I was recently offered a set of HO steam engines. These engines are powered and not static display units.
There are four display model and each comes in a glass presentation box. Two of the engines are Pacifics and two are Hudsons. Which manufacturer made these? Apparently date to late 1970 early 1980’s.
Don.
This comes from some deep, dark recess in my brain, but I think the Franklin Mint engines were produced for them by Bowser. I seem to remember also they made a Pacific(?) painted green for the Southern Railway as run on one of SR’s name trains.
These models looked pretty nice as featured in Franklin Mints advertisements, but once again, from memory, they were fairly expensive when new. The engines I’m thinking about were released more in the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s. Unless they are particularly collectible, in which case FM stuff can even exceed their original purchase price, FM models on the secondery market can be picked up quite reasonably - around, but often less than half of their original release price. I have no knowledge of this relating to the FM Steamers you mention though. My experience with FM has been with their auto models.
I hope this helps some.
Bruce[:)]
Franklin Mint locos were, I believe, all made by Mantua.
As for accuracy, well, that’s TBD. IIRC, all the detail parts were plastic and not well done. YMMV.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
I think you are correct. When the ads appeared I always thought why would someone want to pay that much for a Mantua (or possibly Tyco if there was a difference) steam engine. I guess the same people that pay a lot of money to get boxcars with their favorite football team logo on the side.
Oh, and here is one currently on e-bay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Franklin-Mint-HO-Scale-Southern-Cresent-Train-Set_W0QQitemZ120449915444QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDiecast_Vehicles?hash=item1c0b5fda34&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1205|293%3A1|294%3A50
That was my first thought, too, and indeed someone offered re-detailed Mantua Pacifics at excessive prices back in the 1990’s. However…if you enter “Franklin Mint” in the HO section of eBay, the locomotives that mostly come up are Hudsons and definitely not by Mantua (Maxman’s linked example to a Pacific, however, is). Just look at the boilers and valve gear on the Franklin Hudsons. Mantua never made anything like that. In fact, I can’t definitely determine just what company’s product they might be…at least if one assumes them to be die-cast, or even all brass, as some ads suggest.
CNJ831
It has been proven many times that everything Franklin Mint makes is uncollectable. If 100 people say they want an item they make 100 and fill the total demand. Virtually everything they sell is worth less than the selling price in very short time including the coins they offer. People have put fortunes into their products only to find when they try to sell they have been had.
Recent offerings by Hawthorne Village were mostly Bachmann products. I wouldn’t be surprised if Franklin Mint switched to Bachmann as well. The other possibilities would be our Slovenia or Brazilian friends who manufacture(d) for IHC and Model Power, respectively. Both Hawthorne Village and Franklin Mint seem to have similar business models: do a fancy paint job and perhaps slightly better than stock detailing on otherwise common locomotives and sell them for a substantial markup to wanna-be collectors.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
Oh, now I remember, it wasn’t Bowser at all, but Mantua.
It appears you guys have a memory re-call that is far more acuate than mine[%-)]
Bruce[:)]
I remember the Southern Ry loco very well - they had full page ads in MR for it. And it looked liek they used about 2 gallons of paint on an HO model, what little molded in detail there was on those boilers was nearly filled in with the over thick paint. All I could ever think was who is paying brass prices for such a poorly done model. Not too many, it seems - IIRC, they later staretd sellign tem in the supplement paper that comes with most Sunday newspapers - like Parade, for a substantial discount over what the original asking price was. The ads were quite hilarious, too - for boththe trains and their car models. “Look! Authentic 4-6-2 wheel arrangement!”
–Randy
Yeah the Mantua 4-6-2 looked absurd with thick paint obscuring what little rivet detail was left in the original molds, and added parts were either bare brass or painted to look brass. Cheesy in the extreme.
When they brought out their HO Hudson I almost wondered if they had somehow acquired the old old AC Gilbert tooling!
