Tinplate photos 📸 and videos 📽

Nice photos of the cars and tower...appreciated. With the piping under the water tower/valve, was that intended to be functional in some form?

PD

Yes, the roof is removable and the tower can be filled with water at the top.

Arne

"Yes, the roof is removable and the tower can be filled with water at the top"

That seems strange to use real water around tin toy trains.  Does not seem like a good idea - rust.

Bill

Bill,

yes, I wouldn´t do that either. But Bing made some models like this and of course the children used them.

Here a example, Bing tank car destroyed from rust.

Arne

Amazing...

That is quite beautiful an acquisition Arne.  The "little trains" from Paya, what is their length?  I am assuming they are still 0 gauge just smaller in scale, they resemble the Hornby or French Hornby M0 trains a bit and seem about the same size. See picture below from 1930.

The Water Tower is amazing.  There is no question that the plumbing set up allows the pressure from the column of water in the tower to drive the "spout" on the other pipe.  The valve in the middle controls the supply to the spout or filler pipe.  It also looked like there was a local valve right at the filler spout to control the outflow.

Super find Arne!!

Don

Don,

the Paya cars are smaller than the Hornby M0.

Arne

@Arne- Thanks for the response Arne...appreciate your knowledge for sure.  Great find for sure.

Best Regards

Don

Great finds @Arne  I really like the water tower ... the plumbing would add a beaut addition to running a small live steam loco !

This week I had a little bit of super luck , and it involved multiple people to make it real lol ...

First up a wonderful young chap in Queensland, Peter M. noticed something on a German "ePay" sellers store while he was chasing something else entirely , he knew of my affinity for them and messaged me immediately ... then because the seller did not do international postage I had to kindly grab hold of Dutchboy and ask him to intervene in the purchase/negotiations of the items ... Luckily for me the seller had no drama posting to the Netherlands, saving Dutchboy a bit of a drive in the car ( lol) Yes i was THAT determined to own them !

Anyway .. to borrow from the A-Team... I love it when a plan comes together

I now have two more carriages for my little Bing British rake .. possibly making it the only 4 car rake in the world LOL! ( probably not , but I dont know of one )

Cheaply made things , but just so hard to find ... and surprisingly each time I have found some  the litho is normally good, not sure what Stephan Bing did but they stand the test of time ...

One has a minor end scratch ...

The other is minty fresh still after 90 odd years

They are the exact carriages I already have ...

Supper happy Fatty today!

This makes up for the heart breaking experience I had last month when the only boxed set I had ever seen went up for sale and my poor wallet fell over chasing them in the final 3 seconds of the auction .. he with the biggest wallet won again, and it wasnt me

But for posterity's sake, here is what I will probably never see again in my lifetime ... If whoever bought it is reading this Well Done Sir ! you have a BEAUTY!

Lovely things, FM.

Beautiful coaches Fatman, as for the other, well you have to leave some for the other folks, No?

Best Always

Don

Fatman,

It is unclear whether Stephen Bing had anything to do with these models. After Bing's bankruptcy, the name still had a very good reputation in Great Britain, so the company L. Rees Co. Ltd. simple trains produced under the Bing brand name around 1940.

Here in comparison Bing Nuremberg last series 1932 on the left, British Bing on the right.

Similar but not the same.

A bit history:

Stephan Bing only emigrated to England in 1938 because of his Jewish descent.

The Bing-Werke, under the leadership of Stephan Bing, had been the largest toy company in the world since 1919. Bing relied on extensive mechanization: lithography instead of hand painting, folding instead of soldering. This made it possible to increase production quantities and reduce unit prices. The products have been exported worldwide. In some cases, English partners like Bassett-Lowke even gave suggestions for new products, such as the Bing table track.

At the same time, under the leadership of Stephan Bing, company investments in other industries were also massively bought up.

This unbridled expansion course increased the credit burden significantly and made the company vulnerable to fluctuations in sales. Stephan Bing was accused of this and led to his resignation from the board in 1927.

In fact, sales at Bing Works plummeted after the stock market crash in 1929 and led to bankruptcy. People no longer had money for toys.

Stephan Bing had already bought into the Vereinigte Spielwarenfabriken Nürnberg VSN in 1928 and brought the Trix metal construction kit onto the market under this company umbrella in 1931 and the Trix Express model railway in 1935. For sales in England, an English subsidiary was founded in 1932, Trix Ltd in London, which was headed by Franz Bing.

On April 19, 1940, the commercial councilor and former Nuremberg commercial judge Stephan Bing died of a heart attack in British internment at the age of only 59.

