Restoration of the Porsche 356B

Porsche's first product line car produced in the end 1940's to 1950's
This Bburago model (coupe, cod 3021) is quite common, and the used one I bought for 1,50 Euro was in bad condition with dust, dirt and nicotine, though lucky enough not having any scratches or broken/missing parts. It is not too hard to take the Bburago models apart, body and chassis a usually screwed and almost all plastic parts are plugged together, unlike toys which are glued.

Here a quick before/after view.

Porsche before the restoration

Porsche after the restoration

Removing the body

Removing body parts

Bburago Collector Problems: Vanishing Chrome

Another common problem is the disappearing chrome layer, most likely due to exposure to sun and other stuff in the room atmosphere, maybe nicotine adds here too.

Nothing can be done here. Though if you are very serious you could dismantle the chrome parts, remove the chrome layer (with toilet cleaner or oven foam) and repaint it (airbrush) with chrome color, but that is a tough task, I rather give the model to my kid and get a new version (or just ignore it).

Bburago Collector Problems: Dust and Nicotine

I am buying and trading both models with and without the original box. Usually with a box you pay more, depending how rare (or not) the model is. I also buy models without box, as long stored in a display cabinet and not scratched or bashed by kids hands.

In this series of posts I will discuss the most common problem you face as collector.

I bought 7 models for 12 Euro. Opening the shipping box was already a nightmare, the previous owner must have been a 24/7 smoker by profession. The interior and the body covered by dust and some yellowish stuff (that usually sits in your smoker lungs I guess). The good thing, these models can be disassembled easily and cleaned up, though you can try to use an airbrush blower to clean it without taking it apart. The yellow residues can be removed with car polish.

Bburago Collectors Book

These days there are not many new books indexing die-cast models. With the internet at hand it seems these catalogues that were available for all kind of collector items 10 to 20 years back are vanishing. Maybe it also lacks of people doing this painful work of collecting the data. The latest BBurago catalogue I found is this German title from Alba from 1996 with a price index in DM. The catalogue is more or less assembled from the little booklets that were in every box. The little extra red booklet inside gives your current values (as of 1996) and how rare or not the models are, 18 years later maybe of little use.

The book is still available at Amazon for ~ 10 Euro, but is not worth buying.

Modellauto-Katalog Bburago: 1:18 - 1:24

Collecting Die-Cast Models

I dont think I am a hardcore collector, hunting down very rare models but I enjoy collecting Bburago, Maisto and other Metal Models. If reasonable priced I buy used models with or without box as long the models still look good. Some models I trade or exchange. Overall I suspect the market changed a lot, while it seems in the 80's and 90's the collectors scene was very vivid, at least for Bburago, today there is way less interest in these models, even Bburago (since not an Italian product any longer) are maybe moving a bit into the toy section.

I will share some of my models and experiences while collecting in this blog.

Stay tuned..