Santhion Tinplate European Stations

https://www.facebook.com/Märklin-Co-209082272470481/

these structures are brand new.  Santhion is located in the check Republic.  his stuff is awesome but very expensive !  one of his stations run about $4500.  i know this because he quoted several pieces for me.  he does have a face book page with a hundreds of pictures.  you can find him by searching Facebook under marklin & Co. Enjoy your in for a treat 

I'll have to check that out. I've been an avid collector of prewar 3 rail gauge 1 German tinplate for a while. I have a friend that's pretty knowledgeable. And said that the Santhion guy was a building architect in Budapest Hungary! So if he has a website, then I was feed a line of B-S. Or maybe my friend was, and passed it down to me.

I'm a machinist, and I used to have some connections with some lithograph guys, and some tin stamping die makers that worked in the metal bottle cap business. Like Ragu spaghetti glass jar lids. Those are lithographed by the tons (literally) and then stamped just like tinplate trains. And sell for probably 1 cent each.  If I could just get those guys to stamp some lithograph sheets, and cast some gingerbread trim, we could bank on making those stations! I'm retired now. But I wish so bad that I could show those guys what those stations were made of, and the prices! They would be working with me 16 hours every Sat. & Sun. to knock some out. Even a small market for these items, but there is a demand. And the prices are high for those new replica German trains and accessories. look at how Bernd Thul that makes the Progress Tracks that is exact  Marklin gauge one 3 rail track. His track is well worth the cost. But his trains bring big money! They are hand-made in a little shop in Germany. Bernd Thul is a true artist. Here's the link to his website:

     Berendt and Hehr also small machine shops make high dollar marklin reproductions. But I think those, or at least 1 have went out of business.

if you like Marklin gauge one 3 rail, I would beg Mr. Thul to sell and ship you his tracks. They are awesome. And you never have to screw them down to you layout because of those awesome Marklin wire clips.

400Bill posted:

... So MTH could do the same. Just make Marklin "like" tinplate of their own design. ...

Monumental vintage architecture of historic European buildings could be investigated while scanning photo archives and pre-WWII souvenir postcards. Additionally could be browsed the pre-WWII tinplate catalogs and studied the depicted tinplate buildings under the magnifying glass. MTH does not need to copy exactly 1-to-1 any trademark/copyright/patent-protected tinplate buildind. But instead the MTH engineers could experiment with imaginary architectural design, such as symmetric or irregular facades, roofs, chimneys, doors, windows, wall skin, 1- or 2-floor-height, etc. by applying parametric and modular concepts (like the Darstead shed).