Collectors’ Corner memories as decades old price list unearthed
FOR those enthusiasts who started buying railwayana following the end of steam in 1968, Collectors’corner was often a central pillar to their hobby.
It was opened by BR in November 1969 in London’s Cardington Street, close to Euston station in what had previously been a harness room for horses used for the delivery and collection of parcels, and sold surplus stock from envelopes to nameplates, and much else between.
Run by the Midland Region, it was so successful that, at its peak, it employed four staff and twice moved to larger adjoining premises. Gradually though, the supply of items suitable for sale diminished, and in January 1998 it moved to York, where it was closed several years later.
One of its features was an annual price list augmented by monthly updates, and these included hundreds of items suitable for any pocket, although the pockets then didn’t have to be as deep as is required today. Few of the catalogues survive, but one recently surfaced at Paperchase, the quarterly postal auction run by Brian Moakes, and it makes fascinating reading for not only the prices, but also the huge variety then available to collectors.
It is dated 1971, cost 6d (2½p), and comprises 32 pages listing cap and lapel badges, buttons, key fobs, books – including Ian Allan ABCS – chairs, worksplates, gauges, trespass and bridge restriction signs, carriage destination boards, clocks and watches, photographs and postcards, lamps, shovels, shedcode plates, signalling equipment, transfers, tickets, and signs.
Prices, listed in both the old and the then newly-introduced decimal currency, ranged from 1d (½p) for plastic buttons to a heady £9 for each of an ‘MSR’ (Manchester & Stockport Railway or Manchester & Southport Railway, perhaps?) block instrument and a Tyer’s No. 6 block instrument, and £7 apiece for a Midland Railway rotary block instrument and trespass signs from both the Midland Railway and Great Northern Railway.
The price list from Brian’s auction also included one of the monthly updates, and here can be found many items that are at the core of railwayana collecting today, including nameplates, smokebox numberplates, signalbox nameboards, headboards, and totem station signs.
Steam and electric nameplates
There are three steam nameplates, comprising Drake from LMS Jubilee No. 45659 priced at £70, and LNER representatives Gladiateur (A3
No. 60070) and Aberdonian from A1 No. 60158 at £180 and £150 respectively, but these are outnumbered by six from Woodhead route Class EM1 electric locomotives Nos. 26048 Hector, 26050 Stentor, 26051 Mentor, 26052 Nestor, 26054 Pluto and 26057 Ulysses.these locomotives had their names removed when the line’s passenger services ceased in January 1970, so the plates were a recent addition to the Collectors’ Corner inventory.
They were available at £50 each, but this was topped by a plate from another electric locomotive, Metropolitan Railway No. 16 Oliver Goldsmith, whose £75 indicates this was one of the original early brass plates and not one of the 1953 alloy replacements.
Also listed in the update were no fewer than 36 wood, enamel or cast iron signalbox nameboards ranging from £2 to £10, smokebox numberplates including 92001 from a Standard 9F 2-10-0 at £12 and 13 from WD 2-8-0s at up to £8, and 23 station enamel totem signs (£2-£5).
A selection of eight headboards at mostly £15 included the Southern Region’s ‘Union Castle’, ‘Greek Line’, ‘Holland American’, ‘South American’ and ‘Statesman’, a quintet of Waterloo to Southampton Docks boat trains all from the 1950s of which I can recall nothing from my London trainspotting days at that time.
Great Central Railwayana director and auctioneer Mike Soden remembers Collectors’ Corner with fondness. A collector since 1960, he said: “I was a customer from its very earliest days. There were lots of items available for sale, such as literally hundreds of clocks and also totems, and I bought most of my modern traction nameplates there from Class 37 and 47 diesels and Class 86 electrics.
“Everything they sold was unrestored and never cleaned, and once one became a favoured customer, you could be taken downstairs to the storeroom and allowed to view, and even buy, items that weren’t yet on public display in the shop upstairs. It was a muchloved place and was greatly missed once it moved to York.”