TOPIC:

Some of you might not get the deal about this auction, but to me it is quite tempting...

How can one see (without the packeging) that it is not the re re?

For the hard core vintage Tamiya fanatic.

Btw - did you bid on that NIB C100 on eBay a while ago, Lars?
That went for about the price of two bumpers...

SRB bumpers are a perfect example of the topsy-turvy nature of Tamiya "collecting" ... when the cars were first released, no-one cared about the bumper ...

Fast forward a couple of decades to when Tamiya cars first started getting collectable, and still no-one cared about the bumper ...

Then someone works out there are "mk.1" and "mk.2" cars, and the black bumper becomes "valuable", people start dying beige ones, etc etc ...

Then come the re-res, and the black bumpers aren't worth spit, and the beige ones, which were previously worth not a lot, become valuable as there were the only ones you could "guarantee" were vintage ...

Now black ones are "valuable" again ...


Of course, the other way of looking at it is that Tamiya cars & parts with good provenance have always been worth money, and always will be among the more rarefied circles (not me, I bought a re-re black bumper for my mk.1 Scorcher :L ) - regardless of what the perception among the wider market might be.

In that light, that bumper is a pretty good deal - although what you're gaining on the "low" price you seem to be losing on the postage

So whats rere and whats original?

I have been looking for Willy Wheeler parts for a couple of month, then comes the T2 bus including the parts I needed. Even if they are produced a couple of years later these are still 'original' Tamiya parts. That would make the black SRB bumper that comes with the rere also an legitimate original replacement for the Mk.1 SRBs and so on and so on.

My opinion, rere is when Tamiya makes alterations on the 'original', everything else is spare parts that finaly became available again.

Part of the fun of this hobby is that is raises philosophical questions like that.
Your approach does make life easier on the builder. And more affordable...
There can be differences with rereleased parts though - like for example the marking of the plastic type inside a chassis.

That would be an interesting point, if we start looking at the materials used and not only design changes.
To make a 100% true restore you then would need vintage paint with all the right (poisonous) ingredients.
Any threads about that or is that a first?

Edou wrote:

Btw - did you bid on that NIB C100 on eBay a while ago, Lars?
That went for about the price of two bumpers...

What can I say... the 58033 Ford C100 manual is soon to appear on a site you all know...

I conclude from that that you will have all of the vintage cars in your collection soon!

Waterbok, there've been some general discussions but not a separate thread on the subject I think.

A few years ago, I paid $400 for a NIP black bumper like this.

Lars, this one is reasonable value. But still at the high end. I am not tempted at the moment though, my focus has been on other parts/kits and I have spent too much recently.

As for being able to tell which is old vs re-re, I haven't looked at the re-re one. But I assume it must have different writing stamped on it?

Waterbok, most re-re parts are easy to tell because of packaging or sprue stamp, or the stamp on the part itself (as with this bumper). But many parts seem to have actual differences. So if the packaging or sprue isn't enough to make a collector prefer the vintage one, the actual part difference (however minor) will be enough in about 80% of cases.

For me, I've been avoiding all re-re parts with only one exception - tyres. Tyres are difficult to tell. Some say the vintage ones smell different or might be of a slightly different compound to the re-re ones.

I've found it difficult to tell the difference where the tyres appear visually identical. So for runners, I guess I don't mind using re-re tyres. Another point to consider is that some 'original' tyres were still being manufactured well into the 1990s, so the fact that they were re-released from 2005 onwards might be thought of as simply "picking up the production run again".

When it comes to plastic parts though, there is a lot of evidence that Tamiya has fiddled with molds and/or created entirely new molds in many cases. And I find that too much to bear, if I want a true 1980s original car

cheers,
H.