Since we’re talking about the first Marx cars and sets from 1935 I thought you might like to have a picture of the clockwork set from that year.
Ok, time to add my [2c]!
This is a set given to me when I was 2 or 3 years old on Christmas 1959 or 1960 (can’t remember)!
It’s the “Tales of Wells Fargo” set. The set box is in poor shape but you can still read the price, $14.88.
Here is the Locomotive.
The Tender’s lettering is not visible in the picture but it reads " Tales of Wells Fargo". Too much handling when I played with it I guess. Little did I know…
Passenger Car #1.
Passenger Car #3 (they never made a car #2 for some reason).
The set still runs great and there are a few litho buildings included. Sad to say I don’t have the “rare” Jim Hardy figure.
pretty set & don’t ever mind seeing a rare CV type such as the green clockwork. no catalogs existed this early and most if not all Marx trains were sold as sets, with passenger trains solely based on the number of cars. it’s hard to pick up from your picture, but n-coach sets did not necessarily have equal number of Bogota and Montclair cars, but could contain any mixed assortment. a Marx practice that was carried on to later passenger set types (eg, M10005 sets).
also of note for 1935, the early Joy Line track (with a very high rail profile) was replaced by the Marx low profile O27 track. with a new 90° crossover also offered, sets would either be offered as a basic oval or as a figure-8 configuration…
1st Div. St Paul & Pacific RR #1, the William Crooks
this is one Marx got remarkably close for a toy model (at least to the original version since this locomotive went through a few different rebuilds in its lifetime). it’s hard to pickup the numbers from this picture, but the Wm. Crooks is actually pulling a two car consist of Baggage car #1 and Coach #3 with window and door patterns very close to the models.
this tender type is often found with very weak lettering that was easily worn off with handling. Robert Grossman Co. does make a replacement transfer for both the ‘1st Div. St. P&P RR’ or the ‘Tales of Wells Fargo’ lettered tenders. as an oddball one-off model from Marx, for cataloging purposes, the Baggage and Coach are usually listed under the 7" category.
being a cross-collectable as also a Marx playset, i’ve seen complete and boxed versions of your “Tales of Wells Fargo” set go for some major bucks.
Mersenne6, that is a wonderful set! Thanks for posting it. Gary, I really like your early cars - all of those are on my “Marx Wish List” as I only have a tender and a couple of Joy Line passenger cars for my swing-pegs to pull around. Ray, I enjoyed seeing your Wells Fargo set too. Great stuff!
I’ve been pretty lax about posting (here or anywhere) since it is Live Steam season right now, but as soon as the weather turns colder and I have the steamers winterized, I’ll get more active on the computer again. Glad to see some activity on the Marx thread!
- James
Gary, the set has two Montclair’s, two Bogota’s and an observation. Below is the freight set from the same period. The hopper car is interesting in that it was a bit of a rush job at the factory - it doesn’t have a bin.
ah, the rare ‘open bottom’ hopper! and thanks for the #553 SF tank car pic. the only silver frame cars left to be pictured are the dual spotlight car and the #547 mail/baggage.
i wasn’t as lucky in coach distribution with the blue Merc set i have which came with two Montclairs, but they’re so well matched it would be next to impossible to find a similar Bogota coach. the most lopsided set i ever saw was a large boxed M10005 with 5 x Los Angeles coaches + the Squaw Bonnet obsv. …perfectly legitimate, though.
…and if the “open bottom” hopper isn’t odd enough, how about an upside down one?
with over 100 replies and into the 8th page, before this goes any further, i thought i’d take a shot at an index. it will be a work in progress but i tested a small segment and it seems to work ok. the nice part is that the links are referenced to the message # and not its position in the responses, so any editing shouldn’t effect the links.
every response isn’t indexed and if there are following comments adjacent to the link, simply scrolling down a bit should include everything. an index can probably be a little overwhelmingly useless if it gets too long or detailed.
Marx is naturally implied on all entries unless otherwise noted.
cheers…gary
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Channel Track: (also see Disney)
various Marx channel track trains
Ranger Steel Products - passenger train
Christmas Displays:
2011 - David Smith layout
Commodore Vanderbilt: (CV)
http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/p/207544/2272237.aspx#2272237
http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/p/207544/2272973.aspx#2272973
http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/p/207544/2271291.aspx#2271291
http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95/p/207544/2271640.aspx#2271640
Mercury (also see Misc):
Great idea on the index Gary, [Y]!
As for the Tales of Wells Fargo set number I believe this might help.
Notice the price marked on the box!
