TIME FOR MTH TO PRODUCE SOME REAL CLASSICS; NOT ABSURD COLOR VARIATIONS!

I'm very much into O gauge. My wife and kids want to be involved more. There fist choice to start their section which will be moved upstairs for the holidays is the pink tinplate. 

Lets see, what is the reason for the brightly colored tinplate, hmm let's see!! Hello, they sell, plain and simple they sell.

 

you want the Boucher blue comet, tell them, write them. Although I don't see it being done at this time with the economy so bad. 

I've never pre-ordered a single tinplate train yet but I'd definitely pre-order the Boucher.

John.

A remake of the incredible Boucher Blue Comet set with twin motors and six drive wheels...

I'll take one of these please!

I hope they never make a Boucher Blue Comet. Why, you ask. because they would make a red one,green one,white one and even a pink one.

I have to agree with the Dr. on this one.  I'm ok with fantasy pieces like the Armored train, but there are way too many odd colors on the same engines over and over again.  I was not impressed by this last catalog at all.  How about a run of the green 390?  I haven't seen that one for a while.  Unfortunately, the Boucher will not be produced until the Lionel name license thing plays itself out.  If they do get around to that, there will be the repro, then of course the Harley Davidson version, the John Deere, the Girls train, etc.  

I am afraid that you are beating a dead horse with this thread. For years many many of us here on this thread and thru e-mail to MTH asked them to make the standard gauge trolley in o gauge. Never a response from them. Many of us also asked them on this forum and thru e-mail to make some of the classic standard gauge engines and passenger sets in o gauge again no response. The only way to get them to respond may be to flood them with e-mails until they produce what we want or to walk away from purchases of the constant remakes of the same old items and certainly not the new offerings with the weird colors and roadnames. Money talks sometimes. That's about your only hope to getting classic reproductions.

Larry S

Hmm a pink set you say, it will never sell, and it never will be a collectable. ..I wonder if history will repeat itself here?

We are buying a pink one in honor of breast cancer (& other cancers) and of course the red comet could be the most beautiful set yet

 

indydanny

In some respects, I agree with the Dr. There are a fair amount of odd color choices offered by MTH. Id love ti see a few of those sets he mentionedMany of them aren't for everyone, but I'm sure they sell and appeal to someone. As for myself, I've mentioned before that my wife supports my spending on trains, and she likes the Girls/ Pink trains. She has just about everyone that has been produced. Yeah it takes some getting used to, but they are beautiful. As for how they sell.... Try finding one a year or two after they are issued. Some of us are more traditional in their selections than others, and that's a good thing. BTW..... I'd jump at a Boucher also. Sean

I do not know why they do not make things like a 380, 42, 33 in electrics. How about all that 100 series rolling stock?

 

Ives and Dorfan rolling stock. Has MTH ever made anything with lithography?

Some historical context:

 

Source: Lionel: A Collectors Guide & History - Standard Gauge

McComas & Tuohy, 1978, p. 5

"#2- Produce a 400E Blue Comet Loco with the cream stripe on the side (extremely rare) and the Black 400E with the red stripe."

Sorry, but gotta say it. Just buy some cream and red paint and repaint the stripes.

And I agree repro #42 or #38 locos would be neat. Maybe they can use the same motor they developed for the #6. But at the risk of being too negative, I fear they'll screw up a #42 or #38 the same way they screwed up the #6... It's close but if you do a direct comparison there are a lot of mistakes that could have been easily avoided. FYI: The #18 series cars that go with the #6 are off too; wrong color, wrong graphics, wrong celluloid color. Yes, I'm an early Lionel rivet counter.

There is no doubt that color sells trains and many other items, and color palettes change with the times. I and several friends have visited the Nethercutt Museum in Los Angeles, a collection of extraordinary automobiles and mechanical musical instruments. You can clearly see the same color schemes in these cars that Lionel used in their great Standard Gauge sets. The Packard that once belonged to Al Jolson could have been the poster boy for Lionel's Blue Comet set! The colors are almost identical. I have included some examples here; can't you just see State Green, GM 400E, State Brown and of course- The "BLUE COMET"! The ridiculous colors that MTH has chosen are neither pleasing nor do they represent good color harmony. Lionel's palette was extensive and harmonious; why ruin it by allowing a designer who has no sense of color harmony to run amok! They would probably insist on redoing Gainsborough’s "BLUE BOY" in PINK with yellow accents!! That is how ridiculous some of these trains look! Lionel experimented with colors (we have all seen examples of rolling stock that was painted in odd colors and obviously never put into production. They experimented with pink on some 400 series passenger cars and wisely decided to abandon that effort!)  There are two great consistencies in the world; bad taste generally does not improve with age and extraordinary taste and perception improves like a fine wine! I enjoyed the most recent comment by "MR. NABISCO" (perhaps he had consumed too many Oreo's). Why not just paint a cream or red stripe on a locomotive? Why buy a Van Gogh for $110,000,000? Just buy some canvas, oil paint, and paint it yourself!! Let's hope that most of the TCA doesn't have his overwhelming sense of appreciation for rarity!!

