What are the codes for, please, Chuck?

Hi Gwyn
To serve the same purpose as a lead rivet or screw lock. Its to prevent the lamp being opened underground with a resulting Big Bang if gas was present.

Mr Westmine,
You will have to do better with your 3 r's. I did not say one off, I said only known surviving. The lamp number is 228, so presumably there were at least this number.
You are obviously not a lamp expert, so please refrain from comments that do not apply to the subject.
As with the Baby Patterson lamp that someone made an incorrect coment on, this lamp is far too complicated to make money out of copying and also it is well documented as being the only known one, so a second turning up would cause a lot of raised eyebrows!!!!!

Just thought I'd chuck in my penneth's worth... the one thing I know about is casting and metals and as I collect railway stuff and from what i've seen of the pictures on Ebay the two lamps look fine to me especially the yank one.. and the base castings seem very old indeed.... I've seen lots of fakes in brass etc of lots of things and they have a certain look to them that these don't have.... faking to this degree is hellishly hard to do and given the cost of making the patterns and components, assembling them then aging them, to get back what they cost you would have to be making hundreds.... are we seriously saying there are hundreds of high quality pattern made lamps superbly aged fetching very little considering....

Oh I also agree with the 'slander' comment ..... been following this for a bit and its getting a little close to the knuckle. :blink:

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if it is bendy and white metal then it is FAKE
THE NCB checks ARE 1.25 to1.30mm thick and do not bend

Actually, my dad still has his check (or tally as we call them up here) and it is rectangular, with his number stamped on, but thats all, absolutely no writing at all, no name of pit, nothing. It is also made of a silver bendy metal but I don't know what.

I can say its ceratinly not fake as he carried that tally for 20 years and still has it on his keyring as a keepsake.

It was from Bates Colliery in Blyth, Northumberland and he was issued with it in the early 70s I think.

I have asked him to photograph it and I will try to post a picture later.

Reply to Deeppit aka Westmine
RE-READ A PREVIOUS POST ON THIS FORUM WHICH IS -
The Seller claimed that some of them came from Buille Hill Museum when it closed. I posted a query on this on the NMMA website also. An ex-curator of Buille Hill has replied -"Re the ebay tally seller he really should be reported by as many people as possible.
His story of the origin of his tallies is complete rubbish.
I was the curator of Buille Hill museum for fifteen years and I can state that none of his Manchester area tallies ever existed in that form and certainly were not in the collections at the museum.
His raised number tallies are ridiculous, I am not aware of a colliery anywhere which had such tallies.
Unless ebay users report such activity the advantage takers will carry on producing these tallies and unsuspecting new collectors will fall into the trap. Name and e-mail address supplied on NMMA site.

last thing i heard the collection from buile hill is still in the store rooms under the science museum,if its not then maybee the museum should be informed that someone is pilfering their stock,ill ring them on monday and ask the question.

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I have had another bout of deleting, removing a number of personal comments and a bit of potential libel.

Whilst we are happy to see sensible discussion and alerts about possible fake lamps and checks, it is evident that there may be posters who are using this forum to exercise their grudges from elsewhere: this will not be tolerated.

If anyone decides to deliberately accuse another forum user of selling fake items on eBay when that is obviously not the case, then their posting rights will be suspended without further warning.

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attention all the followers of the Blog. Inspector Clueseau is on the case!! Look at this item number - Pit Checks (#300225706120). All 146 checks are Askern - no wonder Askern shows through on some of the "rare" dodgy checks. Look who the buyer is and what he sells!! Railway checks with? You've guessed it - raised numbers and altered Yorkshire stamped checks. Who does he buy and sell with (probably schill bidding) You've guessed - the seller of the dodgy pit checks. This is better than a Hollywood film!! The serious side is though, new collectors into these artifacts of mining history are going to be cheesed off and stop collecting once they realise how easily they have been duped.

Deeppit
I did not say the Askern were, you and westmine will have to learn to read again. I santaidd was making raised number railway checks identical to the dodgy mining checks, the Askern checks are the latest ones that are being converted to dodgy mining checks after recently being purchased by santaidd. How come both you and westmine are so completely behind and in support of dodgy checks being foisted on to unsuspecting collectors? Don't you think this practice is completely out of order?

Hi ICLOCK
You seem to be in to railwayana. Look at santaidd feedback and click on item numbers of sold items, there are some railway checks identical to the raised number checks - are these usual railway checks?

