Does anyone know who made these trains cars, and what they are worth? The engine says WM crooks, and the passenger cars are from the 30's, supposedly.
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Marx old timey style.
Marx from 1959 - 1960.
That Wm. Crooks is tough to find with no damage due to the brittle plastic used. That one actually has promise. 
Jim McClenin
there were at least three versions of the engine. Is there any painted gold plastic left on the front where the cowcatcher was or in front of the smokestack? Marx used two tenders to connect the engine to the passenger cars, one was plastic with a simulated log load and 1st ST.P and P RR on the side. The other was tin and had a litho'ed brown log load on top.
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Very interesting. I didn't know Marx made items like that!
The engine came as a smoking and non smoking version depending on the set. The non smoking version did not have the pilot trucks and looked silly in my opinion, but it came in a set with elevated trestles and the pilot trucks could not handle the elevation change. The 714 set Jim mentions is a clockwork and came with 4 wheels cars instead of 8 wheel and that set got the tin litho tender.
Before Jim & Debbie started to produce the lithographed tin they are known for, the original plan was to reproduce plastic ones from the original molds. There were a number of plastic prototypes created from original Marx pieces as they prepared to get started, but in the end, they never got the molds. Myself, I am very happy they ended up going with tin litho. I have hundreds of them and really enjoy them.
Steve
This posting and (different responses) is on the forum twice...I thought I had lost
mine in a few minutes but it is in the other version. Maybe under two categories??
