Weathered Tinplate
One of the many details scale modelers attend to when building their railroad empires is that of giving rolling stock and line side details a weathered finish. Not including basket cases in need of restoration, weathering is not something one normally associates with tinplate. However, it is something that at least two manufacturers of toy trains took into consideration with some of their product.
A number of years ago I saw my first example of a hand painted Bing Kalkwagen (lime transport) in what one might charitably describe as "poor" condition. In addition to it's beat up shape I noticed someone had splattered white paint across part of the top and ends of the car.
I happened to mention the paint splatters to a collector who specialized in Bing and he told me it was the standard paint treatment for that car. The idea being to give the impression of lime dust - weathering tinplate style. Time passed and I managed to find and purchase a nice hand painted example (car on right) which I added to the collection.
A couple of weeks ago a lithographed version of this car showed up on E-bay with a buy-it-now...so I bought it (car on left).
As you can see, the lithographed detail includes the lime dust weathering. The litho car is simpler in construction - litho has replaced the need for side embossing and instead of being a separate piece of metal the roof is now a single hinged hatch.
The only other tinplate fresh-from-the-factory weathered look of which I'm aware is the un-named Ives O gauge set #476 offered in 1929. It was described as "gray with black mottled effect simulating an alkali dust-covered train having passed through the Mojave Desert." Collectors call it the Mojave Desert Train. I've never seen a real life example of this set but on page 66 in Robinson's book "Made in the Ives Shops" there is a small picture of the engine and the observation car.
