When I was growing up my parents could never afford the 'real' thing, and I had to be content with secondhand Triang- Princess Elizabeth, a Jinty tank engine, a couple of short blood and custards , a few goods trucks and a Canadian caboose!

It was not until twenty years later that I bought my first Dublo loco in 1976 from a tiny shop in Hastings called Bohemia Junction. It was run by a lovely guy called Derek Ierston and was about the size of  a couple of telephone boxes. Derek smoked a pipe and the shop was always heavily laden with the sweet scent of Ogden's Flake or some such tobacco. One day as I passed the shop I noticed a loco sitting in the window which for some strange reason I just had to have. It was nothing exceptional. An unboxed 2 rail 2-6-4 tank 80033 that had been weathered and had its numbered altered to 80034. I seem to remember it cost me a fiver.

As my collection started to grow I decided to explore pastures new and placed a small advert in the classified section of the Bexhill Observer. I only got one reply, from an elderly gentleman who told me he had some 3 Rail Dublo which he wanted to sell. I took my next door neighbour with me to Salisbury Road, Bexhill, and our eyes almost popped out of our heads when we saw the layout. The 3 Rail track filled a room twenty feet square which was crammed with locos and rolling stock. It was absolutely fantastic. When I asked how much he was looking for my excitement took a bit of a dive. 

"I thought about £200," he told me.

Now I had absolutely no idea what any of it was worth, but I did know I couldn't afford £200 as I had just bought my first house and I was literally down to £100 in a Building Society account. I told him that I was sure it was certainly worth £200 but it was more than I could afford.

He then told me that as it would be going to a good home he would take £100 for it, and he even let me take one of the locos home there and then, a "Dorchester" which I still have, and I promised to return with the cash the following day.

 Luckily I have a very understanding wife who didn't bat an eye when I told her I'd agreed to spend our last £100 on a few old toys.

When Terry and I went back to dismantle it all the gentleman casually mentioned that he had all the boxes stored in the loft.

"Do you want them as well," he said, it would make it easier to transport!"

He then produced three large cabin trunks full of the boxes, all in pristine fresh from the factory condition. When we'd got it all back home and sorted out, I realised that there were a number of items duplicated, including believe it or not, two virtually mint G25 2-8-0 Freight Sets, the ones with the 8F 48158, and although I didn't realise the significance at the time, six 4644 Hopper Wagons. I took a suitcase full with some of the duplicates to a shop in Eastbourne, where the proprietor gave it a cursory glance and dismissed it with the words.

"I can get plenty of this stuff any day of the week."

That was Ken Norton, and if anyone remembers him you'll know what I mean. He was the ultimate model shop spiv. I closed the suitcase and on the way out of the shop I was told about a toy sale that was about to happen in the Eastbourne Winter Gardens a few weeks ahead. To cut a long story short I booked a table and had a very enjoyable day, sold quite a large number of items, made some interesting new acquaintances, and learned a little bit more about Hornby Dublo.

And that was it - the start of my minor obsession with collecting old trains. These were the early days of the swapmeet. The highlights for me were the quarterly Gloucester Toy Fair, John Neale's Bromsgrove and the original Vectis Guildford Civic Hall auctions which were run by Roger  and Jill Mazillius. I was on my stall at one of the Hinckley fairs when a certain Barry Potter announced that he was giving up his job as a computer software salesman to become a full-time dealer. I thought he was mad!

In 2015 I made the decision to sell my entire vintage toy collection. A collection that I had built up over 40 years which included, in addition to Hornby Dublo 2 and 3 Rail, Hornby Acho, Triang, Trix and Wrenn model railway, Dinky Toys, Corgi, Spot-On and a few other sundry items. The reason for this decision was that at the time I had ideas of paying off the mortgage and moving to a smaller house. The collection was displayed in a room 30' x 20' in custom-built mahogany cabinets which I designed myself with rows of a dozen or so narrow shelves that contained the individual items and their boxes, with a wider base with sloping shelves that housed the sets.

For some peculiar reason, I never took many photographs of the display itself, but I have found one that was taken of one corner of the room after most of the main collection had been sold, which will give you some idea of what it looked like.

The boxes on the floor are awaiting despatch. I am still in the same house 5 years later - and those cabinets are now filled with vintage transport-related jigsaw puzzles, but that's another story.

Most of the collection was sold on Ebay - over 1200 lots, a few by private

sale, and the majority of the Dublo sets through the auctions of the HRCA.

I decided to sell the sets at auction owing to the logistical problems of sending

them through the post, although in retropect I think they fetched half the price

I could have realised had I sold them on Ebay. It was a mystery to me how, for

example, the Royal Scot set with 'Crepello' in the later style box with the

polystyrene insert, fetched less than an individually boxed 'Crepello'.

The prices shown are what the items fetched in the years between 2013 - 2015.

They are by no means intended to provided a definitive value, but hopefully to

give a general idea of the relative values.

It is by no means a complete collection. I concentrated on post-war items and

I deliberately avoided trying to acquire all of the many variations, but there were a couple of things that I sought for many years without success. The very late version of the 2 Rail Pullman set which came in a polystyrene tray - the only one I ever saw went for something like £2000, and the elusive red boxed 5075 Home Junction Signal. I did bid for one of these but ducked out at £145. I think it eventually fetched over £300!

If you are interested in learning more about the literally hundreds of variations, I would seriously suggest becoming a member of the HRCA (the Hornby Railway Collectors Association), and going through the archives of all the brilliantly interesting and informative series of  articles written and illustrated by Bob Field, a true doyen of the hobby and expert in the field (no pun intended) of Hornby Dublo collecting. More at www.hrca.net

I still have all the photographs that I used for the Ebay listings, over 6500 of them, stored on my computer, and I had thought of producing a series of booklets as a record, but having looked into it, I realised that the cost of production - the images would obviously need to be in colour, would be prohibitive. 

So as a compromise, using my newly acquired ability, albeit limited ability, to design and publish a website, that's what I decided to do and this is the result. The first part, at least.

Building a website is not for the faint-hearted. It is incredibly time-consuming and requires a great deal of patience, something for which I am not renowned, but if this initial effort is well received I will endeavour to produce follow-ups for the other major brands Tri-ang, Wrenn, Trix, Dinky and Corgi.

I hope you like it and derive some benefit from my labours. You can purchase downloads and prints of some of the images if you want to from the Wix art store page , and there are some added features that allow you to obtain custom-designed novelty items such as coffee mugs, T-shirts and posters using any of the selected images.

Finally I would like to say thanks to all the fellow enthusiasts that I have met and who became friends over the years - too many to mention individually.

These days I am more interested in railwayana, particularly Southern Region Totems and Targets, and Loco Shed Plates, so if you know of anything that might be of interest, perhaps you could let me know via the Contact page.

Cheers

 

Keith Harris