Weekend Tinplate photos 📸 and videos 📽 2/13/20!

Scott Smith

A Hafner set ca 1919 ...with something slightly amiss

The odd bit is the lone red driver center.  It's not an issue of paint flaking from the other driver.

 Rather it is a matter of a drive center made out of scrap litho.  There's not enough printing present for me to identify the source but I'm sure whatever it is it wasn't train related.

A Bit of Tail end Thursday. STD Gauge Freedom Train flat end observation. I specifically asked for it this way. Only one made so far.

Steve 

I am letting the team down so far this week lol !

But I did manage to score a nice bit of pre-war Hornby track ... The BBR1 Braking and Reversing combination rail ... Depending on how you set it , it can trip either of the Brake or Reversing levers present on certain locomotives .

A Must have

More to come over the weekend hopefully !

Lots of damp and rainy weather here, but there was one dry afternoon such that I could have a run with my very rare RivaRossi tinplate train:

Regards

Fred

Here are the smallest American Flyer items I have discovered so far.  A trio of steeple cabs.

As you can see, they are lettered "American" on the left and "Flyer" on the right.  Obviously, these are not running locomotives, but what are they??  

The next photo gives you a better idea of their size.  

It is believed that the group of items, including the 1217 in the background, date to approximately 1920 (which is when American Flyer introduced their steeple cab engines).

So what are they?  It is believed that these are Cracker Jack prizes from c. 1920.  In researching Cracker Jack prizes, I can find similar sized cast items that are being sold as Cracker Jack prizes, so it appears that is what these are.  

I am not sure if there are other colors of engines out there or not, but it would not surprise me to find other colors.  These items come up on ebay very infrequently.

NWL

Buddy L at the gift shop at the McComick Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, Arizona. These were the childhood toys of Guy Stillman who donated  his massive collection of outdoor railroad equipment at the start of the Railroad park.  

The train on the top shelf of the display cabinet in  the model railroad building is the only Lionel OO I have ever seen. It is almost as large as S gauge American Flyer.

This is a must visit if in the Phoenix area. There are huge, and I mean huge layouts in O, HO/ HOn3,and N scale. There are two Z scale layouts and numerous displays.

 Jim

Chris Lonero posted:

Lets see your tinplate! 

Have always loved this shot. Gives me ideas for mine. 🙂

Joe Gozzo

A nice Hornby 0-4-0 back running after several decades of sitting on a friend of a friends course scale layout.

Jim Z posted:

Buddy L at the gift shop at the McComick Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, Arizona. The train on the top shelf of the display cabinet on the model railroad building is the only Lionel OO I have ever seen. It is almost as large as S gauge American Flyer. This is a must visit if in the Phoenix area. There are huge, and I mean huge layouts in O, HO/ HOn3,and N scale. There are two Z scale layouts and numerous displays.

 

 

Jim

That Buddy L set is a pretty rare and expensive item sitting up there, unprotected on that shelf. I'd love to have one on display in my train room. However, I could buy my son a nice used car and have some money left over for a new driveway for what that would cost. A set like that went for $23,000 at auction a few years ago.

George

How 'bout a bit of Nifty whimsy from 1922 ...

Enjoy your weekend!

Bob

FRED: Stunning Rivarossi tinplate!  NWL: LOVE those Crackerjack cast AF locos! Probably worth some $$$ to a Crackerjack prize collector. BTW, I am still a huge Crackerjack fan, and usually consume at least one bag a week (NOT those silly hard to open small boxes!) The current prizes are cheap cardboard and nothing like the CLASSIC prizes such as your excellent pieces!

BB: SPECIAL mention always for the Fontaine Fox cartoon trolley! A CLASSIC!

Firstup, IVes 1679 with its Lionel counterpart. Don’t know why, but I love even the more “common” transition era items.’

lionel 2077 Gondola and Ives 1712 Caboose. The Caboose is HUGE- holy Toledo . Also has an electrical pick-up

karl Bub/KBN wind-up loco(no

motor me chansm) Which I believe, per sources here and elsewhere, is from the 20s.”KBN” on the front”

Germany on the bottom.obviously missing the motor. 

