FV windup circa 1895 ...not quite O gauge

Lovely early example Carey ... you are killing it with all the truly old stuffs !

Carey, YES !! It is from around 1895-1910. Nice to see it running, I have a bigger model, there is many different variations and it run the same way than yours, very fast... as a crazy rabbit.

I have never seen those tracks with FV, I don't know if there is several models but all those I have seen are this ones

And here is my train,

Very best,  Daniel

Hello Daniel ...thank you for sharing your photos ....is this gauge 28mm? or 30mm? 

Does the proper track show up for sale in France ? 

Your larger set is lovely .  

Cheers Carey 

Thanks Carey, Your set is also very nice and with a video it's better, I think I will have to make short ones in the future. It is hard to speak of gauge for this type of trains, they are approximately more or less I would say.... 29 mm....

Finding tracks in France is possible, not common but there is regularly some on the Bay, they are always expensive, 100-150 € for a full circle. Generally paint is in poor condition.

Very best, Daniel

looks like if you add in 2 x ½ the rail width it might have been trying to be #0 gauge.  even Lionel was measuring track gauge from center of the rail to center of the rail until the 30's.  miscommunication was not that uncommon at the turn of the century.

0 (zero) gauge was establishment by Marklin ? in 1892 ??? ...  Both FV and Issmayer came up with their own "tiny" gauge  which was just slightly smaller than 0 gauge   ....  early on there would be very little reason to establish a "standard" ...as many of the earliest small trains would run on a set circle ... without much hope of enlarging the RR empire ...   once 0 gauge got a foot hold as a good usable size   1901 and later ...then establishing a standard for interchangeability would become much more an advantage for continued sales ....   Ives would enter the "established " 0 gauge market to compete with the German/ French imports ..  and in 1903 enter in the 1 gauge market again to bite off some of the imported sales.     Lionel with it's non "standard"  2 1/8" at the very end of 1906   ... advertised as 2" ...caused no end of trouble for the American  established real 2"  train lines ...  the new weed of a gauge would kill off the indigenous  specie through heavy advertising and pushy salesman . 

Cheers Carey 

Some text on gauge from my e -book on the subject:

In toy and model trains the gauge is the distance between the 2 rails forming the track, however in early days of toy trains the track gauge was measured from between the middle of the 2 rails. Since at that time the (tinplate) rail profile was 3 mm wide the track gauge was 3 mm more than now; for instance, a track gauge of 45 mm now was called 48 mm then. Many of the track gauges for toy and model trains are an industry standard and are indicated by a letter or number, the most common currently are: Z (6.5 mm), N (9 mm), H0/00 (16.5 mm), S (22.5 mm), 0 (32 mm) and 1 (45 mm). Märklin started this standardization in 1891 introducing a complete gauge I railway system with track, rolling stock and accessories. Gauge I, which had a width of 48 mm, i.e. 45 mm between the rails, is still used and now in general called gauge 1. Larger gauges where standardised indicated by Roman numerals II (54 mm), III (75 mm) in 1892. In 1898 Märklin introduced a smaller gauge of 35 mm (32 mm between the rails) which was called gauge 0. Other toy train makers like Bing and Carette followed and later almost all manufacturers around the world followed this industry standard. 

Most train sets were bought as a present for a child. Until a couple of years ago I assumed that train sets where made by the toy or model train manufacturers to initiate the child to a hobby, such that they would want more, profit generating, items to expand on the set. Recently I came to the conclusion that cheap tinplate clockwork train sets were sold as a toy by itself; the manufacturer just gets profit from making and selling sets. Some manufacturers, like FV. JEP, CR (Rossignol) and Bing, even made train sets using a gauge for which they did not supply extra track or rolling stock to expand the set. Gauges of 30 mm and 25 mm were used, which, as was normal with tinplate trains, were called respectively 33 mm and 28 mm. Below a picture of a 30/33 mm JdeP (JEP) train which is balanced on 0-gauge track, but it will not run on that track.

Regards

Fred

Hello Fred    thank you for the education ...yes the manufactures were happy to sell you a "toy train" as an individual toy ...   more up scale and later the manufactures were more interested in selling "model railroading ' as an expandable  toy /hobby . 

Do you have photos or catalog cuts of the original Marklin   0 gauge line  that can be posted ?

thank you  cheers Carey  

Carey,

I do not have any (reprint or original) old Märklin catalogues. Here a picture from "The Golden Years of Tin Toy Trains 1850-1909 (Paul Klein Schiphorst)" showing two of the first Märklin 0 gauge locomotives. This book is advisable when you are interested in older toy trains and is one of the few also mentioning (and showing) FV and other older French makers.

Regards

Fred

Hello Fred  thank you for the photos and book suggestion ...yes I have it the library ...

so is this close to the first 1 gauge Marklin ? sold as a repro pf the original production item ?

Thank you 

Cheers Carey 

I hope, but do not know, that the originals were better runners then the reproduction:

Regards

Fred

thank you for the demonstration..... not much go .... better wait for an original ...and do a test comparison