bye

How long can a package sit in customs ?

Hello Pace
Congratulations for your collection and your page like that of Bernard are my list of favorite sites slot.

I take for granted, that you know the car of which you show us is mentioned in the catalog of the Brazilian Estrela Autorama year 67/68, p. 4.

Clearly, as a collector of world slot, your favorite brands are above those of your country. I also belong to this profile of collector who prefers putting cars in his collection endangered native, this should be above that our cars are useless, poorly constructed or ugly. I think that for us, besides being a pleasure is a must.

Take this opportunity to ask you a question outside the wire on the cars that you like: Can you confirm that the following models are replicas Autorama 1:32 the following brands? .

Ferrari 156 GP sharknose>> Scalextric

Chaparral 2>> Strombecker
Lotus 38 GP>> Strombecker
Ford 2J>> Strombecker

Lola T70>> Cox
Ford GT40>> Cox
Cheetah>> Cox
Andorinha/la cucaracha >> Cox

Ford Mustang>> AMT

Alfa Romeo Periscope 33>> Fleischmann Auto-Rallye

Porsche 907 langheck>> Faller club racing

I have not had the opportunity until now to have them before me to prove it.

Thanks

Manito,

A single unit called a car does not imply that it is pre-production. It's just a possibility.

Neither a pre-production car mean that it must be unique, and then I explain:

in the plastic injection, can not be injected only one unit, a temperature dependent on certain things and achieve optimal heating. That is dependent on many things including the type of injection machine, but for the cases I know where I could talk with up to 4 Spanish manufacturers, the minimum injection could be more or less about 25 units.

Another thing is to do 25 units and 24 units shred the factory, then survive only a single unit. Another thing also is that the injector is not clean, for example with traces of an earlier black, white then injected and as a result have something awful (or great in the opinion of other people), a sort of white chocolate cookies with black chocolate stumbles.

Speaking of units manufactured for me it makes sense to me makes sense surviving units. How to know this ... is not possible.

My personal method of cataloging and I explained above, I make use of statistics and my scale is not linear but logarithmic. For the less common cases of protected species and the most extreme cases with extinction as I call it, where there are only 5 units known. In this case, I meet normal production cars, very low but normal, or prototypes.

The line is too narrow and when there is insufficient information, there are cases that sometimes do not know if what I have ahead is a normal production car or prototype, but other times I can even know because I have information.

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As for your green GTO, in my opinion can never be considered as a prototype, because it has no distinct element regarding the final production is related to a non-final shape of the car.

What makes it unique moment in its strictest sense (the only unit in green that I know so far) is that it has been injected in green.

I guess since you may have noticed, but to him that no, I have to say that color in which it is injected is the same that were injected 2 saloon cars Revell.

To be a unique car that is not listed in any catalog, itself has a wealth of information:

injected into the same car only green Saloon cars
injected in England (we know from above)
injected between 1964 and the second end of the year 65 (you know the type of tray, the 2nd type).

It may be a pre-production car of English (but not prototype) can be a test-shoot (in both cases should not have survived) or may be a real production car, an extremely small production.

The latter possibility will be stronger and the stronger the longer you study the case without finding more units, or conversely, if they are finding more and more units will be the stronger hypothesis.

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I have not counted the units of metalic blue firebird 400 of Revell, but it´s a normal ( low ) production aber normal.

I'm not 100% sure but I think that comes from english complete kits to assemble, with all the rest equal parts with the exception of metal wheels. A good unit is located precisely on the page of Pace

I think that when we talk abour rarity we should separate the objective side from the subjective one..

Strictly talking, rarity is just dependant on how many slot cars (from a normal production) are left around. It doesn't make any difference if they come from a very well-known and high-quality American manufacturer or from an obscure Hong Kong-based toy producer. it's just about numbers, that's it .

So, rarity, in a strict sense, is an objective value..but there's also a subjective side, expressed by desiderability and the related money value.

