Tinplate Roofs?

does this car have lithographed sides and a separate, solid color roof?

Yes it does. I am referring to an Ives 1708 cattle car. Does that have something to do with it?

Ives roof paint is well known for flaking.  I've seen more "new in the box" Ives cars than I care to think about with flawless litho and with roofs that looked like they had been through a war.  It is "just the nature of the beast".

Also, in general, when parents had kids put everything away after playtime, the track sections were the last items taken up and placed in the box, so it often ended up on top of the trains - not good for painted roofs (or future collectors!).

Jim

the process and materials for offset tin lithography (car sides) and painted tin (frames and roofs) are completely different.  as Robert mentioned, Ives and i'll definitely throw in Dorfan, too, seem to have had much weaker methods of paint adhesion.

when thrown into a toy box, it's probably not the orientation, but again, the relative hardness of the lithograph process that kept the sides in better shapes than the painted roof surfaces.

Thanks guys. Maybe I will just have to be a bit less fussy, and if I can't do that, repaint a roof.

Ives paint flaking is quite different from the paint being scratched off by careless use and storage.  Ives paint will flake off in large pieces with little provocation and with no scratching or other damage to the underlying metal surface.

Tinplate toys were made with thin sheet steel, coated (plated) with a thin coating of tin to prevent rust.  One explanation I read (via Louis Hertz) is that Ives, intending to make a higher quality product more resistant to corosion, used a more pure tin plating than did Lionel.  Unfortunately, paint adhesion to the higher quality tin plating was terrible.  Flaking paint on Ives is the norm.

As noted by overlandflyer, this situation did not affect lithographed surfaces.  So it is pretty common for Ives trains and accessories (notably stations), with lithographed sides and enamel painted bases and roofs, to show great lithography and severely flaking painted surfaces as a matter of course.  

One way to look at this is that the flaking is "part of the Ives charm".  Extensively flaked roofs and bases of stations and cars are frequently repainted, and there may be just the slightest bit more acceptance for repainting in these cases than in others because it is such a widely recognized issue.