Not my comment, Don...I presume you mean William1.
PD
@pd: You are absolutely correct!! I apologize for misquoting you. The comment was by William 1.
Don
Yeah, the "Tinplate photos and videos" post used to be a weekly post. Each week Chris Lonero would get us started. It resided in the Tinplate forum.
A couple years ago, it got sent to the Photo Album forum where it took its present form as this one long post. At that time, many of the most prolific posters exited the forum. I must admit the resultant dearth of activity has caused me drift away.
@Don McErlean posted:
....Here is the Marx Monon FM diesel "B" unit, 8 wheel variety. This really shows the Marx art of lithography, note the use of shadows in the portholes, hatch doors, and vents to give the illusion of depth, the car side is in fact completely flat.
...
Finally the end view. I am really impressed with the shadow effect for the end doors. They look remarkably 3-dimensional and when you look at the item, you would swear that they in fact are openings in the side. They are not, the doors are completely 2 dimensional and flat. The optical illusion is really well done.
...
Thanks for posting this. Although I have the 4-wheel version, I'm ashamed to admit that I never noticed the shading on the doors. It's a really nice effect on an inexpensive toy train.
Mallard4468: thanks for your comment. Marx really employed artists in developing their lithography. In effect it was the use of lithography that allowed Marx to keep the price down and make inexpensive toys
Best wishes
Don
SalV: beautiful caboose. Did you customize it or is it a purchase and from whom??
Don
A bit of an eclectic "Odds & Sods" post for the new stuff in the collection today...
A Karl Bub baggage car sans roof !
A cast JEP Vin car
And a little Bub CIWL to tag behind my SonderKlasse loco ( HO scale)
And it just wouldn't be me if I didn't include something a little special ( well to me anyway !)
Firstly a Keim unpowered section of what I can only conclude is a pretty rare Belgian Liveried carriage from their 4.5V trolley/tramcar variants ... I have seen plenty of the light blue ones , and they used the same sort of pressing for their yellow monorail , but this livery is a new one to me .. Interestingly it has the Stations marked on the litho in several different regional dialogues and spellings , from what I gather a combination of Dutch French and German !
Same towns , just different names in the different regional dialects! Shame the locomotive is lost to the seeds of time 
But really exciting for me is ( Thanks to a good mate Peter in Brisbane, Queensland) my first , and most probably ONLY Whitanco
in the collection , very hard to come by and only a carriage frame , but it exists and was found so I am more than happy with it
He indeed has a couple of complete carriages but had the extra shell and was happy to share the love with me ... Thanks Mate!
@Don McErlean posted:SalV: beautiful caboose. Did you customize it or is it a purchase and from whom??
Don
Got this new in the box for $82 Bucks! From Pat`s trains!!! ( I also have the refrigerated box car same price!)
Attachments
Images (1)
Go to Pat`s! Great prices!!! see link above...Thanks Pat! 
Don McE - To clarify, my comment was referring to this thread used to be a weekly thing in the tinplate section and I looked forward to it every week. Now it is kind of buried here and I didn’t know it was here till I stumbled on it trying to find 3Rails’ videos. Now I know where to look. Sorry if it rubbed you the wrong way.
Cheers, W1
Nice to see @Fatman that you have an interest in HO gauge JEP, they are fun trains to collect and a mixed of scale and tinplate. As usually some very good pieces....
Here is an original Lionel Flying Yankee but paint is restored. They are not always easy to find in great condition so for the moment I will do with this one....waiting for a perfect model.
Daniel
Attachments
William1: thank you for your comment and for taking the time to clarify your comment. I too remember the prior way the post went and liked it. For reasons unknown to most of us since the post was mostly pictures and videos they moved it to where it is today. I hope you continue to post because the foreum is one of the few places where tinplate ( both modern and historic) can be viewed. We still do have the “tinplate trains “ thread in the train thread which is also a good place to post for us tinplaters. Please continue to post we miss old members like yourself and hope you stay with us
Sincerely
Don
Hey, Take it easy. Old members…. I’m starting to think I resemble that remark.
Thanks for your thoughts McE. Tinplaters never get old, a little patina just makes them all the more handsome.
My bride likes my ever increasing patina. She likes the tinplate too.
Hey Guys...I am OK with a little patina...it's the RUST I worry about 
! My comment about "old" was merely in reference to our extensive and superior experience and expertise!
Don
Sal V,
Bought that set for my wife when it came out. I think I had to wait almost a full year for the cars to be delivered.