Comparison of height between Ives 1679 and 1712

heres an interesting one, at least it is to me. I Gauge wooden kit ‘Monarch Pickle Company of a Chicago’. Had a lot of trouble finding out werethjs came from. When I opened the hatches up top, however, it said “Walthers” . Added that to my internet search and came up with and s-Gauge kit from Hoquat Hobbies from 1987(link to be posted shortly)

finally, pictures of my continued deconstruction of my layout

Jamie Thompson posted:

A nice Hornby 0-4-0 back running after several decades of sitting on a friend of a friends course scale layout.

Hi Jamie, we can't see your picture.

George

Trainlover160 posted:

Chris Lonero posted:

Lets see your tinplate! 

Have always loved this shot. Gives me ideas for mine. 🙂

Joe Gozzo

Joe, you just made me go buy one! 

The one I got has some issues and no box. It's missing the sign, which will give me an opportunity to give it my own touch. I should be able to make something removable... Now to find a space for it.

George

Nation Wide Lines posted:

Here are the smallest American Flyer items I have discovered so far.  A trio of steeple cabs.

As you can see, they are lettered "American" on the left and "Flyer" on the right.  Obviously, these are not running locomotives, but what are they??  

The next photo gives you a better idea of their size.  

It is believed that the group of items, including the 1217 in the background, date to approximately 1920 (which is when American Flyer introduced their steeple cab engines).

So what are they?  It is believed that these are Cracker Jack prizes from c. 1920.  In researching Cracker Jack prizes, I can find similar sized cast items that are being sold as Cracker Jack prizes, so it appears that is what these are.  

I am not sure if there are other colors of engines out there or not, but it would not surprise me to find other colors.  These items come up on ebay very infrequently.

NWL

NWL, could they be game pieces? I have an Alderman and Fairchild Auto Race game that uses moving pieces this small. 

Interesting, but more likely Crackerjack prizes, at least until an AF game board surfaces!  😁 A puzzlement at any rate!

The ones I bought were advertised as Cracker Jack prizes.  I would suspect they are listed in a Cracker Jack collectible guide, but have never checked.

NWL

@Nation Wide Lines very cool AFminis- whatever they may be. Almost remid me of midgettoys a bit, but clearly much older.

@Bob Bubeck love the 98 year old Toonerville trolley. Just as whimsical now, if not more so, than back in '22!

Forgot to post these two, the station came on Wednesday and the caboose today. The station is a bit beat up, but throw some freight and people n it and it'll look nice by my 201 passenger station:

Ives 115 station, missing the chimney. Has the "higher" base.

Ives 115 Freight station with the #67 caboose which is in pretty nice shape.

Comparing caboose sizes between the 1712 and 67. Also, this shot shows the 67 has the green roof..

Keep the tin coming!

On vacation with the family this week.  Found this gem in a display at NASA. 

Here are examples of the Ives cars that became Lionel cars.

This one did not make the transition.

This one did not make the transition.

Have a Great Tinplate Weekend

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

A recent aquisition, two JEP signals. These are really nice and are a great edition to my tinplate collection.

Miketg

My most recent McCoy addition arrived this week. And with a little love and a few borrowed parts, she runs again. Now my daughter won't be able to remind me that I don't have "that" set yet. I'm sure someday she will claim it as she has been pointing at pictures of it for the last several years.

POC914NUT posted:

My most recent McCoy addition arrived this week. And with a little love and a few borrowed parts, she runs again. Now my daughter won't be able to remind me that I don't have "that" set yet. I'm sure someday she will claim it as she has been pointing at pictures of it for the last several years.

We need to double head them some day.

Steve

A Lionel 38 heading a coal train: 

How about a ton of Bilt-E-Z and Tin Town High Rise buildings. Layout will be down for a while as a reroute the track to allow these all along the back wall.

Steve

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

How about a ton of Bilt-E-Z and Tin Town High Rise buildings. Layout will be down for a while as a reroute the track to allow these all along the back wall.

Steve

 

Hoarder! 

