MTH Tinplate Stephen Girard Set with strange paint discoloration, factory defect?

Doesn't look like overspray or sun damage to me.

It looks to me as if you have some corrosion on the truck pictured in the close up.

I wonder whether there was some sort of reaction to the foam packing, combined with some moisture.

Ive seen this before with the cadet blue Ives 3245r as well as on the Apple green 408e, I believe the pigment  discolors from being in direct sunlight.  A person was selling the latest release LCT Warrior set, He mentioned that one side of the passenger cars paint was faded becasue they were in a dsplay window in direct sunlight.

Sunrise

Could be sun damage. The set is 18 years old. I have this set and it is still like new.

These cars would be perfect for a Polar Express repaint. Couple it up to a 392E and it would be impressive.

it would be interesting to see what was under one of the brass number plates.  this could definitely confirm or rule out UV fading, which it doesn't look like to me.

I would expect sun damage to be more even. For example, look at the roof in the third picture. There is a thin line of discoloration where the side of the clerestory meets it's roof. How would the sun do that?

C W Burfle posted:

I would expect sun damage to be more even. For example, look at the roof in the third picture. There is a thin line of discoloration where the side of the clerestory meets it's roof. How would the sun do that?

Shadow line.

Shadow line.


I guess I have the colors backwards.

Reaction to the foam is very possible. I bought an 840 power station with the same issue, from the foam.

Looks like some kind of paint error to me. Note that not only the body is blue, the roof is dark blue. And what's with that fragment of masking tape? I have a set of sun-faded Stephen Girard cars that I picked up cheap from an online auction. The paint is faded to very light green, not blue. I'm going to repaint them in a color scheme of my own design, if I ever get around to it. It's an enormous amount of work to take the things apart and remove all the trim so you can get them bead blasted.

Do the boxes have a clear window to show off the contents?

Could it be UV light from fluorescent bulbs with the box sitting in the light for month after month on the shelf of a hobby shop?