Arne

Well a package arrived at my house yesterday and I have been unpacking and playing with it all morning.  It is from a far different realm as the beautiful prior postings by Arne and Fatman but I hope you will enjoy it.  I think it deserves a little credit for imagination applied to very inexpensive toys.  This is a 3-Way train set, marketed under the name " GW Construction Train Set" but it appears to be made up of a loco and cars that can trace their way back to HWN or Heinrich Wimmer of Nuremberg and the time period likely the postwar era, 1950's and 60's.

Here is the box lid, note the advertising that you can "Construct" 3 different train sets.  Note also the picture of those 3 sets: Passenger Set, Box Car or Goods Set, and Log car set.  You will see that the variation is entirely due to the changing configuration of the box car / coach and the flatcar under both of them.

Here is the inside of the box including the running rails.

First the configuration of the passenger coach with the replaceable top to take the box car top in the foreground.

Next we remove the passenger coach top, revealing the log car flat underneath

This is the lithographed log load on the flatcar which forms the frame of both the coach and the box car.  Note the excellent "3D" type lithograph treatment although the car itself is flat.

Finally completing the 3rd train we just put the box car top on the flat car instead of the coach top and we have our 3rd type train.

What was really interesting was when you look at the curved running rails they are banked to help prevent derailment.  The little locomotive is clockwork with no type of speed control so I imagine these banked curves help keep it on the track at its initial speed.

Well that's my new GW Construction Train Set, not really expensive even in its day but very imaginative and I will bet it provided a lot of fun to young folks especially those who liked building things.

Best Wishes

Don

Pretty ingenious, actually.

@pd - Thanks for your comment.  Yes I agree I think it was quite imaginative and especially when applied to what was likely a very inexpensive toy.

Best Wishes

Don

Lovely set @Don McErlean  its been on my "look for " list a while now .. so you beat me LOL!

@Arne with so little known about Bing British it seems there are two schools of thought , the earlier one was Stephan Bing organising the production while he was a guest of Wenham Basset-Lowke at Winteringham before his emigration from Germany and the set up of the UK Trix expansion, and the production of the limited range of trains, boats and the bingoscope projector took place in the period before the proper partnership with B-L and formalising the UK TTR ( trix) deal to perhaps (?) provide starting capital for the fledgling UK business , indeed the British Bing boats did look very similar to the run of Kellner etc imported by Bassett-Lowke to sell under his brand at the time .  This kind of fits in with the timeline of Bing British trains being produced c1934(?) a year before the unveiling of Trix Express in 1935 in Germany and in 1936 as Trix Twin in the UK ...

However recently the theory that you mention has gained traction with the publication of an article postulating similar in the TCS magazine, with them possibly being made by Lees & Co ... That is entirely possible too , that Bing licensed the name or commissioned the production of train sets from Lees &Co but no-one has found any actual record of anything , so whichever one is true cannot be determined ( yet) Its kind of weird because the UK is pretty good with paperwork and trademark records, advertisement copies etc and yet this particular company is only referenced by a few advertisements for boats in magazines and the Bingoscope.

Everyone needs a little mystery in their lives

@Don McErlean posted:

Beautiful coaches Fatman, as for the other, well you have to leave some for the other folks, No?

Best Always

Don

But But but ....  ALL the trains!

@Fatman - thanks for your compliment on my new "construction train" set.  That I may have managed to get a "first" on your look for list is just amazing!!  Best Wishes for sure.

Don

A part of the collection that I repaired today. A Bing street lamp with post box. Made around 1910.

Arne

@Arne What a find!  That is clearly designed to be a US prototype including the postal pick up schedule in English and the USM on the box.  Look at all those pick up times, this was a period when the written mail was IMPORTANT, today I get one pick up a day and that only 6 days a week.  Times change for sure.

Best Wishes

Don

A long time ago in France, you could have played with a high voltage model from Edobaud and received an operational tank car with opening valve for emptying it..... only the most responsible boys have survived.... 110volts plus water seems a little strange in regards of today security labels of all sorts....

It was not better in Germany, Marklin has done the same thing from gauge 1 to O gauge.....

Lionel has been more carefull as all the tanks cars are dummy !!!  Now I have to check the British productions.....

Take care and all my best wishes,  Daniel

@FRENCHTRAINS- Daniel what a great post!  Today we sometimes forget the primitive way our hobby started...and dangerous as well.  Just to let you know that Europe was not the only place that dangerous methods were used for trains, Lionel once included instructions with their trains on making a battery in a open top glass beaker with lead plates and a solution of sulfuric acid!  I bet Mom really liked that on her carpet!!

Glad to see you posting again Daniel, glad you are back!