But not all Franklin Mint stuff was cheesy looking. Looking at the December 1989 Model Railroader, pages 46-47, a two page Franklin Mint ad featured a wooded shelf case with 25 small scale locomotives (no tenders) cast in pewter, each at $27.50. Although the little models are perhaps a bit crude I thought this was overall a neat display, if overpriced. The May 989 MR page 41 showed a 1:43 scale Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. If I understand the subscription payment plan the total was $120. This is a nice looking model, described as die cast. A whole series of classic autos was offered and while expensive they looked rather nice in the photos.
Dave Nelson
Howdy, Dave.
I, too remember those tenderless pewter specials. They were advertised as, “The World’s Greatest Locomotives.” Among them was one that didn’t need a tender, the JNR C11 class 2-6-4T.
Now, the C11 is one of my favorite locomotives, but, “World’s Greatest???” It was the steam equivalent of a BL-1, used for short runs on branch lines that didn’t need anything more powerful.
The real kicker? The C11 has elephant ear smoke lifters.(1) On the little pewter model, they were installed sideways…
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that convinced me to put the Franklin Mint somewhere below dumpster diving as a source of possible model rolling stock.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
(1) Yes, present tense. There are five still operating on various Japanese private railways.
Anything that is marketed as a “collectible” isn’t!
Ditto - sounds like a quote from Antiques Roadshow!!![8D]
“With the possible exception of Jim Beam whiskey bottles.”
Dave Nelson
I would point out that a great many things that were considered rare and thus of “collectible value” in the days before eBay have been found to be far more common than ever thought and have lost much of their value. This has certainly been generally true of brass locomotives but really applies pretty much across the board…even to those Jim Beam wiskey bottle “collectibles”.
I had a complete collection of their CNJ RR decanters (an example was once upon a time featured as a Smithsonian museum display!) and at one point was estimated to have a value in excess of $1,000 (when that was a tidy sum) because of supposed rarity. Once eBay really got rolling, you could assemble a complete set for at most a few hundred bucks. Goodbye collectible!
CNJ831
Two stories in this vein.
#1 I love the guys who have no idea and claim Atheran blue box engines are rare on E Bay.
#2 I went to the Wheaton train show at Dupage fairgorunds probably twenty years ago and one of the would be hobby shop guys with two trailers of merchandise had an Athearn 86’ high cubnebox car lettered for PRR. When I asked how much he wanted $25.00 for it. Mind you now this was probably the mid 80’s. As I put it back asking why so much he informed me it was an original run and collectible. I said, “good luck” and started to walk off. He said, “Loser” under his breath. I went back and said, “In my opinion the loser is the guy trying to sell a $5.00 car for $25.00 who doesn’t know the difference” and walked off leaving him steaming behind his mountains of unsold inventory.
We have a local horrendously overpriced Hallmark gift shop that had a Franklin Mint locomotive on display last year right before Christmas. I don’t remember all the gory details, but it was a gaudily painted steamer with no tender that seemed to be permanently mounted on a display base. $500.00 was their asking price for what was described as a “Real, Operating, Electric, Rare Lionel HO model.” I think they’re still asking. It did not appear to be Lionel, and was not HO – more like “no scale”.
Franklin Mint stuff is the same as FingerHut. It’s all junk. To think that a train from them is a collectable is absurd. I saw more then one of them and can saw that they are not even up to display standard. The people I know who have them just put them back into the box and stored them away to rot. Everything that the FM sells has a hook attached to it. Maybe that’s the best thing in your collection.
Mike
Cacole,are you sure that wasn’t a phone?? A freind of mine has such an engine that IS a phone. Crazy!! BILL
Thanks all for the information.
So these engines are Tyco or Manuta in reality with a gingerbread assortment of added on detail.
I will likely pass as on getting these as I do have some old Tyco engines and they are not that great a running engine. Also if the paint jobs on these engines are as represented by the engine currently on e-bay I would need to do a lot of work on the engines.
Thanks again.