Thanks for the heads up on the caboose and reefer. My caboose arrived today and the reefer was shipped today
Charlie
Sal V,
Thanks for rattling my cage. That looks like an MTH 10-2219 Car. I've been looking for my inventory list for weeks. I just relocated it and low and behold I have the Tank car as well as a flood light car. They are Standard Gauge, 500 series cars.
Charlie
Well tinplate fans I wanted to thank Sal V for his great "Blue Comet" pictures and the story of making up additional cars to go with the set. @FRENCHTRAINS / Daniel that is a really nice Flying Yankee and you seem to have all the cars and most importantly all the articulation sections. Great find. Fatman - amazing finds and at least to me introducing trains that I had never seen before, thanks for posting.
Now for my offering today, I am sort of on a continuing saga but its about to be complete. After years of searching for a "B" unit for my Marx Monon FM diesel in February I hit gold...finding BOTH the 4 wheel and the 8 wheel Monon B 's. So all that was left was the matching lithographed tin 6" Monon caboose. Again never having seen one before, I had little hope but then just this month, one popped up on E-bay. Not the most perfect example but good enough! So here are some views of my "finally" complete Marx Monon FM assembly.
First, the elusive Monon 6" tin lithographed caboose in the matching livery to the Monon FM diesel .
The caboose from the rear, a bit of damage but all in all quite OK. A "deluxe" version with platform rail and ladder, punched out portholes and door window in the rear bulkhead.
Finally, here is the complete Marx Monon FM ABBA plus matching caboose - side view
Marx Monon ABBA front quarter view
Marx Monon ABBA with rear view showing the matching caboose
Well tinplate friends, there she is, the product of quite a bit of looking and searching. Not all parts are perfect but remember this Monon A unit (only the A units were ever powered either clockwork or electric) was only available between 1955-1959 and the "B" units only in 1958-1959. In addition, the FM series being so obviously a "toy" and not a scale model engine had a somewhat lower survival rate when compared with more scale or model like items as such they were played with HARD and probably not as well cared for by Mom and Dad. They are about 63- 67 years old today, approaching retirement age for sure.
Best wishes and good hunting. Have a great week.
Don
Attachments
Images (5)
Ok Folks .. an impulse buy ... mainly because its here in Australia ( lol) and no horrendous US of A shipping cost !
Apparently the loco is "No Go" but it shouldnt be anything too hard to fix and if all turns horribly pear shaped I already have a AF No5 in the collection that can pitch in 
Beware! this has ... "patina" 
and probably nowhere near the worth of what I paid all up .. but " 'Straya " not the States 
( so in relative terms I got it local for about the cost of shipping it from the US had I bought it there )
Ives must have used "real steel" cos its grown some real rust !
According to description its a 1922 production ( I presume taken from the motor stamping, but I cant confirm thru pics just that its 192? )
Regardless this is my first Ive's rolling stock as a set ( I hope, research to come , or enlightenment from the good folks here??? )
No box , I suspect it rotted away by the look of the contents lol
@Fatman posted:Ok Folks .. an impulse buy ... mainly because its here in Australia ( lol) and no horrendous US of A shipping cost !
Apparently the loco is "No Go" but it shouldnt be anything too hard to fix and if all turns horribly pear shaped I already have a AF No5 in the collection that can pitch in
Beware! this has ... "patina"
( so in relative terms I got it local for about the cost of shipping it from the US had I bought it there )
Ives must have used "real steel" cos its grown some real rust !
...
No box , I suspect it rotted away by the look of the contents lol
If rust is what you want, provide your mailing address and I'll send you an envelope of it. 
Fatman: What a great Ives find! My reference, "Greenbergs Guide to Ives Trains, Vol II O'gauge" shows the engine you pictured as available from 1917-1922. Key dating characteristics were the "Ives No 5" rubber stamped below the cab windows, 2 cab windows, 8 spoke driving wheels, and simulated headlight in center of smoke box. It came with an Ives No 11 tender which as pictured in the book had "IVES" rubber stamped on the raised side wall section and "No 11" on the larger flat side section in either white or silver (hard to tell from pictures). It was made this way (rubber stamping) from 1918-1925.
The tank car is from the "560" series of cars introduced in 1913 and available till 1930. These were an intermediate line set between the 4 wheel 50 series and the 8 wheel 60 series using the 60 series bodies on a new 4 wheel frame. The #566 orange tank car was available 1917 - 1929. The # 55 stock car was available from 1915-1930 and even earlier in different colors and with flat loop couplers. The #57 lumber car was also available from 1915 -1930.
