With the success of the Tinplate Marklin Leipzig Station perhaps MTH should obtain a license to reproduce Marklin Tinplate Trains. I would be in for that.
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Mike W. posted:With the success of the Tinplate Marklin Leipzig Station perhaps MTH should obtain a license to reproduce Marklin Tinplate Trains. I would be in for that.
They were successful? There has been one of these and the associated platforms at the LHS for a while now. I didn't think they were all that popular.
I don't think we will be seeing anything new in tinplate from MTH. Mike seems to have lost interest.
Kirk
SGMA1 posted:I don't think we will be seeing anything new in tinplate from MTH. Mike seems to have lost interest.
Kirk
I think the market lost interest. Our LHS has had some nice tinplate in their display cases with very little interest. I don't get it, it's some beautiful stuff.
I have mixed feelings on this. I think the modern tinplate market got pretty saturated, although there are a few things I have been trying to find for a while. I would love some new tinplate, but as locomotives go, it needs to be something better than just a new paint scheme.
I haven't really seen folks in the US displaying that gorgeous Marklin repro station, and I still see a few for sale new in the box. Granted the price point has a lot to do with that. Even if i had the cash its more like one of those things I can appreciate but not want for myself.
I think there would be some limited interest in mth quality modern repro's of Marklin, but not enough to justify the start up costs. I don't know enough about the European market to comment if such a product line would be a big seller there or not.
Yeah my idea would also have to work in Europe to leverage the development costs. I believe MTH has a European network to sell their Premier European trains.
I think MTH started with the wrong station. The Leipzig is very elaborate and can become a massive station if you add all the accessories. MTH never made the grand hall that goes behind the station. There are several problems though. This station requires a lot of real estate to be truly stunning. That limits the buyers. Also, it is pretty drab from a color perspective. This is fine for the realist, but the tinplate crowd tends to like more vibrant color or more shiny parts. I would have started with an onion dome station if I was MTH. That station is very sought after by collectors and has vibrant color. This would have more appeal to tinplate collectors and would fit on more layouts.
George
Agreed that Leipzig Station is the type of product that works once buyers have everything else. I believe in the late 80's Marklin offered a tinplate repro Jubilee Set. It was stunning and sold out.
Anyone have a photo of that MTH Jubilee Set?
The Märklin tinplate jubilee set was an H0/00 gauge train-set with 2 trains. A steam loco with passenger cars and an electric loco with freight cars. The picture shows the steam loco with passenger cars; I split the set with my brother, he has the electric loco with freight cars.
Regards
Fred
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The most collections in Germany are H0/00 gauge, but the collectors was not interested on this copy. The Märklin tinplate jubilee set No 0050 was loss busieness for the most Marklin seller. Marklin had made to much of them. The regular price was around 300 Euro (598 Deutschmark) in 1985. Ten years later the not sold sets was avaible in many shops for around 100 Euros. Now 35 years later, I can buy this set every weeks for a few Euros.
A few manufacturer in Germany make tinplate copies in 0 and 1 gauge, for example Hehr or Ritter, but only a few, mostly less then 100. I think, this is not enough for manufacturer like MTH.
Arne
So, MTH did NOT make those sets.
JLM makes some nice tinplate reproductions.
JLM does indeed. If Joe ever produced his proposed ‘tube train’ I don’t think he’d ever be able to make enough of them.
Towards the more broad discussion, if ‘cottage’ creators like Mundhenke, Blumhardt & Cie (Hehr), Ritter, Selzer, etc. historically were able to turn out small numbers of absolute gems then I fail to see how someone here in the US couldn’t do the same. Yes, each item would cost a mint. But, if it was different and the quality was high, I believe it would sell. I’d buy a new Liberty Lines Hudson in a heartbeat. Wouldn’t even ask the price.
I disagree that the market has lost interest. Try winning the original items, or Mundhenke, or Hehr at auction. What has happened is that the offerings have become repetitive and boring (across the board). Marklin has lost their way along with everyone else. No way they’ll ever revive an 0 line.
Also, I agree completely with George’s assessment of the Leipzig station. They did a good job, but should’ve picked something else.
Chris
I also agree the Leipzig was a bad, if not grand, choice.
I'm not sure that Mike has lost interest (if he's explicitly said that to someone, please say so), but he likes to make a profit and knows MTH's market and price points. He might have come to the realization that new (i.e. different) items can't be produced and sold for a price at which it would be profitable.
