At what age does something become collectable and vintage.

[5050]

I had no idea the Minic ship range was so extensive!  They have no attraction for me I'm afraid but I can see how they could be if you have a nautical interest.

[railroadbill]

 

This is  a large display of 1:1200 scale ships all scratch built by Jack Snary.  It was at the Model Engineering Exhibition at Alexandra Palace.  (This pic was 2015 but he exhibited there for a number of years). If/when there is another model engineering exhibition he may well be back. Models grouped by type and era.

[railroadbill]

Another short voyage on the seas of   1:1200 ships before we moor up in harbour  (formed by the Triang Minic harbour set obviously).

 

 

HMS Bulwark,  with 3 Avenger aircraft.  HMS Vanguard (last and at 44500 tons the largest British battleship ever built, commissioned 1946 post war and by then pretty well obsolete). These are the later Hornby Minic Hong Kong made ones.

At the back Revell kit of USS New Jersey,  class of 4, built 1943/4, 45000 tons, 4 knots faster than Vanguard...

 

There's actually a lot of history in these, 1:1200 was the official ship recognition model scale anyway, have seen pictures of collections of the original wartime models of Allied and Axis ships, but never displayed.  (I think in Britain  Bassett Lowke made models for the Admiralty). The Jack Snary collection in the previous post was grouped in various eras and then types of ship so it came over like a museum curated display to tell  the story of the development of shipping.  He has built quite a collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by railroadbill

[railroadbill]

 

Fairly recently there has been a number of 1:1200 models produced under the name Triang ships. I'm assuming that the commissioners have been able to use the Triang name from whoever now holds the rights to it, but don't use Minic because that is a Hornby trademark. Assuming anything is always a danger, and there may be some other story, but it isn't available on Wikipedia.

 

Oxford diecast were selling these, so I had the pilot boats,  customs launch and rescue catamaran. The launches aren't bad, look like the current designs you see around ports, and the catamaran is similar to ones that go out to service wind farms.  The light ships (which are all unmanned these days)  are similar to the original Minic ones but now have a helicopter landing platform added.

 

There were a number of container ships and bulk carriers available (actually the same moulding in different paint schemes) and some modern warships, mainly American ones but a few British. There were some dock parts, some like the original ones and a new range of container cranes. 

 

These are nearly all shown as sold out now.

 

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/search?q=triang ships*

 

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/search?q=triang *

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by railroadbill

[Il Grifone]

"These are nearly all shown as sold out now."

 

This will make them 'collectable'. No, I don't need any more 1:1200 ships! I don't....

[railroadbill]

In terms of  collectable and vintage, Triang Minic ships are  quite a good example as there was a range only produced for a few years in the late 50s and early 60s. Still turns up on ebay etc. a lot was made so there's a good chance of building a reasonably complete collection. No doubt some items are rarer than others to add to the thrill of the collecting chase.  So one objective would  be to collect everything made.  But as some releases were the same castings with a different name, the aim could be to have one of each class of ship. Or have one from each category, such as one cruiser, one destroyer, one frigate, one minesweeper etc.   just to show what the range was like.  Completists could go for later recasts, or also the recent new range. Plenty of ways to do it.

 

With my Hornby Dublo 3 rail, which was the thing I kept from my childhood, I have 5 locomotives.  The A4 and N2 were later versions of the original pre war ones.  Bristol Castle and 8F were from a later stage of development, with the 1/2 inch motor.  B8000 Bo-Bo has a plastic body so a new era was dawning....   Goods stock is printed tin plate, as are coaches (only the crimson/cream coaches from the Flying Scotsman set where it all started have clear glazed windows).  Track, signals etc. didn't change.

If I were to look at this stock as a collection rather than a box full of vintage model railway equipment, how would I add to it?  Another A4 (the glossy Silver King) or different liveries of N2s. Duchess of Montrose would be the obvious missing early type loco.  Or go the other way and look out for Dorchester, co-bo or diesel shunter and SD stock?  Or trim it down and sell the Bo Bo - have an all steam collection.  I've been tempted to convert one (probably the castle) to 2 rail and run it on the main layout.  Would that still be authentic?

Ho hum.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by railroadbill

[Il Grifone]

Hmm!

Another A4 - 'Mallard' (I'm assuming a matt 'Silver King' seeing it came with the Stanier coaches)

A 2-6-4T - 80054 (80033 is 2 rail and 80059 is rare)

A 'Montrose' is an essential!

None of the above will be expensive, unless you go for mint boxed.

There are about 30 different varieties of the N2 to choose from....

Any 3 rail after the 2 rail launch tends to be expensive, starting with 'Dorchester'.

