Mystery Tastykake Reefer

My hunch is this is an RGS Trains product. He does a lot of custom unlicensed product, this appears to be one of them. These cars usually retail for about $75. 

Thanks!  That could be, although it appears to be screen printed (no decals or stickers), and the detail is very fine.  I'm pretty sure I got it at York but again I don't recall for sure.  But if it is an unlicensed RGS production I will likely just keep it to run.  

I'd have to agree.  I don't have one in hand to compare in a very detailed manner, but I'm pretty sure RGS did a Tastykake car that looked very similar to that in O Gauge.  It's very possible he did some in S Gauge too.

I just checked ebay, if you search "tastykake o gauge" you will see an O Gauge version (looks to be exact same graphics).  Seller doesn't mention RGS in the listing (does say it's a custom decoration job and pad printed), but it's clearly the same car you have, but in O Gauge.

Based on the other offerings from the same seller, I feel confident it's an RGS product, as I recognize several of the others as such. (there is also an HO version of this same car, less the "return to" and other markings near the cupcakes)

-Dave

Thanks Dave!  The graphics are identical, and I also found one HO gauge car on eBay with the same identical graphic.  Looks like you guys are correct.  Thanks again!

Dean

I purchased the Tasty kake and Kraft cars off of ebay a couple years ago.   They are new and according to the box unlabeled .  Both of my cars are wonderfully decorated.   I think I paid 65.00 for each one.

Jackie

Not that it is or isn't; but art being the same is no guarantee of the same maker, or printer. The print/ink styles would be a better comparison than the art itself.

Within advertising there is "generic" art released by companies for various comercial uses, usually ad creation, but sometimes for any promotion of the product in general. It is/was known as "cut art" and there used to be catalogs full of logos and items of everything you could imagine. You cut out a photo & maybe text etc., paste it on paper, then photograph it, and make a plate/screen by that photo .  It still exists in digital forms today, and the whole photo bit has been replaced with scanning and or layered files, etc. since the 80s.... 

To white out some text, used to be no big deal.(gotta read the catalogs granted permissions, restrictions, etc.)  Licensing has changed a lot and I imagine the reigns to be tighter today, but cut art availability is pretty important to help promotion when you aren't #1, 2 or even #3. They would likely rather see elimination of text than a blob for the most part too. 

It IS in fact, RGS.  I have seen a few of his things in S at his booth at York.  He has previously done Dunkin cars..Krispy Kreme, & several for the Beatles.  I think he has gotten into trouble for using copyrighted content before, but he must believe what he is doing.

@RadioRon posted:

It IS in fact, RGS.  I have seen a few of his things in S at his booth at York.  He has previously done Dunkin cars..Krispy Kreme, & several for the Beatles.  I think he has gotten into trouble for using copyrighted content before, but he must believe what he is doing.

I suspect (no inside knowledge or anything) that topic has caused the somewhat noticeable trend towards designs with fewer/no issues in that regard over the more recent years.

-Dave