Tinplate is seems to be selling out fast.

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

The like new Short Hood 3245R was returned to the seller.

Steve

It's a sharp looking engine and one that I do not have. It I could find one a little south of list price I would buy it to pull my freight cars. I might consider an 1134 to pull the freight but there seems to be a pretty big range in sell prices over the past few months on Ebay.

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

The like new Short Hood 3245R was returned to the seller.

Steve

That one is on my list. What was wrong with the 3245 other than charging too much?

Scott Smith

@scott.smith posted:

That one is on my list. What was wrong with the 3245 other than charging too much?

Scott Smith

It was damaged. The box looked good, so my guess it was dropped and landed flush on an end. The center of the cab was lifted about 3/16”, the whistle fell out, 3 of the 4 drivers wobbled, probably bent axles and one of the 1/4” truck bolts was bent at about a 15 degree angle. Nothing I couldn’t fix, but at that price I wouldn’t accept a “project”. I would have also been concerned with other issues showing up later. Shame, I’ve always wanted a short hood. Something ornery about the look.

Steve

At the moment I’m focused on finding the pre war originals of my modern tinplate. But as I’ve been exploring I curiously stumbled upon Rich-Art and other excellent modern tinplate manufacturers. All the deserved credit to Jerry Williams & of course Mike Wolf and his team. But there are several others who hammered out some very nice tin in standard and O gauge that are most worthy of a long look. Some were really made here in the USA too.

@WRW posted:

At the moment I’m focused on finding the pre war originals of my modern tinplate. But as I’ve been exploring I curiously stumbled upon Rich-Art and other excellent modern tinplate manufacturers. All the deserved credit to Jerry Williams & of course Mike Wolf and his team. But there are several others who hammered out some very nice tin in standard and O gauge that are most worthy of a long look. Some were really made here in the USA too.

I agree that there are other fine examples of modern standard gauge though most of these items appear to more scarce than the most recent stuff that MTH has made.

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

It was damaged. The box looked good, so my guess it was dropped and landed flush on an end. The center of the cab was lifted about 3/16”, the whistle fell out, 3 of the 4 drivers wobbled, probably bent axles and one of the 1/4” truck bolts was bent at about a 15 degree angle. Nothing I couldn’t fix, but at that price I wouldn’t accept a “project”. I would have also been concerned with other issues showing up later. Shame, I’ve always wanted a short hood. Something ornery about the look.

Steve

I wasn't going to ask. My Flying Colonial engine (and the President's Special) electric came with a sheet metal bracket to which the engine is bolted to for shipping. There are O-gauge engines that have brackets as well. I wonder if the seller did not pack it properly?

@andrew posted:

I wasn't going to ask. My Flying Colonial engine (and the President's Special) electric came with a sheet metal bracket to which the engine is bolted to for shipping. There are O-gauge engines that have brackets as well. I wonder if the seller did not pack it properly?

I have a few with the packing bracket, but this one never had it.

Steve

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

I have a few with the packing bracket, but this one never had it.

Steve

That locomotive came out around 2006. That was before MTH started added the steel/wooden bases to their boxes. The first train I saw with a base rather than just the standard styrofoam was on my Triplex and the first tinplate I saw with the additional packing was the Brute that came in a steel cage.

     Looking back I wished I had bid on that locomotive. It seemed to me to be starting out at too high of a price with a Protosound 5V board and being used. I thought it may have gotten relisted at a lower cost in a week or two. I misjudged that by a mile. However I would have avoided the damage had it occurred in shipping since I would have picked it up rather than having it shipped. As a matter of fact I was in that shop this past Friday. I really want to make another trip to look around. While I was there I got a call from one of my customers and didn't get to crawl around and look at all the unopened boxes.

Scott Smith

@scott.smith posted:

That locomotive came out around 2006. That was before MTH started added the steel/wooden bases to their boxes.

Scott Smith

That would not be true.  My Millenium Mayflower from 2000 has a steel frame that the engine was attached to in the shipping carton.

I would suspect that some engines came with it and some came without it, depending on the engine style and weight.

@Nation Wide Lines posted:

That would not be true.  My Millenium Mayflower from 2000 has a steel frame that the engine was attached to in the shipping carton.

I would suspect that some engines came with it and some came without it, depending on the engine style and weight.

According to the MTH web site, my flying colonial was delivered in March 2003. It was bolted to a sheet metal bracket that fixed both ends (pilots) of the engine so they would not move. The flyer engine used for the Flying Colonel and President's Special is not all that different than the short cab IVES engine mentioned above.

Getting back to scarce MTH tinplate, does anyone know what couplers the cars listed below have? The "20-" numbers were used for American Flyer cars that were repurposed for the IVES line but the MTH catalog images all show Flyer style couplers. Pictures are scarce.

10-2146 gloss black 20-194 gondola
10-2154 green 20-195 caboose
10-2143 green/red 20-192 boxcar
10-2150 green/red 20-193 stock car
10-2144 orange/blue 20-192 boxcar

@andrew posted:

Getting back to scarce MTH tinplate, does anyone know what couplers the cars listed below have? The "20-" numbers were used for American Flyer cars that were repurposed for the IVES line but the MTH catalog images all show Flyer style couplers. Pictures are scarce.

10-2146 gloss black 20-194 gondola
10-2154 green 20-195 caboose
10-2143 green/red 20-192 boxcar
10-2150 green/red 20-193 stock car
10-2144 orange/blue 20-192 boxcar

I have;

20-190, 10-2162, C&O Tank Car, Orange

20-192, 10-2143, Boxcar, Green/Red, also have another that is faded to light blue and red.

20-192, 10-2144, Boxcar, Orange/Green

20-193, 10-2150, Stock Car, Green/Red

20-195, 10-2154, Caboose, Green

20-198, 10-2146, Gondola, Black

Couplers are Ives.

Steve

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

I have;

20-190, 10-2162, C&O Tank Car, Orange

20-192, 10-2143, Boxcar, Green/Red, also have another that is faded to light blue and red.

20-192, 10-2144, Boxcar, Orange/Green

20-193, 10-2150, Stock Car, Green/Red

20-195, 10-2154, Caboose, Green

20-198, 10-2146, Gondola, Black

Couplers are Ives.

Steve

Didn't some of the MTH Ives cars come with extra Lionel-style couplers?

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

I have;

20-190, 10-2162, C&O Tank Car, Orange

20-192, 10-2143, Boxcar, Green/Red, also have another that is faded to light blue and red.

20-192, 10-2144, Boxcar, Orange/Green

20-193, 10-2150, Stock Car, Green/Red

20-195, 10-2154, Caboose, Green

20-198, 10-2146, Gondola, Black

Couplers are Ives.

Steve

Steve,

Thank you for the info. When I started looking at getting a set of IVES freight cars the first car I looked for was the orange C&O tank car. I remembered that they made it but I think it was scarce even before MTH stopped making tinplate.

I've gone down the path of the having Lionel 200 series freight cars with IVES trucks and couplers so will have to give it some thought about having American Flyer versions as well. I really like the American Flyer freight cars over Lionel though simply for looks reasons. Having said that, I have a complete set of American Flyer cars from MTH and they look great behind the brass piper.

Andrew

@Mallard4468 posted:

Didn't some of the MTH Ives cars come with extra Lionel-style couplers?

I won’t say they didn’t, but none of mine did.

Steve

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

I won’t say they didn’t, but none of mine did.

Steve

Some of the original Lionel/Ives transition cars came with Lionel couplers. MTH may have included latch couplers with these passenger cars.