A 2 rail 'Bristol Castle' would not be authentic, but it's not a particularly rare model, so I'd go ahead. It would probably be fairly  easy to locate a 2 rail rolling chassis less motor and swop the bits over. This would allow a swop back and probably be cheaper/less hassle anyway. When I did mine (early sixties - no collectable nonsense back then) I insulated one side of the locomotive and the other side of the tender with a new insulated drawbar.This saved on new wheels (genuine Dublo were available then) and avoided the less than reliable Dublo 2 rail pickup. (It was only later I found out about the idiosyncrasies of this thing.)

Rolling stock, again I'd try for for (at least) one of everything....

 

Beware it's a slippery slope....

 

[railroadbill]

Hi Il Grifone, 

A slippery slope indeed.

Dug out some old catalogues (oh dear).  My A4 is Mallard which has the later BR emblem (and also a double chimney). That was numbered L11 (later 3211) and the Flying Scotsman set (still got the box but not the lid) was  P15 described as "The Flying Scotsman" Passenger Train Set (E.R.)  There were 10 sets listed, including "Bristolian" (castle) and "Royal Scot" (Duchess) plus 8F and 0-6-2 and 2-6-4 tank goods sets. The 2 tanks also had passenger sets. This is from the December 1958 catalogue.

 

Looking at an earlier catalogue (1956/7)  Silver King  (EDL11) had the earlier tender emblem and difficult to be sure from the illustration, may have had a single chimney. The matching set (also with 2 crimson and cream LMR coaches) was EDP15 "Silver King" Passenger Train B.R. (ER).  That cost £6 15s in 1956,  the Scotsman set had gone up to £6 19s 6p by 1958.

 

So one musing is whether Silver King had a double chimney, and also (a critical point) did it have a slot on the smokebox for a headboard? Headboards were a good gimick, easy to lose though....

[Il Grifone]

Looks like i goofed again (nothing unusual there), the 'Flying Scotsman set with the Stanier coaches should have a 'Mallard'. 'Silver King' sets have the tinplate Gresley coaches. The last examples of these had the BR(M) bogies. I recall looking at some in the local toyshop and wondering, "Why?"

Early Stanier coaches have LMS bogies (as they should). With the introduction of the non-corridor 'suburban' coaches the BR bogies were fitted to the Staniers as well. The casting has two drill positions marked 'E' and 'M' so that the end result is appropriately marked. The BR(W) and maroon versions of these coaches have BR Mk I numbers trying (and failing) to pass them off as BR coaches.

'Silver Kings' have a single chimney. It is not impossible that one or two got out of the factory using the double chimney casting, but would be rare and valuable. This latter casting also has the slot in the smokebox door for a headboard. The headboards appeared with the introduction of 'Mallard@ (1958 IIRC). I was quite enthusiastic at the time and glued a headboard to my 'Sir Nigel Gresley', but back then they only cost pennies, unlike today. 'Kings' should have tenders with the 'cycling lion', but again are easy enough to swop. Later 'Mallards' have plated drivers* and plastic carrying wheels and sell at a premium. Actually, the bare zinc alloy wheels have better grip. Painting the tyres black helps to disguise the under-scale wheels

*Anything 3 rail with plated drivers is 'premium'.

There are a host of pre-nationalisation liveries both pre and post-war, swept away in 1953 for gloss green 'Montrose' and 'King' and gloss black N2 69567. The first properly new model for twelve years appeared in 1954, introducing a new lower gear ratio, matt finish and the two tags on the couplings. we had to wait another three years for the next new locomotive. 'Bristol Castle' was met with a wave of youthful enthusiasm....

 

EDIT i don't know where twelve years came from. The previous new model was 'Duchess of Atholl' in 1948. She appeared in pre-war crimson (often accused of being the wrong colour, but that is probably due to the matt finish. In 1948 the real thing was black and had smoke deflectors.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Il Grifone

[railroadbill]

Thanks for all the useful info,  no worries, this is crucial stuff!  Whoever at H-D had  the idea of the detachable  headboards came up with a good one.  So Silver King had a single chimney, interesting that when they were being made the remaining full sized locos with single chimneys were being rebuild with double chimneys and would be in service for some more years.

I'm guessing that the later Mallards with plated wheels would have been made after 2 rail came out,  used the new uninsulated wheels?  (think the 2 rail A4 was Golden Fleece).

Yes the Castle was an exciting release.  More of a scale model look to it. What was a disappointment were the ringfield motor fitted ones where the motor stuck out the back of the cab.  (Likewise the 8F).

 

 

 

 

"ER" stanier coach...

