Anyone owner of a rare/obscure train?

What is an obscure maker? I do not have an 0 gauge item from a manufacturer that is not on this list: http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/oindex.html but I have items from some 300 makers.

Regards

Fred

Well, with a collector like you, something would be considered obscure if it's not in your collection!

But In all seriousness, I would say makers that aren't normally targetted for large collections. Such as makers of low quality, or ones that only produced for a short amount of years, or ones that are hard to find information on, or are completely off the radar. Maybe a prototype of some type, or an exclusive train for a special event. Custom-made for a high paying customer, or a gift to a valued employee. Anything along those lines.

-Berk

I have an original boxed Marx set that includes the original 3/16 Pennsylvania stock car, once hard to find, before the internet.  Wonder if anybody else has found a boxed set including one?

Not exactly tinplate, I have this one of a kind, made by my son a number of years ago. 

sncf231e posted:

What is an obscure maker? I do not have an 0 gauge item from a manufacturer that is not on this list: http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/oindex.html but I have items from some 300 makers.

Regards

Fred

Graeme's site is a wonderful reference.  I started looking through it again, and was amused to see he had posted the auction pictures of my Walker-Fenn.  This is one of the photos that shows how it looked when I bought it:

This is how it looks after doing a little bit of work to it:

Even though Walker-Fenn is listed on the Binn's Road website, I think it is relatively obscure - especially on this side of the Atlantic.  Perhaps the postwar version - the Walker-Riemsdyk - is even more obscure.

I'll be interested to see what else is posted... 

I purchased from a TCA charter member a short stripe, mint PW 746 with "matching" N&W passenger cars.  What made this set "rare" or "obscure" was that he purchased them at Madison Hardware and the passenger cars were the Canadian Pacific set with the two coaches, vista dome and observation car that MH had someone repaint in a dubious pullman green with dulux gold lettering.  Had the correct OB's and window strips for the CP set.

Windupguy, those two engines the same one? A lot of differences between the two.

Chuck - Yes, they are the same engine.  The "before" picture I posted is one the seller posted for the auction.  That was the condition the locomotive was in when I received it.  The "after" picture is how it now looks after being rebuilt.

Pretty impressive work.  Smokebox looks totally different. Rear lower cowling is different. Dome was lowered. Rear cab wall added. Nice paint job. Excellent job!

Thank you.  I think that the angle that the pictures were taken from and the paint tend to create the illusion of change in some parts that were otherwise unmodified, such as the smokebox and dome.  I don't want to hijack this thread, so I'll create a new one to show some more detailed pictures of the repairs...

I once had a Dorfan Steam loco set (forgot the number).  What made it rare was that it was in one piece and it RAN!

As of today I think I am. I got my hands on an uncataloged set, 1113, that Lionel put out in the early 1960’s. All I know about it is I don’t know squat

I have already posted in another thread about my latest rarity .... a Bing British made by Stephan Bing not long after he fled Germany to Great Britain in the period of Hitlers rise to power ( early 30's ) as identified with the help of some fine forum members here ... As far as I can research this is the only train set made under the Bing British name ( he also made wooden clockwork boats under the same name )  and apparently came in two variants this one being the L.M.S. livery and the other I have not seen a LNER scheme.

I think also rarity is very much a geographical thing and what you are used to .. here in Australia any pre-war USA made train is a "rarity" and yet common as muck where the majority of the forum resides lol

Arne and Fred would have a billion things ( lol ) in their collection that most non-europeans would think rare and I constantly drool at their postings and bow before their awesome knowledge

Rare to some might be my 1937 Mickey and Minnie hand car ... because its NOT made by Lionel , but is instead by Wells O' London in Great Britain ...

Rare to me is a lionel clockwork 1511 from 1937 ... there might be plenty there, but this is the only one I have ever had the chance to grab in Australia

relatively rare to me are my Maurlyn's but I am wagering the majority of collectors outside of Australia would have never seen one in the flesh ... These were made in Sydney after the war ( 1948 )

Rarity also depends on what you collect I guess .. I mean most die hard "Gunzels "  would never give cheap and cheerful sets of the 30's to 60's a look in , but I like them ...

Something like a Burnett/Chad Valley Flying Scotsman ?

or a Czech Igra set ?

Or a battery operated 4.5V Bing loco .. and yes it runs !

A Kraus Germany 20V loco ?

How about we swap scales and go to a LIVE STEAM HO Gauge ?

Someone had waaaaayyy too much talent and time to make that ... I am guessing its a one-off, do they get rarer than that?

And yet each and every item in my collection is a rarity to me, because they have ALL led spectacular lives , cheap, spendy, mass-produced, hand made, common as muck, never find another one,or just "toys" .... because they each have a story to tell and they have SURVIVED ... they make me smile

Here are 2 items from my collection that I consider to be rare:

JAD Lines Hiawatha: with only about 250 locos and about 80 sets of the cars made, it's relatively rare.

Lionel 390E/390X: if I'm not mistaken, this was a one-year only item, 1930. 

John

Well, I might not have time to reply to all of these wonderful submissions yet, but what I can to is finally post a video of my little thing loco running. Sadly my normal camera is broken and all I have is this to work with, but it still gets the point across

Before, when I originally received her, she barely even ran, and was heavily dented.

Obscure?  Yes.  Rare Maybe.  Its really hard to say that anything made in a factory setting is really "rare". Scarce is probably a more apropos term.

In the train and toy business, there are too many cottage players over the years that produced such small numbers to be anything BUT rare.  Who's to say that something rare here in the US in rare in Germany?  or England?  or Austrailia? 

We also pollute rare with desirable. We also pollute rare with "its-rare-because-i-live-in-a-small-town-and-have-never-seen-one" exposures.

I definitely have some difficult to find because they were not made in large quantities or hard to acquire pieces. I hesitate to call them rare.  

We are seeing trains now from 50-60 year collections that haven't been seen or been seen in these numbers... this is skewing the scarcity equations we collectors use to judge the trains...

What galls me is the ePlay person calling a Peacock 253 rare.

I have a number of wooden trains that I received as a child in the mid-1950s. I recently discovered these were made in kit form in the 1930s by Stromberg. Whoever had these originally did a great job of assembling, painting and decorating them.