Not quite Gauge 3 - GNR 4-2-2

[MikeWilliams]

Special Auction Services' annual Trains Galore sale is coming up and includes a few old Gauge 3 items.  However, right at the very end of the catalogue I was taken by this model:

QUOTE
A finely-engineered early 20th Century scratch-built display-quality 1:20 Scale Great Northern Railway Stirling 'Single' Locomotive and Tender No. 1 built by Thomas Hewson Macaulay (1871-1934), constructed predominantly in blued or polished steel with brass inlay and detailing and inlaid numbers and letters, built by a renowned local clock and watchmaker with extraordinary attention to detail, ensuring that every possible function of Patrick Stirling's gorgeous prototype has been reproduced in jewel-like miniature, with pin-head rivets and attention continuing to the chassis, springs and other underside details; although constructed from many domestically-available materials, the driving wheels have been cut from solid and the backhead detail is exquisite; the splasher-mounted builder's plates are correctly engraved 'Great Northern Railway Co. No. 50 Makers 1870 Doncaster' with Macaulay's own maker's plates under the smokebox and above the tender coal chute 'T H Macaulay, Maker, Leeds', 800mm long overall, with display track on mahogany plinth, date '9/4/26' scratched on underside, with glazed mahogany cover, G-VG, some tarnishing, spotting and original polishing marks, some small parts missing including brake hoses and backhead vacuum gauge
Estimate: 30000-40000
UNQUOTE

http://www.specialauctionservices.com/large/tg091215/page026.html

I know it is not quite Gauge 3, being to a scale of 1:20 but just look at the workmanship.  Just fabulous.  And the price?  Personally I think it has such a limited market that it will go for a lot less, but who knows?

Mike

[MikeWilliams]

It was not sold.