So why doesn't the Ives and American Flyer reproductions sell as well as Lionel?

Hi Scott,

What track are you using on your Standard Gauge Layout ? That track looks really good.

IVES and AMERICAN FLYER were the superior Standard Gauge product to LIONEL.

The Web has the History of LIONEL slandering / defaming IVES and AMERICAN Flyer " back in the day ".

LIONEL would not be able to do that today !

I am guessing that folks buy the LIONEL Standard Gauge

with the thought of being able to resell their trains of a widely known Brand Name

at a later date to recover as much money as possible.

Look at this Standard Gauge American Flyer Minute Man Set,

Did LIONEL, " back in the day ", ever produce anything near as impressive in Standard Gauge?

My guess is No.

Norman

@scott.smith posted:

     Do you only run your tinplate in one dimension or do you mix it up? Is the coupler issue the reason you don't expand any further?

I don't mix them but if I wanted to, I wouldn't let the couplers stop me.  I just prefer to run the manufacturers together as a set.  I do like the look of some Ives and especially AF better than Lionel.  However, I prefer the Lionel trucks.

AF Standard Gauge engines do not go thru Lionel/MTH switches well. They bump thru them and sometimes derail. The drive gears on the engines are bigger diameter that the Lionel and hit the guard rails. I do not buy flyer because of that.

I own reproductions of Lionel, Ives, AF, and Dorfan.  As I recall, some of the Ives reproductions came with an extra pair of Lionel-style couplers; I wish that MTH/LCT had done the same with the AF and Dorfan.  I don't like the coupler incompatibility, but I won't let it stop me from buying something that I like.  I agree that the AF items are particularly beautiful.

I don't know that the non-Lionel items didn't sell as well - I think that more would have been sold if more had been produced.

To my eye, each "brand" of car seems to look best with its own brethren.

One of my "future projects" (yeah, right) is to modify a couple of common cars so that one end has a Lionel coupler and the other end has a different type to create a "transition" car.

@OGRNorman posted:

Hi Scott,

What track are you using on your Standard Gauge Layout ? That track looks really good.

My guess is No.

Norman

That track is Gargraves Standard Gauge Track. I know it looks good; however it's a pain to bend and it really sits too low for standard gauge trains. When your building a layout with a limited budget you have to use what's available. In this case a friend got out of the hobby and gave me a bunch of track that he bought to run around his whole house. It looks good and the price was right-FREE!

Yes that Piper set looks better than anything Lionel made in that time period.

Scott Smith

I have a set that looks like that one, but doesn't have 4 cars, only 3 ? I have posted this before, am I missing the diner ? Or, was there a 3 car set also ? Thanks.

I recall that many of the most beautiful tinplate trains that were newly available as reproductions were originally manufactured by Ives or American Flyer. My purchase decisions were based more on a product's appeal and content rather than original manufacturer.  Compatibility issues would be relevant because a loco would have to be purchased with the dedicated cars, thereby significantly raising the initial outlay.  But, some of those locos were drop-dead gorgeous!

@WT.Co. posted:

I have a set that looks like that one, but doesn't have 4 cars, only 3 ? I have posted this before, am I missing the diner ? Or, was there a 3 car set also ? Thanks.

The Minuteman Set was 4 cars, a couple years later The New Minuteman set was 3 cars.

to solve the coupler issue i  took  a tender or box car,,,just change out one end to either af or ives and the other lionel latch,,,,on a passenger set it could be the headend car,,,however i did get rid of most of my mth lionel for repo af and ives ,,love af wide gauge,,,thanks terry

@terry hudon posted:

to solve the coupler issue i  took  a tender or box car,,,just change out one end to either af or ives and the other lionel latch,,,,on a passenger set it could be the headend car,,,however i did get rid of most of my mth lionel for repo af and ives ,,love af wide gauge,,,thanks terry

Terry,

That's a very elegant solution!  Hopefully the passengers in the passenger cars don't mind taking a different view of things...

I think the answer to the question is simply brand recognition.  Ives has been gone for longer than anyone now alive has been around. American Flyer standard gauge dates to a period before most of us were born.  Lionel, on the other hand, has made trains, including tinplate and standard gauge well into the 21st century, and is the dominant brand name for most of those now living.

I like all the brands (except Marx). I would like to get into Flyer wide gauge, I already have some original & repro Dorfan.

Lionel is still the top for me though, at least for passenger trains. Nobody else even comes close to the build quality of Lionel's higher end passenger cars, with tons of separately applied details & brass trim, they are second to none. On the other hand, I think just about every other company had more interesting freight cars, I really like my Dorfan freight, and am quite enamored with Flyer's freight as well. I also think Lionel's locomotives are more visually appealing than the majority of other brands, with the 400e, 408e, 381e, & 390 being some of my all time favorite Standard gauge locomotives (although I'm still working my way to getting one of those beautiful Flyer 4696's).

For O gauge, I still prefer Lionel for overall appeal & quality, but there are some exceptions… Flyer started off pretty boring in my opinion, I have little to no interest in their early cast-iron trains, by the 1930's things started to pick up with flashier & more realistic locomotives, I really like my 1681 Hudson & 3323, the freight again are very nice, although their obsession with pastels is a bit overwhelming at times. I like the Ives O as well, but I find a lot of it is a bit sterile looking, I don't typically like when a train is decorated with only lithography as opposed to separately applied details & surface irregularities (rivets, support structures, etc...).

I think my last point though is why I personally believe Lionel to be the best, detail. The quality of Lionel's products seems to be a lot more even across the board, with a good amount of detail and aesthetically pleasing colors covering almost the entire spectrum of trains & accessories they produced. Most other trains look very flat in comparison.

I personally will just buy anything (within my budget) that tickles my fancy, I don't care much about reselling or buying for value as long as I enjoy what I'm playing with. I think for most people it may be brand recognition, but for me it just so happens that Lionel statistically has many more trains that I enjoy over their competition.

My best guess is that neither IVES nor Flyer offered as diverse a catalog of products as Lionel did during the classic period. MTH seemed to offer more variety of Lionel than the other two for sure. I was fortunate to get into MTH Tinplate right after they brought out PS2. My first set was the #9 Christmas Freight set, followed by the Brown State set. I then acquired a Flyer Flying Colonial and the IVES Olympian set. I personally think the Flyer Wide Gauge is the most well proportioned. The Flyer freight cars are also the most attractive, IMHO. Over time I've picked up a number of other sets from all three.