 

The tinplate segment of the hobby is for toy trains...whimsical representations made purely for fun and as eye candy for those who enjoy playing with something different.  If you expect them to be made to conform to anything else, color-wise or in any other respect, you're dabbling in the wrong area of the hobby.

 

In my opinion, MTH should make anything they care to in this line, and in any colors they believe may sell.  There's enough "rivet counting" to go around in other areas of this hobby, and tinplate provides a welcome respite from that sort of bickering.  You can buy what appeals to you and you can avoid what turns you off, but no individual here should assume that he or she knows what the broader tinplate market will or will not accept.

 

Allan, whilst agreeing with everything you say, I do feel that there are two strands to this conversation.  Sure, MTH are liberty to issue whatever they like, in any colours they choose, and if they sell well, then well done MTH.  However, when anyone issues what is termed a reproduction, then it needs to be an exact copy, within the limits of modern procuction, not just a similarity.  That is where the tinplate rivet counting enters play.  Something is either a reproduction, or an approximation of what went before.

 

Graeme

I have to agree with Allan as far as the invasion of realism virus into tinplate toy trains and then into copies that are not copies, that at it's most extreme becomes a distracting obsession to the point of setting one's self up to be disappointed. Even the most realistic toy is a toy. What I enjoy about original tinplate was that both the manufacturer's and the buyers had the imagination to escape the everyday rut that realism falls into, as well as the endless parsing over minutia especially when it comes to copies that mechanically and decoratively are only skin deep.   None of my collection is realistic and from one point of view, you could say it was absurdly varied with very simple references to the real thing, but they are not intimidated nor am I to be unabashedly unafraid to have toys that look like toys. Recall O gauge uses three rails and there is no scale. Personally, color variations from the prototype re: meaning original production, carries on a tradition that was present before I was born, an entire fascinating history. In reality, there are no absurd color schemes except by opinion. If we go down that road, we miss the entire point of tinplate and fall into migraine inducing absurd controversies. As Frank Zappa said "Is that a Poncho or a Sears poncho?"

No thanks.

Bruce

 

 

It strikes me that MTH has done a credible job of reproducing what has come before and I would guess Lionel also has some input into the line, given the tinplate reproductions do carry their branding.

 

But, reproducing originals also is a limited pallet, even with what could be considered "rare variations."

 

Plus, As I've noticed on some of the other forums, folks almost always have an opinion about what Lionel or MTH should do, based on more on personal tastes rather than a broader market vision.

 

Rusty

Approximations are fine with me, and are even preferable in some cases because they do not adversely impact the market for the originals.  I'm a guy who likes shiny, bright, pristine toys (trains or otherwise) so I just buy what strikes my fancy and I couldn't care less if it is an exact or even close reproduction of some original/earlier item.

 

But that's just me; the mileage for others may vary.  I'm an easy fellow to please and MTH has done a darn good job of keeping me pleased as far as my tinplate collection is concerned.  Perhaps too pleased because I sure have a lot of colorful stuff surrounding me here at home.

It is common sense to me, that what MTH produces is a variation of the original that stands in it's own right. There is no comparing the original to the reproduction. In that, it's a matter of preference and it's not some silly controversy. I prefer originals, but the MTH reproductions are a fine product in of themselves and in a class in of itself. Taking Hornby or Marx..I have both reproductions and originals and if they please my eyes, that's the low bar they have to hurdle. Getting tied up in my shorts over whether they are "authentic" is silly..they are toys.

Bruce

Alan, Bruce, I'm with you guys. I have originals, I have repro's, and I have approximations. Some are bright colored, some are definitely not, some have all their nicks and dents showing their age. There are some which have led a very sheltered life.

All are loved, all are run, all give me a huge grin.

In this tough global economic climate it makes sense to watch the pennies so that when the time is right in the future they are still around to give us even more train happiness.

I'll say this then go back to not commenting on these threads.