Desiderabilty expresses how many people desire (of course ) a given slot car, and of course the highest level of it is present when a big manufacturer produced (for whatever reason) a car in very small numbers. In fact, in this scenario, a huge amount of fans of that well-known producer dreams to get that particular slot, so the desiderability index jumps up and so the relative market value. At the same way, if a quite small, old, forgotten manufacturer produced a slot in even smaller numbers, usually the desiderability (and so the prices) will not go that high, and this just for the simple reason that many collectors are not even aware of the existence of that particular brand, and even less, of course, of that slot car.

Two simple examples:

Scalextric 1/32 T59 Bugatti: huge amount of Scalextric followers around the world and just about 50 cars left..so, everyone that collects Scalextric dreams to get one and price are without controls.

Behco 1/32 RTR Ferrari: Swedish brand pioneer of slot racing and first Scandinavian manufacturer starting in 1958 until the beginning of the 60s..almost forgotten brand, even in Sweden , with almost no followers..this very slot car is in my collection, together with a RTR Vanwall of the same brand, and so far are the only two RTR Behco known to be in existence..ah, paid for both less than £100 . And to me, they really are a piece of slot racing history, much more than a Bugatti, even if they cost a fraction of it..

Cheers, david

I agree with what you say David,

if we separate all the target values and we are left with the subjective, the rarest pieces are those that have a minimum number of units seen for some will be 2, 1 or 0 if you have seen in a catalog and think they will Fortunately at least see them live sometime in their lives.

The rarity factor is to me a factor that motivates me, but it is the only base myself only on the rarity factor is too cold for me, I do not like, but if we speak of the highest rarity, then we speak of a minimum sighting.

I also think that pair of Behco as more interesting for the history of slot car the Bugatti Scalextric, but not for the fact that cars are so far unique, but because they have even more history by becoming the first car in Sweden.

In contrast there are other unique cars that do not consider having more than the Bugatti history of Scalextric. There are many car brands promoted "unique cars for hire" with no other real purpose as he has said Philippe, contemporary Spanish brands are an example, although I respect what each one collects, of course.

QUOTE (slotcar7 @ 22 Aug 2011, 14:52) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>So, rarity, in a strict sense, is an objective value..but there's also a subjective side, expressed by desiderability and the related money value.

David, I agree with the split, but up to a point. Nobody, but absolutely nobody knows for sure how many numbers are left of any one slotcar (How could you possibly count them?).

The "objective" part of the equation is therefore subjective, the number is no more than an educated guess from a single person's point of view. What is rare to one may be common to another.
For example, pre Ebay, Eldon cars used to be rare in Europe and were priced accordingly, now they are common and prices are much lower. In reality, they were never rare.

QUOTE Behco 1/32 RTR Ferrari: Swedish brand pioneer of slot racing and first Scandinavian manufacturer starting in 1958 until the beginning of the 60s..almost forgotten brand, even in Sweden , with almost no followers..this very slot car is in my collection, together with a RTR Vanwall of the same brand, and so far are the only two RTR Behco known to be in existence..ah, paid for both less than £100 . And to me, they really are a piece of slot racing history, much more than a Bugatti, even if they cost a fraction of it..

Now, would it have helped you to know the Behco cars were "rare", "really rare", or "really really rare". I guess not, to you these cars were desirable because of their history, whether there are 1, 2 or 22 left in the world cannot change that.
The numbers left may change how much you are prepared to pay for them, but only if you are in competition with other collectors who also understand the significance of the cars (As in an Ebay auction).

Joel

Eldon?

You're kidding Joel, right? Please tell me you're kidding... actually, now that I think of it, I saw an Eldon Lotus 19 here at Retromobile this year, and the guy was asking something like €80 for it, as tho ebay never existed... I tried to explain the situation, but he really didn't want to listen, or maybe thought I was trying to get it cheap (which I wound up doing on ebay a week later - not cheap, just the market price).

Anyway, good comments. While we'll never have an exact count of cars left, we do get a general idea thanks to ebay - much more representative than when we were dealing through VSRN, the NSCC and other swap meets, etc.

