Hafner Cars

Bill,

I'm certainly not a Hafner expert, but i'll contribute what i can.

To my mind at least, there are four different groupings of Hafner freights.

In the early 1920's, Hafner sold freight cars made by Bing.  Bing also sold these cars at the same time, and I don't know of any way to tell whether they were sold by Hafner or Bing, so I tend to just think of these as Bing cars, not Hafner.

Starting in 1928, Hafner started selling its own line of freights, and these first cars are my favorites. They are 5-1/2" lithographed 4-wheel cars, including the "Peerless" stock car and the Santa Fe box car:

There was also a plain, black-painted flat/log/lumber car that goes with these, it uses the exact matching black frame with some side stakes riveted on.

The second freights were a matching set in the late 1930's, and they all had cream sides with red roofs and trim, and were all labeled "Overland Freight" and/or "Overland Flyer".  I think these are fairly uncommon to see.

Later, from the late 1930's through the early 1950's, Hafner made what I think of as two other kinds of freight cars.  One was the rounded-corner type, for which they used the same stampings as their streamlined passenger cars, so I think of these as their "streamlined freight".  

The final type is the one that I most often see for sale: longer, 6" to 6-1/2" cars like the "Grand Canyon" box car, the 1010 and Phillips 66 tank cars, and the 91746 and 91876 gondolas in several color variations, as well as matching livestock, hopper, and several versions of caboose. The nomenclature got a little strange with these, as Hafner called the gondolas "sand cars", and the coal hoppers they called "gondolas", don't know what they were thinking.  Collectors usually call them by their more common names, but once in a while you get a Hafner die-hard selling a hopper and calling it a gondola, something to be alert to.

My favorites are the ones I have pictured here, and you don't see them as often.  They have Joy-Line-type hook couplers and the lithography and styling are very typically pre-war tinplate, and toy-like.

don't know if this helps any,

anybody with more complete knowledge of Hafner, please correct and amplify.

david

Thanks David for the excellent and thoughtful overview.

Bill

Not a Hafner expert in spite of my user name was my first set as a very young kid. Some pictures of 50's freight and 20's passenger that I pickup over the years 

Those orange and brown boxcars in your first photo are very interesting to me - I've never seen anything like them.  Nice!  The coaches sure look very comparable to AF, Ives and Lionel ones of the period.  Again, very intriguing.  (The layout is beautiful, too!)   Thanks for the photos. 

TRM Here is a good book has Hafner Dorfan & Carlisle - Finch good history and color pictures. Had the chance to get a few things from Paul Doyle at Allentown Pa. Train show years ago 

Hafner also made and Century of Progress sets, M10000 streamliners in several colors and 8-wheel coaches and boxcars. The 8-wheel cars are relatively rare and command high prices. They were all from the Overland Flyer era. The rounded frame boxcars were produced at the point where Wyandotte purchased the company, and were continued as Wyandotte items. the Wyandotte style boxcars and freights also appear later in the fifties as Plastimarx after Wyandotte sold the stampings to Marx. Most were litho'ed Ferrocarilles. For example, Hafner produced the 2000 clockwork engine in black and red/blue/silver litho, Plastimarx used the same engine shell in green/yellow/black and silver/orange/black. It should also be noted that Hafner locos were always clockwork.

I purchased the Hafner/Wyandotte book, great info and scads of photos.

How did I do Gary?

 Since these photo's were taken, I have sold almost all of the later pieces and added a few more of the early pieces.

Steve

On the pics I posted earlier, my comments were not added, for some reason..??  Thanks for the information concerning connection between Bing and Hafner.  I also have some Bing, and when I locate the box they are in, will compare the two different lines for similarities.

Nonpareil also used Bing freight bodies on their own trucks, although they were of a larger scale, the had their own version of the CNJ 10205, 53264 boxcar, Merchant Despatch, etc.