 

 

And there is the M marking, hadn't taken any notice of that before. 

With  the flush windows they weren't too bad, for their day. I put a Wrenn 2-6-4T together (subject of another thread) and it looked good pulling 2 of these coaches round the layout, ok since they have nylon wheels. 

 

This is indeed a slippery slope...

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by railroadbill

[Il Grifone]

I don't think that anyone has come near to the flush effect of Dublo tinplate coaches. Somehow even the flush windows of modern plastic stock don't quite make it. A rake of the SD6 coaches looks really good. It's a pity they didn't make them to scale length. The nearest are the old Kitmaster kits IMHO. I have a fairly modern pair of Hornby Mk Is* which are almost as good, but as usual Tri-ang had a faulty ruler and the windows are the wrong size.

* A late 20th century rehash with flush window units of the old Tri-ang coaches.

The Dublo Stanier coaches were first designed in the late thirties for release in time for Xmas 1940 with the 'Duchess of Atholl'  I believe, but didn't make it for some reason. They finally appeared in 1948.

The cab full of ringfield motor always put me off. To this day, apart from diesels, I only have a rebuilt West Country with a ringfield motor. She has no problem with ten coaches so is the most powerful Dublo steam locomotive  I own. It came into my hands with a rather rubbish repaint in plain dull green and a damaged tender body. Wrenn provided a new one and one day I must give her a decent repaint, probably as 'Bodmin' to go with my air-smoothed W.C. 'Wadebridge'. (Airfix/Kitmaster kit on a Dublo A4 chassis fitted with Wrenn BFB wheels*. (A bit of a mongrel.)

 

* Yes I know they aren't correct for an unrebuilt W.C. but never mind. She was to have Sharmann wheels, but I decided she should run on Dublo track.

 

I see I'm waffling on (again}. so I'll shut up.

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by Il Grifone

[railroadbill]

I've got a short rake of the Hornby Mk1s, where they have a much better finish compared to the Triang ones, flush windows and are very free running.  I bought a chocolate and cream buffet car back in the 1980s  from a local model shop that has long since gone.  I was assembling stock for that "future layout".  When I did live in a house with enough loft space for a layout I found that this coach was so free running that it was great during track laying for checking whether track and baseboards were level, if not it would roll away. 

I bought some similar ones second hand at an exhibition, makes a reasonable short rake as they all match.

 

Not sure about collectable (but getting on for 30 years now).  The flush windows put them ahead of the old mainline Mk1s with their very deep window frames imho, even with se finecast windows...

[BernardTPM]

Ironically when they were first introduced as a new range in 1962 (the Sleeper was a little ahead of the others, in 1961) they were going to have 'close fitting' windows, but they ended up just fitting clear styrene strips in the end.

Edited February 5, 2021 by BernardTPM

[Il Grifone]

Penny pinching was always Tri-ang's Achilles heel.

[cctransuk]

3 minutes ago, Il Grifone said:

Penny pinching was always Tri-ang's Achilles heel.

 

I suspect that they could not get the moulded windows - similar to those in Kitmaster kits, to reliably fit the coach sides.

 

In recent years, this has been overcome by the 'zig-zag' moulding of the windows, to enable them to stretch / compress to fit the coach sides.

 

John Isherwood.

[laurenceb]

Apparently the managment didnt like the prismatic effect of the molded windows (Tinplate topics, Model Railways sometime in the 70's)

[GoingUnderground]

5 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

Penny pinching was always Tri-ang's Achilles heel.

I think you've missed the point. Tri-ang made toys for children, and price was more important, at least in the 1950s and 1960s, than the accuracy of the models. It believe it was Richard Lines himself who said that they made toys which were quite good models.

 

Nevertheless, they did produce at least one model that, IMHO, has still to be bettered in the following 60 years, and I'm thinking of R.351, the EM2/Class 77 in BR green livery. Yes, there are inaccuracies, but for me the bodyshell captures the essence of the prototype, and it has pantographs which work, two key things that the Heljan/Olivias model singularly failed to do. It may not have had the greatest hauling power, but it didn't need to as most children's layouts didn't have space for anything like scale length trains, 3 to 5 coaches would have been the 'norm'.

[BernardTPM]

The EM2 could be fitted with a second motor bogie without too much extra work. There's even a pivot in the roof which makes the task a lot easier.

[GoingUnderground]

9 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

The EM2 could be fitted with a second motor bogie without too much extra work. There's even a pivot in the roof which makes the task a lot easier.

