American Flyer 20768 Smoky Mountain set, 1963-1964.

The 20768 was packaged in a Gilbert display box with a lid and an insert tray typical of later Gilbert Flyer. The trains and 22020 transformer were placed in cutouts in the insert with the 22020 positioned in the lower left hand corner. The track and paper were placed under the insert tray. This next part you may find a bit less helpful. If you can beg or borrow a copy of Greenberg's Guide to American flyer S Gauge, Vol. 3, Sets you will find on page 154 an picture of the 20741 The Meteor Freight in its box and insert tray packaged in an almost identical way as your 20768 set. The contents of the 20768 are described on page 157. Because this is copyrighted material, the scanning and posting of the picture on page 154 is not permitted on this forum.

Hope this helps.

Bob

Thanks Bob for your reply and information.  I will have to look at the Greenburg book.  There have been a couple of 20768s for sale in recent years and, from the photos accompanying them,  each of these came in an oblong brown corrugated box, the loco/tender and the eight cars each having their own boxes.  The loco and tender were in a wrapper, itself in a long cardboard box stamped on the side with the loco number, et cetera.  The cars were in Gilbert's last-design red and white boxes...not certain what else to call them.  My question was concerning the set with this type of packaging, not the type that the 20741 set used.  Wow, so it is possible that the 20768 came with both types of packaging.  The plot thickens.

Anyway, my question had to do with how the 22020 transformer and the pikemaster track was packaged in the brown boxed set.

I have attached a photo of one of these sets.  Sorry for the poor quality.

Thanks again!

Here is a second photo.

The Robert Tufts guide lists the 1963 20768 set with box number B4N295 and measuring 21.5x9x6.25 which would seem to match your photos. I'm guessing the transformer had its own box but who knows? Maybe someone out there has one with all the packaging.

The EFC on the set box is May, 1963. According to the Tuft's book on Gilbert sets all the 20768 1963 sets used a B4N295 set box with dimensions of 21.5"x9"x6.25". The set box in the picture looks correct for that set per the Tuft's book.

Both FlyerRich and AmFlyer are correct about the oblong set box, as cited by Tuffs for 1963. Nothing is listed for box type for 1964 in Tuff's book, although it looks like I may have mislead you. Sorry about that.

Bob

Bob, I was surprised when I saw that box number in the listing, I had to triple check because I always thought it was as you said. About the 22020 packaging, I would assume it was in the set box loose with no separate box. The Pikemaster track would be loose in the set box.

Thanks, all, for your informative replies.  I first became interested in Flyer during covid, fascinated that this company chose to go out with a bang, not a whimper.  In my view, the All Aboard layout in a box was/is simply brilliant, and the final Flyer sets still had some very high-quality steam locos, namely the 21130s (2 versions, if you consider how engine and tender were joined), the 21139 and the 21140.  For this collector, it is always fun to learn new things!