Trackmaster Alfie Research

Hi guys,

After that crazy Alfie auction that ended on eBay around a month ago, I took it upon myself to actually go in depth about it and learn a bit more about him just to see whether the price the Auction ended up selling for could be justified. First of all I made a twitter group of users who owned Alfie to see what production dates were under each of their Alfie's, because thanks to HiT toys, each of their trains and motorised vehicles was had a production date stamped to the bottom of the chassis, which made it much easier to document when each Alfie was produced. Then I started asking individual owners for photos

First I'll tell you how to read these production stamps, thanks to the help of GWRDuck. These are stamped as 000S0, with the first 3 zero's showing the day in the year these were produced, and the 0 after the S showing the year.

Now onto the research. Thanks to all the users who I contacted and their help, I have a sample of 17 Trackmaster Alfie's. Funny enough, out of the 17 Trackmaster Alfie's we have, all of them only come from the same 3 production dates that I've found, no other dates apart from the 3 I've found appear on the bottom of Trackmaster Alfie's.

These three dates are:

6th of April 2008 (098S8)
7th of May 2008 (136S8)
4th of June 2008 (167S8)

Images of these:


And out of the samples I've acquired, 6 were produced on April 6th, 7 on May 16th and 4 on June 4th. Furthermore, any Alfie you find will only have one of these three production dates stamped underneath it. If you find a different production date stamped underneath an Alfie please post a photo of it here.

Furthermore, thanks to the help of ajtrain944, we've actually come into contact with a person who was director at HiT Toys, and he says that only around 300 Alfie's were produced before being pulled off shelves, which can also be proved by the fact that we only have 3 production dates of Alfie. It's highly likely that only around 100 Alfie's were produced on each day, with the factories also having to produce other HiT Toys items at the same time.

This not only proves that Alfie is on very rare item, with him only have 3 production dates over the course of his whole production life, but it also discounts the opinions and theory's of those made by many other users who I've come across, saying it was an item produced over the course of many months, perhaps even a year and therefore is in fact not rare. Thanks to my research, I've found out that the Trackmaster Alfie is actually the 4th rarest Motorized Thomas item, beating out the likes of the Donald and Douglas Snow Plough Set, Trackmaster Monty and even the Blushing Face Thomas, and only being beaten out by the likes of the Golden, Silver and Party Flags Thomas'.

We also know that the colour's of Alfie's cargo were inverted over the course of his production life, however, I'm unable to pinpoint when this changed happen as I'd only be able to find out from opening BNIB Alfie's to see, and with the shear rarity of a BNIB Alfie (rarest thing there is, even rarer than a Gold Thomas, only 3 known to exist), I don't think we'll ever be able to find out

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped me with this research and pile all of this together.

Twitter: @CalleyFan @BradyLikesTrain @GWRDuck @SixSmallWheels @Andy_Sandy3

Instagram: @Thomas_fan_4

BPT: @MuddyPoppins @Bkvir208 @confusedanddelayed @ajtrain944

Good Luck to anyone searching for an Alfie, I hope you guys now know the true rarity of this item now, and also a rough idea of what you would have to pay for one if you do want one. 

Fantastic work Thara!

[Super]

Excellent research Thara!

Great research! Finally, some light has been shed on how rare Alfie really is. However, I would like to challenge the statement that it is the fourth rarest motorized Thomas item ever. Here is my argument:
I feel there is both theoretical and experimental rarity. We have seen (per your research) 17 physical copies of Alfie. As far as I know, we have seen less than 10 Blushing Thomases. Therefore, even though less Alfies (~300) were originally produced than Blushing Thomases (360), meaning that Alfie would theoretically be rarer, one could say that the Blushing Thomas is still rarer right now, because fewer of them have ever been found. (A little off topic, but by my argument, the 60th Anniversary Thomas is rarer than the Silver Thomas.)

Also, how would the Snowy Freddie fit into the rarest list? Only three copies have been spotted, and we still do not know how widely it was released (or if it was released at all).

The reason why we’ve seen fewer blushing face Thomas’ is due to the fact that they were a Japanese release, and not many people from the western world have one. I’m sure If there was a Japanese version of bpt, people would maintain that Alfie is rarer because 1 he was never released there and 2, very few Japanese collectors have an Alfie. The 60th anniversary Thomas is an interesting one, as I’ve only ever seen 2 up for sale, and only know 1 person who has one in their possession. However same can be said with the silver Thomas, I only know 2 people that have one, and I’ve only ever seen 2 come up for sale. I get what you mean as the 60th anniversary Thomas can be mistaken by the normal parent or kid as another variation of Thomas, whereas the silver Thomas is obviously a rare and special release, but in my opinion, number produced defines rareity, not number seen. I find it funny that we as a community only found about about the 60th anniversary Thomas last year, even though it was released in 2006. With the Snowy Freddie I’m not sure, it’s a prototype so I’m not sure it can be included in the list as it wasn’t released to the public

Excellent research Thara, very helpful too, I would love to have an Alfie, I don't mind how it looks, trouble is as we know, getting one is virtually impossible, especially for a good price

We all know the struggle, it's not as hard as you may think trying to find one, just gotta be in the right place at the right time.

@Thara Good points. In my opinion, the 60th Anniversary Thomas is the definitely the hardest to find for two reasons: (a) it is very tough to spot in large lots because of how similar it is to a regular Thomas and (b) most people would think it’s just another Thomas and treat it like any other toy. It’s funny how compared to its age and number produced it has appeared very few times and is the most mysterious, even more so than the Gold Thomas (even Muddy doesn’t have one!)

Speaking of Alfie, a thought popped into my head: What if there was a choropleth map of the world, showing how many known alfies are there per countries (most countries would have 0). That way we would know how the 300 alfies are spread around the world: although 95 percent of them would be in canada or the US.

Also, Tons of Trackmasters said in his original alfie video that Australia may have got a couple of alfies. Where did this information come from?

I think Tons is wrong, I've found no evidence of Alfie being released here, and believe me, In would've found out if he was.