I'm tapped out on items which are simply remakes or repaints of something I already have. I would be interested in other tinplate - Marklin, Boucher, older Lionel / Ives / Dorfan, but they would all require new tooling and I doubt they could be made profitably.
Mallard4468 posted:I'm not sure that Mike has lost interest (if he's explicitly said that to someone, please say so), but he likes to make a profit and knows MTH's market and price points. He might have come to the realization that new (i.e. different) items can't be produced and sold for a price at which it would be profitable.
I'm tapped out on items which are simply remakes or repaints of something I already have. I would be interested in other tinplate - Marklin, Boucher, older Lionel / Ives / Dorfan, but they would all require new tooling and I doubt they could be made profitably.
I would guess you have summed it up pretty well. Repro's with different paint schemes got old. The old request of how-about-a-different-wheel-arrangement was done to death, with no results. A flyer brass piper in O would sell like hot cakes. A tinplate challenger style engine would be great, and no one would mind both power trucks swiveling.
I think cancelling the transition cars was a lousy idea.
But most of these things, even fresh rolling stock, require new tooling to make in appreciable numbers, not to mention fresh paint masks. And tinplate is still a niche within a hobby.
Perhaps newer manufacturing techniques will make things different in the future. But for now, hundreds of thousands of dollars in tooling can't be recovered selling 250 engines. And since the materials and construction techniques simply don't directly correspond with how other locomotives made, it will take a great deal of effort and ingenuity to rethink the wheel manufacturing process, all while trying to still innovative or at least competitive in your main product line.
I do think new tinplate will be made eventually, but I don't think it's soon.
jhz563 posted:Mallard4468 posted:I'm not sure that Mike has lost interest (if he's explicitly said that to someone, please say so), but he likes to make a profit and knows MTH's market and price points. He might have come to the realization that new (i.e. different) items can't be produced and sold for a price at which it would be profitable.
I'm tapped out on items which are simply remakes or repaints of something I already have. I would be interested in other tinplate - Marklin, Boucher, older Lionel / Ives / Dorfan, but they would all require new tooling and I doubt they could be made profitably.
I would guess you have summed it up pretty well. Repro's with different paint schemes got old. The old request of how-about-a-different-wheel-arrangement was done to death, with no results. A flyer brass piper in O would sell like hot cakes. A tinplate challenger style engine would be great, and no one would mind both power trucks swiveling.
I think cancelling the transition cars was a lousy idea.
But most of these things, even fresh rolling stock, require new tooling to make in appreciable numbers, not to mention fresh paint masks. And tinplate is still a niche within a hobby.
Perhaps newer manufacturing techniques will make things different in the future. But for now, hundreds of thousands of dollars in tooling can't be recovered selling 250 engines. And since the materials and construction techniques simply don't directly correspond with how other locomotives made, it will take a great deal of effort and ingenuity to rethink the wheel manufacturing process, all while trying to still innovative or at least competitive in your main product line.
I do think new tinplate will be made eventually, but I don't think it's soon.
As I tried to get MTH to reproduce the O Gauge Flyer Ambassador set, I can relate a couple of issues that are likely unknown by many.
jhz563 writes "A flyer brass piper in O would sell like hot cakes" The issue there is that MTH's agreement with Lionel specifically did not allow MTH to reproduce American Flyer steam engines in O gauge.
Although MTH did catalog the reproduction Ambassador set that I requested they make, they failed to get the minimum pre-orders required to reproduce the set and thus the set reportedly made it into a rough pre-production mock up status only.
NWL
Nation Wide Lines posted:jhz563 posted:Mallard4468 posted:Jhz563 writes "A flyer brass piper in O would sell like hot cakes" The issue there is that MTH's agreement with Lionel specifically did not allow MTH to reproduce American Flyer steam engines in O gauge.
NWL
You know what, I wasn't even thinking about the license agreement. All the more reason that new tinplate will likely mean original tinplate
I was very excited about the standard gauge subway cars that were announced but never produced. Also, it always seemed like a few tweaks and a couple of parts would have been sufficient to use existing tooling to make an interurban, but MTH had no interest in that either. (However, that should be a great retirement project.)
What the late great Arno Baars called MESG (Modern Era Standard Gauge) toy trains are currently bringing huge prices at auction. There is a market for new standard gauge if new technologies can bring down the costs of production.
Kirk Lindvig