Don

Hello Don @Don McErlean

Interesting fact, the same has been done in Germany, France and some other countries. I have never tested this system.... just because I do not have the things to do it... Of course if you are very careful it must work very well.

No many news in the collection that is why I do not post very often.... Latest acquisition is a nice Lionel set from 1939, I would say semi-tinplate as the loco is die cast. A nice 224e in gun-metal with a set of passenger cars which was in sad condition but with the help of Hennings trains all is now restored with original parts and in great condition.

So from this

To the finished model

All my best wishes, Daniel

The 224E in gunmetal is a lovely thing...nice job on the repairs.

PD

Daniel - what a great set, a classic pre-war passenger set.  The gunmetal pre-war 224 with the die cast 2224 tender is the most rare and collectable version of this loco / tender pair.  The tinplate passenger cars are like wise really good looking.  Did you know that Lionel chose the 224 to lead its very first train set to come out after the war in 1945?  I have the post war version and it pulls the same passenger cars (green/cream tinplate) but with postwar trucks and couplers.

Best Wishes

Don

Picked up a box of tinplate track at the local indoor flea market this past Saturday:

I was primarily interested in the two-rail track, presumably Marx, enough for two ovals, a tough find around here. A few sections of Lionel three-rail, together with an old O-27 uncoupler section and controller, all for three bucks.

PD

Hey @pd I am not trying to state the obvious, but before you go to the trouble of laying out the track for some Marx (always 0 gauge) ovals, did you check the gauge between the main rails?  That 2-rail track could be American Flyer, post war, S gauge track .  The distance between the main running rails on 0 gauge should be 1 1/4 " whereas for S gauge it is 7/8".  Sorry if that's an obvious thing you already did but that track looks a lot like some Flyer track I mistakenly bought to do what you are trying to do and didn't discover my error till I got home from the train show, luckily I only spent $2 so it was no big deal.

Best Wishes

Don

Thanks for the note, Don, but definitely O-gauge, about 1-3/8" from top-of-the-rail to top-of-the-rail (S-gauge would be about 7/8" from rail-to-rail). It's funny you ask; while I was walking around at the market a couple of folks asked where I got the Flyer S-gauge track and was there any more. Explained to them that it was two-rail tinplate O-gauge. I don't think they believed me.

I don't have any tinplate trains, but below are photos of some of the colorful tinplate accessories on my layout:

@pd- great news glad you didn’t get fooled l  like I did. Best Wishes. Don

Love the prewar accessories, Arnold. They look great!

PD

Arnold : Great accessories...I love the crane and the coal loader.  Those are still absent from my pre-war collection...but I keep looking.  Thanks for posting your layout looks great.

Don

@pd posted:

Picked up a box of tinplate track at the local indoor flea market this past Saturday:

I was primarily interested in the two-rail track, presumably Marx, enough for two ovals, a tough find around here. A few sections of Lionel three-rail, together with an old O-27 uncoupler section and controller, all for three bucks.

PD

PD - Are you building a layout with it?  If so, make sure you post pictures here!

I pick up any 2-rail Marx track I can find for a reasonable price at the train shows, or anywhere else for that matter.  It's usually cheap, because so few of us want it!  The curves are relatively plentiful, the straights less so, but switches and 90 degree crossings are harder to come by.  Of course, some 2-rail shows up on the 'Bay once in a while, with pricing all over the place.  Lionel also made 2-rail tinplate O gauge track, but it isn't nearly as common as Marx.  Pretty much all other brands of tinplate 2-rail O gauge has larger rails compared to the small O27 rails of Marx & Lionel.

I use a lot of original 2-rail Marx on my windup layout, but also use modern O27 style Lionel O42 & O54 curves with the middle rail removed where I need broader curves than the O27 Marx:

No layout for the wind-ups here, James, but sometimes they get a chance to stretch their legs on the basement 3-rail layout and the wife has used them with a loop of 2-rail track on our Christmas display:

We have a small collection of Bing, Hafner, Hornby, and Marklin clockworks that see service.

The idea of taking the third rail out of some wider-radius track is intriguing; I hadn't thought of that. One of the problems with the wind-ups is their tendency to run like banshees, making derailments on 27-inch radius curves a problem.

We typically use Marklin track on the displays, as it features an interlocking device between sections that keeps the loop together. I've been collecting the Marx track with the idea of possibly adding a second loop.

Ironically, my first childhood train set was a Marx clockwork made in the early 1960s (almost unbelievable that there was a market for wind-ups at that late date). This was replaced by a second-hand electric Flyer Mountaineer set a year later, so the Marx was soon languishing in the bottom of the closet. Today I have no Marx wind-ups, but I should probably look for a few. The one I had was made out of stamped tin; most of the late production ones I see at York and elsewhere are plastic.