Well, I have about exhausted my limited reference information on Ives (I have almost no Ives in my collection). Your find is super and thanks so much for posting. I had fun trying to " look up" information on them.
Best wishes
Don
Thanks for the info Don! ... I still marvel at how this stuff gets here lol
I still find the numerous variations of the American Flyer 1107 / 1108 cars to be fascinating. Here are a couple of examples that arrived in today's mail.
At first I did not think this one was too unusual, but then I realized that it did not have American Flyer Lines lettering.
I bought the above car in a group that contained this un-lettered coach
I believe both cars were likely sold in a department store special set, likely for JC Penney, based on previous experiences with un-lettered items. Personally, I think American Flyer's dark blue lithographed cars (of any size) are some of the best looking cars they ever produced.
The below car also came in the group. It does not seem to unusual at first, but look at the door.
Although the door appears to be plain, it actually was put in the press upside-down, so that the lithograph is on the inside of the door. It would not photograph well, so all I have is the photo showing the outside of the door. There is a matching green coach, but the photo was blurry, so I did not post it.
NWL
@Don McErlean posted:Well tinplate fans I wanted to thank Sal V for his great "Blue Comet" pictures and the story of making up additional cars to go with the set. @FRENCHTRAINS / Daniel that is a really nice Flying Yankee and you seem to have all the cars and most importantly all the articulation sections. Great find. Fatman - amazing finds and at least to me introducing trains that I had never seen before, thanks for posting.
Now for my offering today, I am sort of on a continuing saga but its about to be complete. After years of searching for a "B" unit for my Marx Monon FM diesel in February I hit gold...finding BOTH the 4 wheel and the 8 wheel Monon B 's. So all that was left was the matching lithographed tin 6" Monon caboose. Again never having seen one before, I had little hope but then just this month, one popped up on E-bay. Not the most perfect example but good enough! So here are some views of my "finally" complete Marx Monon FM assembly.
First, the elusive Monon 6" tin lithographed caboose in the matching livery to the Monon FM diesel .
The caboose from the rear, a bit of damage but all in all quite OK. A "deluxe" version with platform rail and ladder, punched out portholes and door window in the rear bulkhead.
Finally, here is the complete Marx Monon FM ABBA plus matching caboose - side view
Marx Monon ABBA front quarter view
Marx Monon ABBA with rear view showing the matching caboose
Well tinplate friends, there she is, the product of quite a bit of looking and searching. Not all parts are perfect but remember this Monon A unit (only the A units were ever powered either clockwork or electric) was only available between 1955-1959 and the "B" units only in 1958-1959. In addition, the FM series being so obviously a "toy" and not a scale model engine had a somewhat lower survival rate when compared with more scale or model like items as such they were played with HARD and probably not as well cared for by Mom and Dad. They are about 63- 67 years old today, approaching retirement age for sure.
Best wishes and good hunting. Have a great week.
Don
Hey Charlie...
just saw one on Facebook marketplace in nice condition for $59 bucks!
Well Tinplate fans, I am sure that many of you are familiar with the story of Unique Art and Marx. According to most references, Louis Marx and Sammy Bergman, who directed Unique Art had been close friends for years. In fact they sometimes sold each others toys and used each other's parts. Suddenly in 1948 in a compete surprise to Marx, Unique Art developed an O gauge line of lithographed trains to compete directly with Marx...it was a shock and the two men never really did repair that friendship. However, Marx was a fierce competitor on all fronts and immediately moved to create a line of trains to take on Unique Art. He pushed forward with tooling and die making decisions to have the line ready by Christmas 1949 which he did. However, it turned out that the Unique Art threat was short lived, as they never pursued making additional trains and were done by about 1952. Marx however did keep producing what turned out to be called his 7 inch series cars until about 1958 for the freight cars. These cars were all lithographed tin plate with 4 wheels on most but some cabooses did have 8 . He did use the dies as modified to make his passenger cars for his 1860's styled "Wild West" sets which lasted until the early 1970's. Because of the fast demise of Unique Art trains, Marx never made many variations in this series (3 gondolas, 2 box cars ). The greatest variation was with the cabooses where he made 7 different litho schemes and 3 with the same litho but 8 wheels vice 4. This line of cars however is the home of what is perhaps the most colorful train Marx produced, the Disney windup Mickey Mouse Meteor... almost all parts of which are way beyond this poster's budget.
So what do I have for you today. Well I posted one of the 7 inch caboose's with the Marx B&O F-3 diesel set that I posted on Front End Friday on 3/4 and I believe I have posted the NKP version before also. So here are two new ones (new to me).
