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Regular readers may remember our trip over to Mona's Isle back in 2018, bringing back a collection of fine models including a pair of 7 1/4 inch gauge locomotives by Louis Raper.

Along with the larger engines, a return visit a short while later saw several dozen smaller models brought back to the mainland all of which, bar this one, were quickly sold at the time.

Victor Hunt was a professional model maker, who worked for some years with Stanley Beeson, the pre-eminent O-gauge modeller whose work remains a yardstick by which others are still judged. Unusually for a professional working in this gauge, Beeson also produced a handful of larger models, including the 7 1/4 inch gauge Great Central "Director" we sold back in 2013.

After the war, Bassett Lowke contracted to take all of Victor Hunt's output, some of it utilising that company's stock parts for speed and economy of construction. His name was of sufficient lustre for it to be worth branding these models as "Hunt for Bassett Lowke".

This diminutive Rocket was built by Hunt in 1937 for Walker & Holtzapffel who, as W&H Models, were London's largest model shop, trading from 1928 until they closed in 1994.

Scratch built, the locomotive is mounted on an oak box with glass cover. A motor in the base, powered by a 9 volt battery and actuated by a brass push button at one end, rotates the locomotive's driving wheels via a friction pulley bearing on the offside wheel rim.

Now coming up to ninety years old, the model remains in super condition, still working as the maker intended, A jewel of thing - tiny, the dimensions shown are for the base and its case - it has spent the last five years up at the house, in the company of a fine beam engine and crystal wheel skeleton clock on the sideboard.

Includes free UK shipping.