Originally Posted by TrainsRMe:
Those orange and brown boxcars in your first photo are very interesting to me - I've never seen anything like them. Nice! The coaches sure look very comparable to AF, Ives and Lionel ones of the period. ...
William Hafner and William Coleman jointly formed American Flyer in 1910 but rumored disagreements between the two caused a split with Hafner forming his own company in 1914. for the first few years of production, the two companies produced nearly identical cars. i have two early red gondolas and i've yet to figure out which is Hafner and which is Flyer.
unfortunately i recently lost a bunch of pictures including almost everything Hafner, but on the positive side, it was a project i wanted to reshoot anyway. here are a few oddball scans...
on the right are three late (postwar) production Hafner cars (Type IX frame) including the ATSF boxcar you mentioned in your response. on the left, despite still bearing the Hafner name, are three Wyandotte production cars. the b/w circle logo is all that was added to many of the pieces.
below are three late prewar sets lead by the seemingly unending variety of the #1010 locomotive...
a few more Type VIII frame cars.
VIII(a) on the right, VIII(b) on the left (short frame).
Jim, the only thing i'll question is that i don't believe any of these Type VIII frame cars were continued by Wyandotte, by the time the company was sold, the #2000 type locomotives along with the Type IX frame cars were being produced for years.
i do agree there are probably more rare Hafner passenger cars than freight.
on a good day a single 8-wheel car in C7 condition will easily top $1000.
definitely invest in the Greenberg (Doyle) book if you want a very thorough cross-section of Hafner production. as you will gather before long, it would be close to impossible to collect every variation, so it's always fun looking.
good luck.
cheers...gary