Feedback is here: http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=santaidd&ftab=AllFeedback&myworld=true 

Items here, various buyers, all sold by the same seller:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170215651712 


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170215654817 


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170212742854 


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170220098250 


I'm at a bit of a loss as to how GWR, LMS and BR all used the same design of check and indeed what on earth such a thing would be required for. Presumably a driver was not given a particular loco to work for all time, hence having a check specific to the loco and not to the driver would be a bit odd? ::)

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Deeppit read again, again!!! Watch my lips carefully. Look on his feedback, click see all feedback, then pick the completed (sold in easy speak) item numbers on the feedback and voila!

Unbelievably Naff.... after I stopped laughing... and a couple of mates who collect had stopped laughing.... I would comment as follows:
BR, LMS, GWR...etc DID NOT allocate engines to drivers and certainly did not have pay checks specific to them. The practice of allocated engines to drivers had stopped by the grouping in 1923/4 and even when the practice was going on the check did not reflect the drivers loco. The 3 locomotives were nothing special in railtour or special use terms and were never allocated to any common to them all sheds (checked 1948 to 1967 as I have full BR records for every engine and shed allocation) and all were built post 1923, hence there can be no link between them or say a common driver .
I have 200 of these things and not one looks like those... nor do any of my mates!
I have a Saltley check with the type face stamps shown (but that is NOT common 1 out of 200 and some were stamped).
I have just been up town and based on the size I think these are dog collar tags which my local shoe repairer sells for 20p a blank in alloy, brass and steel with the same little hole. I think these were stamped /messed with then thrown in fire , brasso'd back and then perhaps lightly patternated....
Nothing about these is right!

below is a random Handfull of mine.
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-034[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-034[/linkphoto][/link]

Oh added a close up of typical:
🔗Personal-Album-856-Image-035[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-035[/linkphoto][/link]

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Strange how the same stamp type face (is that the right word?) is used for LMS and BR.

To comment on IKLOK's post, you would have thought anyone making such rubbish would at least have tried to make something that actually existed in the first place! :oops: :stupid:

Yes but John thats just it.... there was always a perpetuated myth that drivers had allocated engines, even my Dad came out with this one... its your Grandads old engine... and here we see the myth in the form of a badly researched check that reflects it... Drivers had favourites engines and still do but back then the the guy in charge of rostering allocated the engine to a service and the driver turned up read the roster board and took th engine allocated!
Just checking but I think all 3 nameplates off these locos may have gone thru fairly recently in auction thus poss link to why these names were selected!!

:smartass:

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Hi Evryone

These are sold on the auction site as badges Ex crewe works
not drivers checks,also you said that you can see the word
ASKERN on then which ones. 🙂

There seems to be a bit of confusion here and there are at least two different subjects being discussed.

This auction on eBay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300225706120&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.co.uk%3A80%2F%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dm38%26_nkw%3D300225706120%26_fvi%3D1  was for 146 pit checks, all with NCB Askern stamped on them, as per the example below:


The checks with locomotive names on and apparently from Crewe works (as per my post) are not stamped with Askern, as the photographs clearly depict.

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Thats interesting.... I collect BR and LMSR with a bias to Crewe and Derby stuff and am an ex Crewe apprentice plus have had access to their museum stuff and seen the full archive and have just re-cast their 1930's steam models for Bombardier.... I have never ever seen anything like this from Crewe and there is nowt in their archive like this, I have piles of rare stuff from Crewe of my own... plus these are not Crewe stamps (see LNWR checks) and the Hall has never been there and has no relation to Crewe...... i don't believe a word... and believe me if these were badges made in the works I would have seen them... No driver, fitter or anyone over my 28 year association with Crewe has ever produced anything like this.... Next try please!

:smartass:

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Deeppit
It is you mixing things up. The connection with Railway checks came from the fact that both sellers of dodgy checks (railway and mining) buy and sell from each other, but I think this is as a result of schill bidding (raising each others bids to try and fleece the genuine bidders - is there no end to their shinanigins), by coincidence the railway check seller has sold checks with "raised numbers" identical almost to the others mining checks. The futher coincidence is that the 140+ Askern checks that the railway man bought are the ones that the mining man is using recently to stamp up with "rare pit names. Can you follow? The Askern name showing through was made by a previous poster - find it yourself. I have seen one with South Elmsall showing through and have mentioned it previously, find that one yourself. The South Elmsall altered checks were from a previous batch of checks before they bought the Askern just before you try to confuse things again. By the way where is your condemnation of fake checks and the people who sell them?

Both sellers from Telford - what a surprise. Wonder where the two on here are from? By the way the dodgy mine check seller claimed to be employed by British Museum - they have never heard of him!!