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I recently acquired a mint in the box "Tinplate Traditions" repro Lionel #165 magnetic crane for the reasonable price of $150 from a well-known shop in Scranton, PA. As with all my Tinplate Traditions products including two 408E's, state cars, a Blue Comet 400E and four car set plus some earlier Lionel Classics products, ALL have flawless paint finishes!

MY luck with LCT tinplate is another story: chipped paint on engines and cars including the Brute and four Showroom cars! Only ONE LCT set had a flawless finish: The armored train. The Tinplate Traditions accessories also have always come through with NO paint chips or scratches - 100%.

Mishaps in production or packaging can occur with ANY manufacturer's product but the earlier Chinese MTH Tinplate production is the best in my personal observation.

At present, I will continue to purchase the earlier Tinplate Traditions production items.    

Last edited by Tinplate Art
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The Lionel Classics line were produced by Samhongsa, a Korean company in Korea. The Lionel Classics items I own and operate are first class in paint finishes and overall construction.  I never had to return an LC item nor any of the early TT engines and rolling stock. From my experience the LCT production has poorer QC and the products I received had paint flaws such as chips even on their high end products such as the Proto 2 Brute and Showroom cars!

Last edited by Tinplate Art

I had to return a blue and orange 400e due to paint flaking and huge cracks in paint on both engine and tender. luckily My wife purchased from top notch dealer that accepted return and I went with black. it was a gift from my wife.

Getting back to the topic. I do not believe it should matter where the trains are made, as they should be manufactured to MTH specs and standards which should be controlled and monitored by MTH.

Joe Gozzo

I agree:  quality control is very important and can't be handled from afar.  Unless you have someone at the factory monitoring production and ensuring standards are met, you won't have many loyal customers down the road.  Maerklin found that out not too long ago as well, and have moved most of their production back to Europe. 

With that said, I love the Lionel Classics line from the late 80s on:  they were reasonably priced and well built Samhongsa products.  (I even have one of Mike's early Korean-made 260E repros and it still runs like a champ!) 

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