Help wanted for identification of a lot...

Hi J,

most of what you have there is Bing.  Very nice collection by the way.

There is a very good resource, click here. 

This is a "photo data bank" of old trains like yours: you can look up your pieces and learn manufacturer, catalog numbers, date it was made, and other information.

The paint on this old tin can be very fragile. If the paint is actively flaking, you're going to have to be extremely careful with cleaning, you will end up removing a lot of the paint.  Think hard about that before you start: it may be best to just dust them with a soft dry paintbrush and leave it at that.  You have a few hundred euros worth of accessories there, it would be a shame to degrade them by rubbing the paint off. 

Congratulations on your find!

welcome to the site. Great lot of trains.

Welcome tothe forum, that is an incredible buy for $5 and a very good start to a very old collection!  Thanks for posting!

thank you, I will do as you said!

I 've tried to do some cleaning with just some water on a cloth, but it seems some colour is coming with the dirt, so I 'll stop there.

I'll keep posting the results found on the data bank, when I will found them.

Thanks again for your fast response!

 Nice find. I love the crane! When you tire of them, let me know. Ill give you $16, and you can say that you have doubled your investment 

 The flakes make it a tough decision. A patina purest wouldn't want it cleaned. I like them clean, more than I hate the chips. Soap, water, soft brushes, micro cloths, cotton swabs(Q-tip) and a handheld hairdryer. Drying quickly is the key.   

Thank you !

Thank you ! (in fact, it was much more expensive than that : around $7...lol)

The vendor didn't know exactly what was in the box, the 2 first pictures are the ones he posted, with the comment : "Lot de pièces trains miniatures, voies & divers en métal"          "a lot of miniature train pieces, rails and others in metal"

Well, your offer is very tempting...but i'll wait a little while before selling  

I've tried the soapy water, but some red colour of the enamel (from the station) seems to come when cleaning, so I stopped right there..

Hi J-Louis, and welcome to the forum.  You have a great find there, and at an incredible bargain price!  Have fun.

Wow that delicate? Might be water based, or cleaned improperly by others. A painting restoration shop (fine art) may be able to suggest something "for the paint to eat". In a similar situation a product by Zymol corp. is excellent for restoring dry rotting rubber by resupplying essential oils lost to weather exposure. I would think attempting this could be dangerous too. But they are yours now, do what's right for J-Louis. (boxing fan?, your name?, both?) 

Thanks!

I don't know if it was water based, but the soft cloth I used had some tiny shades of red colour, just a bit, so i didn't keep going to hard with the process.

I had to do the cleaning, because it is more than simple dust on the items. In fact, the dust was very sticky and very old (looks to me the lot spent quite a few years in a basement or an attic). 

J-Louis comes for my first name : Jean-Louis (from Brussels, like J-Claude Van Damme, but without the karate skills )

I'm still a boxing fan, thought !

 I was just curious. Thought it may have been Joe Louis(the famous boxer). For years Detroit (my home) showcased an unusual tribute to him, a giant hanging fist sculpture.  Being a small youth, I learned enough Aikido to make others leave me alone, or at least have a thumb, or fingers, broken. I don't play, I watch fights, I don't not get into them, I might get hurt.

 Our family has kept in touch with some Belgians since WWII. In the 50s one young man came to the states to visit, and ended up married into the family Flemish influence is still strong. He is my favorite uncle. His young girl is a repeated traditional Bobbin lace champion here. She amazes even the most experienced of the grand old ladies.

 Thank you for taking time to share. I hope to see a photo or two, even when you just shuffle the case contents around.

 What is your water like? A distilled, tap, or filtered water can each have a different effect due to chemical reactions from water born minerals, or lack of, additives, contaminants, osmosis, etc.. It may be air born grease from cooking. I could see that eating a finish after years of exposure. Especially if its initial gloss was damaged. Call a restorer of art, I think that there are dry cleaning powders too.

I think they look great for display as is (or use!).

Regular dry brushing (daily?) done with a brush, should have clean, stiff bristles, but with soft ragged / split bristle tips. It may improve the appearance long term, effectively "soft sanding" it over time. You can drive a pin into wood with your finger tip if you hit it right a few million times. If the crud is embedded, I don't think its coming out till metal is shining though. 

Hey, that $16 offer still stands even without most of the paint . 

The water is from de normal crane (slightly calcareous).

Bobbin lace is a speciality from Brugge and Gent. As a real Brusseleer, I'm part Flemish too and want to keep in touch with that family root.

I got to admit that this train lot seems to be my best bargain until this day (with a book, bought for less than $10 on a flea market in Santa-Cruz, California and mistakenly sold to me as a 1880 bible...who appeared to be a very rare 1580 Swiss book, in Latin, about ghosts an creatures of the night... that i estimate to be worth around the $1000). 