The other thing that has happened is values evolve: 15 years ago, all vac-formed bodies, even 1/24 Lancer Can-Ams, and pro-type scratchbuilts were worth barely anything - not the case today! And some of the Scalex cars have gone in the other direction.

There is also the Forum effect: I'm sure that thanks solely to posts by Loose Salute (Hi Kev), Jouef values have skyrocketed in England!

Don

Hi Joel,

there's some truth in what you wrote, but i don't agree on the rarity being in some way a subjective value like the desiderability..

iI'll try to better explain my point: in my opinion, you're right, we don't know the exact number of a given, rare slot car still around, and we can call this amount x. At the same time we know that there are 2/3/4.. known cars, and let's call this number y.

For sure y=x or y<x. But the empirical experience tells us that usually it's y=x or that, in the case of y<x, the x-y difference is always a quite small number, usually a single digit one.

Of course sometimes we can find some aberrant values, but these are just exceptions, because if a given car does not appear on ebay, swapmeets, auction houses, etc. in big numbers, but always in small numbers and distanced in time, that's an empirical proof of its rarity, and so the amount of hidden specimens of it should consequently be quite low or even zero.

Just if a collector, many years ago, had bought the 99% of a small production slot car, and after 50 years he wanted to sell it, just in this case, i repeat, your remark of a sudden increase in the available numbers would really have some ground, but i think this is more a school hypothesis than a real one..

So, rarity, in my opinion, is an objective value even if not fully determined, but with a narrow range of oscillation..

Cheers, david

QUOTE I saw an Eldon Lotus 19 here at Retromobile this year,


Now that's really rare. may I have it please?

Don, I am SURE that you meant "23", right?

Dear Jose,

Thanks for your kind words about my collection as well as my website, yes I do know that the Ferrari Kit is in that catalogue, I have all Estrela catalogues. As a Brazilian, and an Italian descendant, I like to collect all the cars that were made by Estrela, including every color, set, catalogues &#8230; all of it, but I love all the other brands as well, vintage or new. Curiously enough, some people only like vintage slots, but when you look closely at the Scalextric Lotus 49, or the Pioneer built (Bullitt, for instance) cars, the Top Slot Limited Edition Mercedes 540K, and even the Ferrari 156-85 Formula 1 from Ostorero, how could I resist to buy them? For me, it is almost impossible to resist. Of course, if I have to choose I do prefer the vintage ones: Monogram, Cox, Russkit, Fleischmann, Märklin and so many other brands, including Estrela. Regarding to the Estrela cars you are right, many of them are copies of different brands,
The only exception is the first Corvette and the Auto-Rama home set, wich was produced under license, originally an A.C. Gilbert item, USA (cars and home set), most of the other cars were copies with adapted mechanical parts: In the 1/24 range: Chaparral 2C (Cox), Cooper F1 (Russkit), Firebird (Garvic), Ferrari 330 P-2, Ford GT ( Monogram)
In the 1/32 range: Corvette ( Gilbert under license), Ferrari 156 Sharknose, Jaguar (both from Scalextric) Chaparral 2C, Lotus 38, Ford J (Strombecker) , Ford GT, Cheetah, Andorinha/Lil´Cuc (these last 3 from Cox)
Mustang (AMT), Alfa Romeo 33 ( Fleischmann ), Porsche 907 (Faller). The Lola T 70 was a mix from COX and Polistil. The Formula Junior, the Interlagos Berlineta (in fact an Alpine A-108) and the Puma were Estrela´s own design.
In the HO range: the Ferrari 250 GTO and the Ford J (both from Aurora). VW 1200 from Faller, all the other models were Estrela´s own design.
The oversized Formula 1 cars from 1972/1990 were all Estrela own design. The Estrela factory had a super skilled machine shop employee, that could make almost any copy with a fairly good quality and after that, they just adapted their own (available) mechanical parts to the bodies.
It is important to take note of the fact that Brazil was, at that time, completely isolated and governed by military guys, after the 1964 Coup d´État, and nothing could be legally imported. This is why the copies and mechanical adaptations.