Mysterious coaches

It would be quite weird if blue tracks, Gordon & Edward change from blue to green, but Mighty Mac's coach turns from green to blue.

The one we're looking at here is not obviously yellowed at all.

Yes it is definitely not sun damaged. I honestly don't have a clue about where it could be from.

this ebay item is only sold to the residents in UK.

I'm having a think......

What??? Where is this from?

(02-16-2021, 08:16 PM)GreatGordonFan Wrote: What??? Where is this from?

It's from the table in my conservatory this afternoon. Good light in there.

While I'm thinking, we can deal with the roof question. This turns out to be simple enough. There are two different versions of this coach.

Version one has the chassis marked Tomy Gullane 2005 Thailand and has a roof painted a slightly whiter shade than the plastic. The body has a mold number on the inside and is attached with a single screw. The plastic is a slightly pinkish cream colour. On the right in the picture below.

Version two has the chassis marked Gullane 2006 China and has an unpainted roof. There is no mold number inside and the body is glued to the chassis in addition to the single screw, though it pops off fairly easily. The plastic is a more yellowish cream colour. These have the brightest green paint, what I would call grass-green, though the difference is subtle. On the left.

Are any of these a blue one?

The situation is complicated, and I don't have a definitive answer.

Of the 15 Fearless Freddie's narrow-gauge coaches in my possession, two are the 2006 vintage described above, and these have the brightest green paint. One of these is no.5 in the photo below.

Note that I'm saying these are all Freddie's coaches. I know the Plarail version of Mighty Mac came with one like this, but these examples were all obtained in the UK where Mac just came with the motorized coach and a grey truck, whereas Freddie came with two of these.

The remaining 2005 vintage coaches are predominantly a uniform bluish-green like no.4, but there is some variation in the bluishness.

Three of them are different:

No.2 is a very bluish-green, you might well call it blue, and it's the same colour on all four sides.

No.1 is the one from the auction lot that started this thread. On one side and one end it is bright blue, but on the other side and the other end it is slightly more greenish than no.2, though still more blue than green to my eyes.

No.3 is a pretty standard bluish-green on three sides, perhaps slightly bluer than standard, but on one end it's as blue as no.2.







It has to be remembered that this is a different situation compared to the greening of Gordon, etc. when exposed to sunlight or smoke or whatever. In that case we're talking about a change in the colour of the dyes in the plastic. In this case we're looking at differences in the colour of the paint.

If the paint was changing from green to blue as a result of prolonged exposure to strong sunlight, we'd expect to see marked yellowing of the unpainted plastic, but there is no evidence of yellowing in these examples.

My gut feeling is that we're looking at examples of poor quality control in the paint-shop. Using a strong magnifying lens I think I can see places where there's a bit of overlap between different colours on the corners of the ones that show more than one colour. IF the painting process involved several stages where different sides and ends were painted separately, interspersed with drying intervals, and IF there were some problems in the paint colour mixing department, then these effects could be achieved.

Bottom line - I really don't know.

Awesome work chrisjo!

Wow...this actually increase the mystery as its so strange to have the different shades on one (#1&3) coach.

Is #2 a uniform color all the way around?