Tales of Wells Fargo - 54762, check!
after playing around with font sizes and having a big issue with wysiwy(don’t)g editors, i think i finally got a good, readable post for the index. i’ll still play a little with the links to get most of the http text replaced by something more literal. interesting find in that clicking on the date of any post/reply will create a direct link and since it’s message and not position relative, any post-editing will not effect the link.
it was actually a bit of a selfish task. trying to find one of my own replies yesterday, i had to look at 4 out of the 8 pages before i found it!
onward and upward.
cheers…gary
A small layout in my home office I built to be reserved for clockworks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWsdh_w2ra4&list=UU8zBJ_bKPYLt2RvdNu-ZujQ&index=3&feature=plcp
very neat! how about a few stills? i’d like to see your custom finish on those switches (i like the green base, don’t know about the white detail… :). i have a feeling there will be at least one other fan interested in your turntable, also.
nice mix… Hafner & Flyer joining Marx, …a tinplate trifecta!
cheers…gary
Hi Overland
Thanks. The turntable and bumper posts are made by Hornby, a U.K contemporary of O gauge Marx and can be had for a very reasonable price in various color schemes. The Marx switches were of course converted from three rail into two rail, as I wanted the layout to be as compact as I could make it. I have Hornby switches but the radius was just a bit too large without making the table less portable as it has removable legs and can be stored easily. The top is 1/4 " ply with acrylic painted “grass” and “ballast” What I like most about this is that it was both inexpensive and fun to bring about. The paint for the switches was applied in prewar colors after stripping them clean. Ties painted brown. The green is known as “apple green.” The stanchions are painted a concrete color . I just got my camera back from the wife…Ill try to post some later. I just don’t want to sidetrack the subject too much. The train stop in front of the station is a Hornby track section ( wide ties) as the double semaphore. The turntable was repainted with whats called fleckstone, a textured paint. Hope this answers your questions.
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My first electric train was a Marx given to me by my Uncle Joe Baber when he returned from WWIII. I(n 1952 my father switched me to American Flyer where I stayed until 1998 when I moved.
I now collect marx and enjoy it very much! [swg]
welcome back to good ol’ Marx, David.
can you recall what that first train you had was?
if so, do you still have it or have you recreated it?
…picture?
cheers…gary
“That doesn’t look like the Marx set I had.”…
one nice part about collecting Marx are the number of different niches in which one can specialize. compared to the 300+ page Lionel price guide, the Marx version takes only 1/4 of that many pages to cover at least half a dozen different categories with even more divisions within those.
one of the most distinctive Marx types is surely the 3/16" scale line. with the late 30’s push for more realism in model trains and the release of the Gilbert Flyer Tru-Scale in 1938, Marx must have felt the pressure to produce a low-cost train based on actual prototype equipment. there is evidence that the development of these cars started ~1940. the choice of 3/16" scale kept the car width close to the 6" tin line which i’ve got to imagine was also a tooling consideration. dimensionally (to everything but gauge) and graphically, these cars were quite accurate and prototype examples have often been cited.
having already touched on truck and coupler types, pictures here will display a variety of B (scale) and D (high) trucks as well as both metal and plastic couplers. along with the one prewar year, scale sets were produced until the late 1950’s when Marx shifted the term “scale” to their new HO line.
probably the most recognizable motive power of Marx scale sets was the #999 steam loco, but a variety of locomotives, both diesel and steam, can be found in legitimate sets. hopefully some sets will appear in replies, but for now i’ll try to cover the major freight car types.
starting at the head-end, the versatile wedge tender took on a few forms for this task.
(951) NYC wedge tender<
I have you covered Gary
Easily one of my favorite scale cars. Although I don’t have any of the 3/16 scale passenger cars, I have about 80% of the freight cars.
Now how about all the locomotives that were sold with 3/16 scale cars? I know of quite a few but there probably are others I didn’t know came 3/16 sets.
Trevor
after scanning a few other forums within this train network, i’ve got to wonder if some people here think there is a limitation of 550 pixel width for images posted. i often click on a photo, which is in fact limited to 550 pix width while viewing the inline posts, hoping to see a larger version only to see the same 550 pixel width image again.
i remember seeing a “maximum width = 550 pixel” notation in the old forum system that is no longer evident in the new forum, but even at that time, i was referencing larger format photos with no problem. i’m sure with most flat screen monitors not pushing retirement age, 700-800 up to 1000-1200 pix wide images are not going to be a problem even if a little scrolling is called for. without going to extremes, i like a picture have enough resolution to address the key features its intended to show…
so please consider the reading glass crowd next time you post(?)
i really don’t think any limit on size (practically) is a forum requirement.
…and i see enough small, blurry pictures on eBay.
cheers…gary
afterthought… speaking of photos, in making up the index i noticed only ONE Christmas (holiday, etc, …whatever excuse you use to set up trains toward the end of the calendar year) display submitted so far. and with the end of the world due soon, this may be your last chance, so how 'bout some Marx themed round-the-tree layout photos or videos in the coming months?
Thank you for all of the information posted to this thread by so many different contributors. I have enjoyed reading each of the posts. I can appreciate the research, work and time put into producing each entry. I have learned a great deal by reading this thread. I know very little about Marx, but I can tell you I will recognize a number of things when I see them now. I have also been tempted to dabble in collecting some pieces of Marx. Well to be honest I’ve been temtped to the point of buying some items.
This is a group of equipment that I bought. Did I actually buy a recognizable set?
