MTH Ives ?

Found this. It is set 10-5068 418 cars. If you look at the pictures it has 240 badges,Ives trucks and snake couple rs. The next catalogue shows 10-5087 which to me is the same cars with a different SKU number too correct the name on the cars.

I have no idea how the original 418 transition cars were labeled. I would guess the 240 series badge was replaced with a 418 badge.

I looked up the National Limited and Black Chrome salesman sample cars and MTH listed them as 418 cars.

 Ives made the Olympian set both ways. Each way 1 year only. 240 cars were made with Flyer bodies and Lionel bodies. The books call them type 1 and type 2. The Flyer bodies were all Green,Orange Black roof(Olympian),Black Red roof(Black Diamond) and Prosperity Special. The Lionel bodies were Black Red roof (Chief set), Blue Red roof (National Limited), Black Chrome roof (salesman sample) and Orange Black roof (Olympian set). The true Ives 418 cars would be Apple Green and a Dark Green. 

MTH is guilty of misnaming the cars but actually doing them correctly. The waters get muddy. I have a fantasy scheme Cadet Blue 240 set. All Ives OK. Now a 240 set all Apple Green fantasy scheme. To make the Apple Green fantasy scheme into a Ives 418 set. The badges would need to be changed to 418 series instead of 240 series the trucks changed to Lionel and the couplers Lionel latch. They made the set I do not know how they did it. They do stay true to originals like 4 wheel trucks on Lionel 418 cars in Orange and Dark Green while everything else is 6 wheel trucks. I have a Orange 710 set with 4 wheel trucks in O-gauge while the fantasy schemes have 6 wheel trucks.

I looked it up and you're right, Greenberg even has a color picture of the 241 in orange with black roof.  Thanks for the correction.  But as you say, what Ives called "The Olympian" set was done with the 246 series (Lionel 418's).  That must be what the person who told me this was refering to.

The waters are indeed muddy, which is I guess what makes collecting this era so interesting.  Little did anyone at Lionel think, while cobbling together toys from the spare parts of three companies during the Depression, that someone 80 years later would be trying to reproduce their completely unplanned process.

I tend to favor pure Ives, but one of my favorite pieces is the 334 crossing gate with the Ives base and fence, Flyer shanty, and Lionel gate.  It tells pretty much the whole story.

IVES ran out of money and couldn't produce a "new" longer passenger car that was designed.  Flyer bodies were in the spirit of the proposed cars and were used in 1928 and 1929.  

After AF exited the partnership, Lionel used their "obsolete" passenger cars for the top-end IVES sets in 1930. Everything was painted & assembled in the Bridgeport Shops.

In 1931, with the exception of some left-over 1134 bodies, IVES existed in name only.

"Transition" is a poor and confusing label for what was going on at the time.

Actually, there were quite a bit of "left-overs" in both gauges (O and Std.)  for several years.  Granted none of it was "cataloged"

I have a magazine ad from 1937, where one of the prizes for selling subscriptions was an Ives semaphore.

Not quite true. Lionel stamped "IVES" on their 0-27 track clips for years and owned the name until someone in the Lionel corporate (LTI) offices forgot to renew the trademark and Mike scooped it up.

Ron M