The New York Central "Pacemaker" from 1956-1957
The Southern Pacific 1235 made from 1952-1955
Two pictured earlier: the C514 B&O from, 1955-1957 and the NKP 956 from 1955-1958 (with plastic knuckle coupler) but made as early as 1949 with tab/slot.
Well best wishes everyone .
Don
Attachments
Images (8)
As a counter to Don's marvellous history post above .. here are some Unique Art items in my collection ...( poor photos , I must really get off my arse and catalogue them properly one day ! )
The Tender is an overpaint sadly .
Fatman: Thank you for adding to the Marx / Unique Art discussion. Personally I was sorry that Unique Art did not pursue further trains as their "whimsical" approach to the figures of people in the windows was wonderful. I do not have any of the cars but the Circus Train Unique Art made for the Jewel Tea Company is another great Unique Art train...the cows are all smiling and their heads are outside of the slats on the cattle car (how did they do that?).
Best wishes
Don
@Don McErlean posted:OK Tinplate Fans, I have something for you that is essentially NONSENSE but IT IS Tinplate! Now on 2/10 in the "Marx Train Pictures" thread Fatman allowed as he now has 2 pieces of plastic in his collection but would not likely have more...so how can you scenic a layout without using some plastic. Well here is your solution...I present to you...Lithographed, tinplate rock formations !!
Now tinplate purists you too can have scenery...here they are:
In close up Both formations are each about 4" long, 2.5" wide and about 1" high at the highest point. We have flowers, weeds, grass, dirt, and rocks...all presented in lithographed beauty (LOL)!.
I just got these in the mail and they are going on my layout. Folks...don't take this too seriously it is just for laughs and can't compare with the fabulous trains posted elsewhere. Just for fun.
Don
Don,
I saw your post and set out to find some of these.
In my search, I first found this pond.
It is unmarked, but similar enough to the rock mounds, that I suspected it may have been made by the same manufacturer.
Finally, I found some of the rock mounds.
In finding the rock mounds, I discovered the manufacturer of both the rock mounds and the pond. These items were made by T. Cohn Inc. and are often confused as Superior Toys as the T. Cohn Inc. used the following slogan "Another Superior Toy by T. Cohn"
The rock mounds were included in 3 different western playsets that they made, the Fort Superior, Fort Comanche, and Fort Apache sets that they made in the 50s and 60s. The rock mounds are designed for the plastic indians/cowboys to hide behind.
The pond, was labeled as a duck pond in the farm set that they sold.
I also found a picture on-line of a swimming pool that used the same stamping as the pond and was included in a doll house set that they made.
Now I need to find some ducks for the pond.
NWL
NWL: AMAZING! I have no idea where you find such information but THANK YOU for posting it. Now my rock mounds, currently gracing open areas of my layout (without either cowboys or Indians ) but I now know the manufacturer. The "duck pond" is really neat and to know that there is a swimming pool somewhere makes the fun of searching great fun!!
Good luck on your hunting for ducks!!
Best wishes
Don
Here is a repair project, after the repair.
An original American Flyer Old Glory, wooden mast, flag, and eagle, on an MTH reproduction base. I had to modify the base to mount the original items. First I had to drill out the hole that the wooden mast goes in, as the original Flyer bases had a hole that went through to the inside and the MTH bases do not. Second, I had to make the eyelet hole larger, as the MTH hole was smaller in size than the original size eyelet.
Here are two side by side, the one with the reproduction base on the left and an all original one on the right.
After the above shot, I took the all original one off the layout and put it in one of the display cases. At some point it will be displayed with my original Union Station, which is still in the process of being cleaned/restored.
NWL
NWL beautiful work!
Don
Does anyone have pics of prewar Flyer telegraph poles? I am trying identify some poles I have seen but don't have pics of the Flyer varieties to compare to.
@palallin posted:Does anyone have pics of prewar Flyer telegraph poles? I am trying identify some poles I have seen but don't have pics of the Flyer varieties to compare to.
There is this style which is sheetmetal and was sold separately and as part of an equipment set
This style came as single, double, and triple versions, with each having 2 cast insulators per level.
And then there is this version with a diecast cross arm, which was also used on the Cascade Tunnel and the long bridge.
NWL
Excellent; thank you!! I know now more of what I am looking at and what I am looking for.
I have seen pics of poles just like the sheet metal ones in the first group but with square bases. A variation at the time or modification in the intervening years, I wonder.