Anyway, thanks for the pic of your layout; it looks sharp. Wind-ups are pretty fascinating.

PD

PD, the Christmas display looks great.  The Marklin track with the built in locks is a good choice for a temp layout - I have used small rubber bands around the end ties to hold Marx track together as well.

If you received a stamped steel Marx mechanical in the early 1960's, it would have most likely been a 533, the windup version of the electric 591 (assuming it was a steam loco).  I do see them at train shows once in a while, and of course, they are available on the online auction site as well.  There are quite a few variations of it, including a battery version powered by two D cells in the boiler.  Yes, it's surprising how late the market for clockworks trains lasted, Marx sold them until they went out of business in 1975.  Durham continued selling O gauge windups (under various brand names) for many years after that.

Here are a few 533/591 variations - I've documented 11 mechanical & battery powered variations all together:

@pd and @WindupGuy- Hey fellows, how about a few more pictures of those 2-rail Marx wind up layouts for the rest of us Marx fans (like me!)...great posts and really interesting.  Oh yea...when we are talking "wind up" don't forget about Hafner (all wind up) and several of the European brands (Hornby, French Hornby, and JEP for example).

Don

James, thanks for the loco number...that should make the searching a bit easier

The Marx set I got was similar to this, only with the stamped-steel locomotive:

It was definitely UP livery, and I'm pretty confident it had this same Seaboard gondola. A couple years later, one of my younger brothers got the same set and we combined the track to make a bigger loop and slightly longer trains. Add in the Marx Fort Apache playset and a couple of stick-n-clothespin rubber-band guns and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. Some epic fun, for sure.

Don, here are some pictures of my clockwork layout in its current form... I'm afraid it isn't very photogenic, lots of background clutter!

First, this is the north loop where the enginehouse, water tank, and coaling tower are located, as well as the north yard:

Heading out of the north loop, the tracks come together for a short section of double-track mainline.  It's also where one of the crossovers between the mainline tracks is located.  Since it is a central location of the layout, it also happens to be where I keep keys for winding up the locos... you can see some of them at the edge of the layout:

The double-track mainline splits again at the right side of this picture to go around the south loop.  There is a small yard area within the south loop, and most of the industries are located inside the loop.  The trackage also includes the other crossover between the mainline tracks:

Another view of some of the industries inside the south loop:

Finally, an overall view of the south loop/yard/industries.  It's a little different than the view I posted earlier - I've made a few changes and this is the most recent arrangement:

I tried to use as many vintage metal/litho buildings and accessories as possible for the layout.  Since the tracks are 2-rail tinplate, there isn't any power to them - trains are mostly clockwork, although I have a few on-board battery locos that occasionally run on the railroad.  As stated above, the mainline is mostly O42 & O54 Lionel (O27 profile rail) with the middle rail removed, and all other track is either vintage Marx or Lionel 2-rail tinplate.  The layout uses both Marx and Lionel 2-rail switches.  The roadbed is 1/2" MDF cut to shape, painted with gray primer, then painted with stone textured spray paint.  The "grass" is indoor/outdoor rug from Lowes - used to be Ecorug, now they changed brands but it is very similar.

This is a trackplan of the layout, although it doesn't show a few of the extra tracks that are in the yard area... I put straight pieces of track down between the yard tracks for extra display area.  You can see that the crossovers allow the train direction to be reversed... it allows for some interesting "operation" with multiple trains:

And that's it.  I don't get a lot of time to work with the trains nowadays, but still enjoy them.  Hope to devote more time to the hobby once I retire!

PD, that is a Marx #526 set with the venerable #401 plastic body locomotive.  I received that set in 1972 - my very first train - and I still have it, although it is much worse for wear.  Here I am opening it up for Christmas:

But, I digress.  Marx sold the #533 in a number of different sets, and I have it in a similar set (without box), although the tender & caboose are NYC and the gondola is yellow.  Pictured below is another set that included a boxcar as well.  You probably won't find them listed with the #533 loco number since that was used in-house, and not put on the engine itself.  Good luck with the search!

That is a lovely set, James. "Sparkling" is a great descriptor!

I have one of those little B&O gondolas in yellow that I run behind the 999 when it gets out on the layout with a four-wheel NYC coffin-style tender:

I don't recall where I got it, but it had plastic wheels on it at the time. I think plastic wheels were used on the rolling stock for the Marx clockworks. Anyway, I swapped those out for a set of metal wheels. The barrels came with it...no idea if those are original Marx or not.

That's a brilliant layout, man - quite extensive for wind-ups, I think. Louis Marx would be impressed!

PD