Dr. F,
Please do not EVER compare a toy train to an honest to God work of art. It doesn't matter how much money you pay for a rare toy train, it is still a toy train not a Van Gogh.

You are right though, "bad taste generally does not improve with age", as exhibited by your response to my comment. Your brief comments directed towards me are both ignorant and insulting. I have spent my life studying art and culture and do paint my own paintings. On the other hand, you seem to lack an understanding of the differences between real art and common manufactured goods, but this is not surprising as most people equate object cost with implied cultural significance.

My comment:
"Sorry, but gotta say it. Just buy some cream and red paint and repaint the stripes."

I was talking about painting a different color stripe onto a MTH repro Blue Comet. How does that turn into my "appreciation for rarity"?

And now I'm sure the monitors will remove this post for being too negative...

B-Bye

My only reaction is that taste is subjective and so is art and what appeals to one person is distasteful for the next. Comparing a toy train to a classic car is a very mixed metaphor when thrown into this discussion considering just how subjective what constitutes art. We may as well debate New York Pizza to Chicago Pizza..there is simply no objective arbiter or taste police  unless one puts his or herself into the role of an art critic, but then we are mixing mediums between cars as classics and trains and pizza so, is there some rule that new classics cannot be created? Would I buy a pink train? No. Do I want to steer someone away from one if they chose it? No. So, in effect we have a debate over a subject that is subjective at best and if one person objects well, then so be it and frankly who gives a poot enough to create and stir up essentially something over nothing except in the mind of the author? BTW..rare does not always equate to cost.

Bruce. 

After all this I think I may just order a pink 400E 

Suggest writing your Congressperson on this one.  Only legislation with criminal penalties will stop these people whose taste differs from one's own .

I don't understand why this discussion has to get nasty and personal. Personally, a pink 400E makes me want to hurl - but if MTH wants to build it, and somebody wants to buy it, their bad taste isn't my problem. 

 

De gustibus non disputandum est. 

Isn't accusing someone of having bad taste getting personal, and potentially just a wee bit nasty?  Just asking .

There was a time when the last place you would expect to find any dissension in the ranks on this forum was in the tinplate section.  Ah, for the good old days!  

 

Of course, use of the word "absurd" in the topic title probably didn't help much.  

Absurd is accurate and a little dissension is a good thing! I guess that I am so enthralled by these pieces of "MOVING SCULPTURE” that I hate to see the beautiful and widely varied color palette that was "CHRONOLOGICALLY SENSITIVE" to that era so brutally altered!

Geeze, you make it sound like MTH is buying up all the originals, stripping them down and repainting them all the colors of the rainbow.

 

Rusty

Wow, this thread sure grew so legs....

 

Okay, since I am interested in tinplate but not a authoritative historian on the subject, did lionel or anyone else ever produce an O gauge loco comparable to the current mth-repro American Flyer loco in standard gauge, or possibly anything like either the 400E or any other tinplate steam that had three sets of drivers or was just more proportional the 263? ( And I freely admit the proportional and tinplate is kind of an oxymoron)

 

Just asking -

JHZ

 

 

I do agree with Dr. Fold that an original piece of Standard Gauge is better than a reproduction from a historical value standpoint.  I have an original 1931 400E in my collection: the shine of the brass has faded with time, the motor growls like a hungry tiger, the paint is dull and it has a few dent on cab, but I love.  I love it for the historical value that for Christmas in 1931 it was under someone's Christmas tree and the little boy who was running must have been the happiest kid on the planet at that time.  When closing my eyes, I can instantly be transported to that time as if I were that little boy.  That's the magic of an original piece.

 

Now please don't get my wrong, I do love my reproductions as well, they just don't supply that same feeling of imaginatory display in my mind.  Nonetheless, I run my originals and repro's side by side and I enjoy everything about them.

I had the same thought. This sub-forum has always been a little respite from the "wars" over on the main page.

 

 

All facets of life, including our beloved Tinplate railways, include all sorts of personalities. Nice guys, intellectuals, family types, ignoramus's, newbies (weren't we all once upon a time), slobs, and snobs. Plus of course every other type there is not room enough to list, and all mixes thereof.

All we need to exercise is logic, common sense, and intuition. It soon becomes obvious just who belongs in their respective self imposed classifications.

I'd like to thank Dr. Folb for the photo of Al Jolson's Packard -- a great vehicle to meet that special person "...where the lane begins...about a quarter to nine".

 

Best, SZ

 

 

 

 

Life is so unfair.