George

Guys: Back on 1/30 in this thread, FATMAN posted some views of a Bandi HO set that he had found.  I know very little about Japanese toy trains of this era, but he speculated that their approach was moving to be more "cartoon" or toy like.  This item isn't BANDI but I just recently encountered a small lithographed station that has me completely mystified.  It also, like FATMAN's set,  seems to be HO in scale going by the size of the litho people shown.  It also has some sort of power or transformer like function, because on one side (track side) are two obvious 2 pole (DC?) connectors that would appear to run to the track (as they are on the track side of the building).  While on one end of the building is an input socket of the same sort and a plastic switch (forward / reverse?) .  I loved the litho as like many Japanese items of this era it is highly detailed and beautifully colored.  It is also different on both the long sides, the street side is very different to the track side, which clearly made this little guy much harder to manufacture.  The non-electrical connection end does have a trade mark, it is "TM" enclosed in a diamond symbol along with the words , "Trade Mark" on both sides and "Made in Japan" underneath the diamond.  Any all information would be most appreciated. 

Street side view, note name "Plainview" and "Information" both written in English. Size - about 7" long at grey base, I know it looks like 8" in the picture but that is an optical illusion of the photo. Direct measurement is 7".

Track side view, showing electrical leads and venting for something inside of station, indicating that something generating heat was on the inside. Sorry the red plastic roof does not come off easily so I don't actually know what is inside if anything

Electrical input (?) side of the station, note red plastic button between circular connectors (unknown function -but might be a reset button for a disconnect in case of a derail).  Note also the red plastic two way switch that I am speculating is forward / reverse.

Trade mark end of station note words "Trade Mark" and "Made in Japan" to the side and below the diamond shaped symbol containing the letters "TM" . 

Note width of little station is about 2", Roof is red plastic, one piece, attached to building via 4 eyelet rivets and it does not detach.  Base is grey plastic, one piece, attached to the building by an elaborate tab system where the tabs from the sides are wrapped over molded cavities equipped with rods.  Construction is quite elaborate and complex for its size.  

Anyway, thought you might like to see this thing.  I picked it up at a train show in Plano, Tx in January just because I love litho buildings and the litho work on this is just top quality.

Don McErlean

Don,

TN not TM, it´s the trademark of Nomura toys.

Greetings

Arne

Arne always knows!

My stuff from Germany is still sitting somewhere between JFK and our fine US postal service. 3 weeks now. Losing hope. Somebody call someone and do something!

PhillyChris posted:

Arne always knows!

My stuff from Germany is still sitting somewhere between JFK and our fine US postal service. 3 weeks now. Losing hope. Somebody call someone and do something!

This happened to me once. I filed a claim online at USPS.com. Then, they go search. It started moving the next day, but the post office didn’t close the claim. I closed it once I got the item. Mine was coming from Ireland. The customs people are lazy. I think there is some informal system once you file a claim. They don’t want to get in trouble.

BTW, the Jamaica, NY (JFK) customs is the worst. I’ve heard others are better, but you don’t get to choose.

George

@Don McErlean  Nice pickup !

That unit is , I believe, actually a Whistle Station/Controller !!!

comes from the later plastic loco set "Battery Operated Figure 8 Train Set with Smoke Whistle and Trestle"

https://spur00.de/nomura  Scroll down to the bottom

But in related Fatman news ... I also picked up another French Hornby carriage , this one from a 3-rail electric set as it has a pickup shoe fitted ( I think this is a factory kit option for lighting the carriages )

Arne:  Thank you, as always for the information that the trade mark is TN not TM and it stands for Nomura toys.  I have heard of them and may even have some other toys that they made. I am certain you are correct, but the guy who painted that symbol on the little house must have had too much Sake!  Even under a magnifying glass it looked like TM but maybe that is just 76 year old eyes not a misprint.  Nevertheless, thank you for taking the time to comment and setting me straight.

FATMAN:  Wow , a picture of my little house as it appeared in a set !  That is really cool...You know I thought of all kinds of electrical things that it could be...transformer, inverter, etc  Never thought of a whistle controller.  Guess I am too much of a Lionel guy (you know the whistle is in the tender!)to think of that.  Thank you very much.  The set it really neat and looks like it was quite high quality.  Was it Bandi? Looks like 1950's or 1960's would that be correct.  It resembles my Tyco sets of 1950's .

Again, thank you both for data on this piece that I could never have gotten elsewhere in so short a time. Also, beautiful Hornby French coach, would they have called this a "combine" like we did?

