Hello friends:
A topic was started last summer about whether our first trains were Lionel, American Flyer or Marx, so some of you may have seen my story when I posted a similar response then:
The first trains in my home were American Flyer. I think my dad used my birth in 1947 as an excuse to purchase our first American Flyer S gauge train, an AF 302AC Atlantic freight set, that Christmas. I still have a page out of an old Seattle newspaper from that time. It is a local department store full page ad for AF and Lionel train sets on which Dad made notes of what he liked or disliked about each one following a personal "inspection" tour of the toy and hobby departments of the Seattle area department stores. His conclusion was that AF trains and two rail track were most realistic. Other AF sets followed, and I distinctly remember times that my dad, my uncle and a boyhood best friend of theirs got together many times to set up a fairly large floor layouts. I, of course, was allowed to watch while they ran the trains. Although we packed a 5' by 9' sheet of plywood along with us through three moves, a permanent home layout was never built.
I was given Marx trains from the time I was old enough to put them on the track, but it wasn't until Christmas 1960 that my dad finally entrusted all of the the AF S gauge trains to me. My primary collecting and operating focus has been American Flyer S gauge ever since.
I still have all of those first AF and Marx trains.
Insofar as guitars go, C.Sam, I still regret trading in my beautiful Gibson arch-top, f-hole acoustic guitar that I bought new in high school back to the music store on a Harmony(?!) solid body electric guitar and a Gibson amplifier. Of course I thought I was going to be a rock guitarist. Although I still have, but never play the old Harmony electric guitar, my brother sold my Gibson amp while I was away at college. The professional guitarists in our family love those vintage tube amps, and pay big bucks for the good ones.
Regrets aren't limited to old toy trains that got away. And don't get me started on the cars I drove in my youth!
Cheers!
Alan