The body shell was clearly designed to take a second motor bogie. Not only does it have the pivot hole, it also has the slot/guide for the "pin" on the motor bogie frame. The only physical modification needed is to the black underframe moulding to remove the plate to which the dummy bogie is attached to make space for the second motor bogie. It would be necessary to fit the bogie retaining clip as used on the Hymek, and Classes 31 and 37 to stop the bogie dropping out whenever the loco was picked up off the track, and that would mean replicating the raised "housing" used on those models for the clip to keep it in place, a few minutes work with some square section plastic strip and some glue.

If the overhead is not used at all, then that is all that is required.

 

If picking-up through the pantographs (the only way to run an EM2, or any loco equipped with a fully working pan, IMHO) whilst retaining the OH/TK switching, additional wiring would be necessary to interconnect the pickups strips on the same side between the two bogies, and create an electrical link to the pivot terminal on the second bogie. The pickup strips would have to be modified on the second bogie so that electrically it was a "mirror image" of its ex-works configuration. Otherwise there will be problems with the common return side.

 

I haven't added a second bogie to any of my EM2s, but I was looking at the possibility, and did get as far as buying an EM2 power bogie. But I just keep that as a spare.

 

As far as I know, in the Tri-ang range, only the EM2 had the option of a second motor bogie designed in. The body shells of the Classes 31 (R.357) and 37 (R.751) which followed on from the EM2 and used variations of the EM2 bogie were not designed to take a second bogie, but it is some time since I took the roof off a Class 31. Did Rovex decide that the performance of the EM2, as the first of their Co-Co models, was adequate with single power bogie, and that the 31 and 37 would not need a second powered bogie, or just drop the idea on the grounds of cost? Or were they positioning themselves to compete with Trix who did offer twin motored variants of some of their modern image locos around this time? Hammond doesn't say, and strangely he seems to treat the Class 31 as if it was the first Co-Co model from Margate when the R numbers and catalogues tell a different story.   

 

[BernardTPM]

I rebuilt my R357 (blue with white stripes D5578) to take two motor bogies using Plastikard. In a way the motor bogie design did start with a Brush type 2, but the one in TT. You're right, the EM2 was the first in 00 with that style.

[Silverfox17]

As Bernard said, the first Co motor bogie to come out of Margate was the TT one which was copied later for the 00 version.  Also the TT one had a magnet between the rear wheels giving it the Magnadhesion properties that was announced later in 00 models. It was never classed as Magnadhesion in TT but it was the for runner, even the later DMU had it with the pole pieces put in line with the wheels. 

 

Garry 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Silverfox17

[GoingUnderground]

My EM2 "fleet".

 

 

27000 - Electra, has had one careful owner from new in 1961 - me, complete with its original DA box.

 

The others came from Ebay and swapmeets.

 

27002 Aurora and 27006 Pandora are the CKD versions complete with Tri-ang numbers and nameplates.

 

The other 4 are all renumbered and renamed by yours truly, the first being 27005 Minerva, when I was aiming for the number to look like the Tri-ang stick on numbers. 27001 Ariadne, 27003 Diana and 27004 Juno were renamed and renumbered more recently. Hence the different appearance of the numbers.

 

For the purists amongst you, the renumbered and renamed locos all had problems with the numbers and names, I never renumber or rename good quality examples, it seem a waste when there are others around with missing numbers or nameplates.

[friscopete]

I am a big fan of 1/1200 -1250 ships.I have  a few but would love to get more but trains and guitars  take all my money at present  and as I am still working in my dotage  I dont get any spare modelling time for ships .

[GoingUnderground]

4 minutes ago, Silverfox17 said:

As Bernard said, the first Co motor bogie to come out of Margate was the TT one which was copied later for the 00 version.  Also the TT one had a magnet between the rear wheels giving it the Magnadhesion properties that was announced later in 00 models. It was never classed as Magnadhesion in TT but it was the for runner, even the later DMU had it with the pole pieces put in line with the wheels. 

 

Garry 

I'm an ignoramus when it comes to TT, so I bow to your superior knowledge.

[Il Grifone]

The connections to the brush gear are rather cr poor on the Tri-ang Co bogie. On one side the 'spider' has a tag to connect to the brush. not perfect but it works. Instead of another tag on the other side, there is a complicated arrangement through the pivot bolt. The plastic pivot for the brush is inclined to melt through overheating. An EM2 bogie powers my model of 10000 (or maybe 10001). I must get on and finish it. Lockdown and Brexit make it difficult at the moment.

 

A scrap chassis will provide the assembly for the pivot for another power bogie. I find they are quite powerful without a second bogie and there is plenty of room for lead* in the body.

 

* Other less toxic materials are available, but we are not going to eat it.