Regards, Don McErlean

Don McErlean posted:

 

FATMAN:  Wow , a picture of my little house as it appeared in a set !  That is really cool...You know I thought of all kinds of electrical things that it could be...transformer, inverter, etc  Never thought of a whistle controller.  Guess I am too much of a Lionel guy (you know the whistle is in the tender!)to think of that.  Thank you very much.  The set it really neat and looks like it was quite high quality.  Was it Bandi? Looks like 1950's or 1960's would that be correct.  It resembles my Tyco sets of 1950's .

Again, thank you both for data on this piece that I could never have gotten elsewhere in so short a time. Also, beautiful Hornby French coach, would they have called this a "combine" like we did?

Regards, Don McErlean

Hi Again Don ... I would say your whistle controller was definately in the early 60's as thats when Nomura went to plastic ( as is the set in the picture) and its definately Nomura all round as opposed to Bandai.

The French Hornby combinations are usually just called Passenger Baggage Coaches to the best of my knowledge , so that would make the one above a French Hornby 1st Class Passenger Baggage Coach

They also came as 2nd and 3rd Class variants as well as "no baggage" carriages

http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/rai...r/coaches/index.html

Just last night scored a Hornby No2 GWR Breakdown Van and Crane unit , in well loved condition , with the box ( very rough) Its a later variant as it has automatic couplers (1938-41*)

*(Thanks to Don Mc for the correct dating! )

Fatman posted:

Don McErlean posted:

 

lso, beautiful Hornby French coach, would they have called this a "combine" like we did?

Regards, Don McErlean

The French Hornby combinations are usually just called Passenger Baggage Coaches to the best of my knowledge , so that would make the one above a French Hornby 1st Class Passenger Baggage Coach

 

According to the French book on Hornby by Clive Lamming these were called: "Voiture mixte voyageurs-bagages".

Regards

Fred

FATMAN :  While I am sure you know as your knowledge of Hornby well exceeds mine, I took the opportunity to check my "Hornby Companion Series" Vol 5 O'Gauge for the configuration of the Hornby trademark transfer so visible in the pictures you posted.  It indicates a year of manufacture from 1938 - 1941.  IAW this reference if there had been no "line" under the word Meccano, it would have been dated from 1936-1938.  Nontheless, It is a remarkable find, I am sure that I have not seen a breakdown van before.

SNCF231E - Thanks for the exact title...my HS French would translate that to be...Carriage, Mixture of passengers and baggage, which is what it certainly is !

FATMAN - Here is my only contribution to the Hornby breakdown train...it is a simple crane car from the postwar series, as best I can date, 1949-1950. The date is due to the red coloring and white lettering, postwar Hornby embossed trademark under the floor, and the postwar base.  This car in many forms had been made since 1923.  The most obvious family characteristic of the entire series to me is the elaborate hook with ball weight.  Every car since its introduction had that ball hook.   The Hornby Companion book lists the year 1950 as the "peak" of Hornby postwar O' gauge production as the next year the Korean War limited production and (iaw the book) Hornby  O'gauge never really recovered afterward as the company concentrated on "Dublo" trains which had become much more popular, took less material to make more trains and cost less to make. 

Regards Don

Fatman posted:

@Don McErlean  Nice pickup !

That unit is , I believe, actually a Whistle Station/Controller !!!

comes from the later plastic loco set "Battery Operated Figure 8 Train Set with Smoke Whistle and Trestle"

https://spur00.de/nomura  Scroll down to the bottom

But in related Fatman news ... I also picked up another French Hornby carriage , this one from a 3-rail electric set as it has a pickup shoe fitted ( I think this is a factory kit option for lighting the carriages )

The train set you have pictured was marketed by both TN/Nomura and  Rosko/ AHI and they used TN whistle station and power boxes in their sets (as did West German supplier Distler).

New Haven set

freight set w/ whistling station

TN made several other stations, watchman's towers and battery boxes used by all three suppliers. 

Rosko tin set with orange station

TN and Rosko battery pack 

TN orange tower often found with Distler sets. tn yellow tower 

I believe TN also made this battery station house for Marx or Linemar. 

Jim O'c : THANK YOU for the pictures and the information.  This thread is really great, over the last several months I have learned and been taught about at least 3 toy train manufacturers I never knew even existed plus I even had a few odd components of theirs.  Thanks very much everyone for answering my questions and posting input.

Sincerely  Don McErlean