Good luck and instinct are driving our lives in many ways...

I am not surprised that water is taking off your paint. Some of the paints Lionel used would wash off with water too. An example is the red paint Lionel used on prewar 810 crane booms, and postwar 394 light towers. Imagine my surprise when just rinsing these items cause the water to turn red.

Way back when, Louis Hertz suggested using a little light oil on a clean soft rag. The recommendation including doing a test first, in a hidden area. 

J-Louis,

nice collection, you have a great find.

Welcome to the club

Popi

Yep ! It only happen (just slightly) with the station red and white wall parts, no problem with the green roof that seems another quality of enamel. I cleaned the little house (the one with the gate) the same way and there was no problem on this item. The same with a wagon.

By the way, did anyone ever heard of Bing wagon without the GBN mark? It seems that my items travelled to time as one lot because the dirt was the same on every piece. It is possible that the wagons are not Bing, but what are they then?

Thank you!

  It looks like all of the structures, bridges and the crane are Bing.  The cars and the tender are KBN.

Hi J- Louis

Welcome to the forum. 

Wow what an incredible and wonderful collection of tinplate trains you have and all of that for 5 euros. All of us on the tinplate side of this forum wish we could find such a treasure. Looks as if Father Christmas came early. You are very lucky. Thank you for posting all the fine pictures. Enjoy your trains.

and by the way sir.....your English is just wonderful much better then my French or Flemish.    

Merry Christmas to you and your family

Enjoy

Frank     

Thank you !

The fun part is that i wasn't looking for it at all and that I bought it because of the low price and the fact that I could pick the lot myself, the vendor's place was just 2 miles away from mine...

About my English, i watch a lot of BBC programs, mostly football, with all the  Belgians "Red Devils" playing in the Premier League : Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester, Everton, Aston Villa, West Bromwich, Southampton etc...

I also got to practice with some part of my family living in California.

Merry Christmas to you !

Thanks a lot !

They looks a lot like those (just the attachment of the wagon's roof has a slight difference, but the rest is the same).

http://www.historytoy.com/Bub-...er-cars#.VJjc1P8FAeA

I read also on the internet that "Bub is known to have acquired the tooling for Bing toy trains when Bing went out of the model train business in 1932."

and "Bub restarted production of the Bing models in 1934 for the German market but this in turn ceased at the outbreak of World War II. Models made from Bing's dies appear in catalogues issued from the beginning of the 1930's and most are freight cars of the later Bing types. During that time period it was fairly common for tinplate train manufacturers to copy each others designs, and the similarity of Bing, Fandor and Ives freight and passenger cars in the Bub 'O' gauge lines is apparent."

So, that might explain the mixed lot i got.

Thanks again for your help! I will save my a lot of time research!

While I do not follow football I did enjoy watching some of the matches during the recent world cup so I know of the Belgian Red Devils. Such a small world we live in, you mention relatives in California, I was stationed in California for 19 years while in the United States Navy and it was there I got to meet one of my sport heroes.........Eddy Merckx, at the inter-bike expo held each year in September ( now held in Las Vegas Nevada) Perhaps some day I will visit Belgium and ride some of the bergs of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. From watching the racing on television the Ardenns region looks like a wonderful place to ride..... and here we are talking of old beautiful tin trains. Such a delight

Enjoy

Frank                 

Well, I'm sure some Americans would know by now who the Red Devils are as  your goalkeeper, Tim Howard could show all his talent against them !

It must have be tough from him to play against his (and former) team mates from Everton FC, like Romelu Lukaku, Kevin Mirallas and Marouane Fellaini.

By the way, I remember seeing Eddy Merckx training on his bike in the street of Brussels, in the late '60. I was a kid then, and like all of the Belgian kids, I was dreaming of becoming a champion like him, spending all my time on my blue bicycle, collecting Panini stickers with his picture and those of Patrick Sercu, Rick Van Looy, Van Springel, Planckaert, etc... Eddy was, an still is, an Icon around here. Later, I bought a Koga Myiata (that was stolen from me). Now, I just have a Battaglin bike from the '80 (had it for 35€ on the internet, another bargain), but I don't use it a lot any more. It's quite dangerous to ride on a bicycle in my little country packed with cars.

J-Louis 

 Riding a vintage Raleigh Twenty folder set tall, looking like a funny Schwinn Krate, 5 miles on a sidewalk, but crossing street after street, gets me almost hit 2-3 times a ride in Michigan. Riding in the street is a death wish. (2cnd gear of a three speed is as fast as that short wheel base needs to go, about 18-20mph.) Riding close to people will get you a traffic ticket. And car driving license demerits if you happen drive a car too, even if your only on a bike, in a boat, etc. when ticketed.