Please help as my family has found our "lost" Lionel train & I cannot determine if this is an early Production 685 Loco with the 2046W Tender or later produced with the 6026W Tender. It's been missing since 1963, & finally found it tucked back on a shelf when remodeling the house. Problem is we cannot find the rest of the set so I thought I'd try to piece it together. My father purchased this from a local store at Christmas time in 1953.
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Thanks Pete.
As I look at the Cab # it seems to resemble Variation A instead of being "rubber stamped"??
It looks to have the embossed side rods which would make it an earlier 1953 production. This would tend to favor it having the 2046 tender, but I'm not sure if that is definitive.
It's hard to pin it down since this engine was only produced in 1953 and the changes all came within the course of a short one year period.
I agree that the lettering looks to be the slightly more common heat stamped variety.
Jim
Generally heat stamped leaves an impression in the paint that will catch your finger nail or thin sheet stock like window plastic. Hard to tell by looking at your picture.
Pete
The 685 is a model of a mighty Santa Fe 3460-class Hudson. The first was the "Blue Goose," the only steamlined steam locomotive on the AT&SF. In 1954, Lionel renumbered them 665 and 2065 and placed an Elesco feedwater heater atop their smokebox fronts.
A 6046W tender is a better match for the real 3460-class tenders.
Your loco is the 1953 version with embossed side rods, and rubber stamped numbers. The side rods have obviously not been removed in forever so the likelihood that they were switched is nill. If you zoom the photo you can see no impression around the numbers indicating heat stamping. Hence your loco should have a 2046W tender.
Gandy
Thanks guys! I'm going to do some light cleaning and pop the boiler to do some well... timely maintenance. 
Here is the 685 set in the 1953 Lionel catalog
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