I’ve got an Allstate (Marx) trainset. Model #9625. It’s a Marx 666 - it has smoke and a light (the 666 is also lit). There is no highlight painting on the 666 like a white stripe etc. - just plain black. 50W transformer. The wheels on the cars are all metal with plastic sides on the trucks. The wheels on the tender are steel wtih those thin metal stamped steel trucks. It has plastic tilt couplers on all the cars. It is in a rather large box deep box with O34 curves, a de coupler and lots of track and even trestles. Except for the lack of any trim painting on the engine the set looks fairly premium for the time would be my guess.
Caboose and tender are SP names. Green Cities Service tanker. ATSF box car and an Erie marked flat bed. Not sure if anything else is missing.
Again - just looking for a date or date range for this particular set and also how it fit in with the overall Marx line compared to other steam sets.
Pgtr, this would have been considered a high-end set at the time, because of the O34 curves. Marx entry-level and mid-range sets had O27 curves. The 333 was Marx’s very top of the line locomotive; the 666 was the step below it. Both are good locomotives. The 666 looks like a Lionel Scout, but it will out-pull just about any 2-4-2 locomotive Lionel ever made, it’s much easier to work on, more reliable, and unlike most of them, it has smoke.
You could set up an O34 set outside of an O27 set and run two trains.
There were several Marx reference books published by Greenberg (now owned by Kalmbach, publisher of CTT) but the books have been out of print for more than a decade now, sadly.
I got the same set for Christmas around 1959. My 666 did have the white stripe and the set was an over and under figure 8 with the trestles. It also came with a Marx uncoupling piece and signs and maybe some telegraph poles. I think the Erie flat had a load, I just can’t remember. Sears was a big dealer for Marx. I got few add-ons there. I did see the same set at a show afew years ago. The asking price was $200.00
Thanks again Dave. Actually I quickly put a loop of the O34 up around an O31 loop - worked out quite nicely. If this 666 had a traction tire or magnetraction it would be unstoppable. It is a very nice puller and I bought it based on both mentions online and an article on CTT a while back about sleepers and duds.
Marx trains are still quite affordable to collect compared to American Flyer and lionel. I have Marx trains that are windup and battery powered as well as electric. I do not know a whole lot about Marx as it is the least of collection of trains.