General Discussion (Model Railroader)

Someone on the Tyco forum said they remember these being kitbash projects. He said they were typically a Mantua Mikado frame and drivers with a Cary boiler kit and Bowser trucks and brass detail parts. (mystery solved??)

ndbprr wrote:

When I was very young right after WW2 I can remember drooling on a store window every chance I got to look at the Mantua brass kit engines and believe me they were kits!  I don't think the average guy could have assembled one of those things they were so crude but it was the state of the art.  At the most they were six wheeled engines and the ones I remember were all little four wheel engines like a saddle tank and a mother hubbard.  As I recall the first 8 wheel drive engine introduced was the American Flyer one followed by Varney and Tyco but that was the latter half of the 50's.

In fact, Mantua offered a brass Reading I-10sa 2-8-0 consolidation prior to WWII (Varney, too), along with a brass Atlantic, a Pacific, the 0-4-0 "Goat" camelback and one or two other smaller brass engines. Post-war, all these engines returned to production save for the consolidation. A couple of the smaller engines continued to be made in extremely limited runs up until as late as 1959, although Mantua's regular locomotive line had basically long since gone over to employing zamac.

Further, I can find absolutely no reference to any specifically Missouri Pacfic 4-8-2 ever being marketed during the 1960's-1980's other than in brass. Even these weren't available until the 1980's.

CNJ831

 

loathar wrote:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Brass-HO-Scale-Train-by-Tyco_W0QQitemZ190151669167QQihZ009QQcategoryZ78178QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Is this true? I'm not aware of Tyco making any brass locos. Or is this just another case of a seller that's going to plead ignorance after the buyer complains?

This locomotive is really a rare bird; in fact it seems to be as rare as EMD's DD40.

NOTE: sure sorry for this snotty sarcasm there, Ivanhen.

In the 1940s Mantua Metal Products referred to themselves as "The All Metal Line" but that designation seems to have died with their advertisment in the  September '49 issue of Model Railroader; I would take that as an inference that they were entering the emerging world of plastics. Mantua was advertising that some of their lokes had brass cabs and die-cast boilers and vice versa; their Mikado was introduced in that year and it was all die-cast as near as I can tell from their advertising.

In 1949 Mantua's advertising took up the whole back page of Model Railroader; I don't have any 1950, '51, or '52 issues in my collection but by 1953 their advertisements were confined to an interior page and only one column wide. Nowhere in any of their advertising did I find reference to an all-brass model of anything; when I joined the hobby in 1962 a Varney Northern was being offered and I seem to remember that this was all-brass; I suspect that the seller has misidentified this item and, instead of a Tyco, a Varney is what is being offered for bid.

loathar wrote:

Someone on the Tyco forum said they remember these being kitbash projects. He said they were typically a Mantua Mikado frame and drivers with a Cary boiler kit and Bowser trucks and brass detail parts. (mystery solved??)

But those were not brass!!! I assembled five Pacifics and Mikados using Cary USRA Heavy boilers - those are still available from Bowser who bought the dies when illness forced the owner(s) of Cary Locomotive Works to close-up shop sometime in the early eighties I believe - mounted on Mantua mechanisms. These were all die-cast. I did most of my superdetailing using Cal-Scale parts which were brass and were from Bowser. I used the stock Mantua trucks but I did have it in mind to replace these with Bowser's; I just had never gotten around to it when I bolted HO Scale for N Scale in the early eighties!!!

These Cary/Mantua kits were not really difficult to assemble but they did require close attention to detail and I had to send for replacement valve gear and/or side rods on more than one occasion when I got in a little bit of a rush; in the long run they turned out to be a lot of fun and were I to make a decision to return to HO I would probably do a lot of kits - Bowser or MDC (should Horizon Hobby/Athearn put them back in production) or kits from Hobbytown - which are, I understand, currently out of production - and Tiger Valley. 

I just checked out her other offerings. Actually, some of the older Aurora models are becoming rather rare - especially in unbuilt condition. An original unbuilt Seaview is a fairly good find if you are into that kind of thing (but it definitely is NOT 1:32 scale! LOL) Also, I think the Phantom might be rather rare too as it is listed as being an F-110 (rather than F-4)on the instructions which might date it as being prior to the standardization of aircraft designators in the early 60s (I think). Same goes for the F94C Starfire kit.

George

 

R. T. POTEET posts:

In 1949 Mantua's advertising took up the whole back page of Model Railroader; I don't have any 1950, '51, or '52 issues in my collection but by 1953 their advertisements were confined to an interior page and only one column wide. Nowhere in any of their advertising did I find reference to an all-brass model of anything; when I joined the hobby in 1962 a Varney Northern was being offered and I seem to remember that this was all-brass; I suspect that the seller has misidentified this item and, instead of a Tyco, a Varney is what is being offered for bid.

I suggest that you read my article documenting the history of Mantua's Master Model Builder's locomotive series (their brass line of engines) in the July 1990 issue of RMC if you think that Mantua brass engines went out of production in 1953 or earlier. In fact, an issue of MR from early 1960 includes the final Mantua ad for a very limited run of the Goat and Belle of the Eighties.

Further, I would question Varney's Northern being all-brass as late as 1962. My references indicate that it was of bronze to begin with and it's listed as being produced only between 1949 and 1951. You saw very old stock perhaps?

If anything, the model in question here looks to me most like an old Knapp 4-8-2 Heavy boiler, which was also of cast bronze but which supposely went out of production around '45.

CNJ831 

  

   

 

 

river_eagle wrote:

I'm just wondering, how many, if any, of you bothered to ask the seller for more information?,

Actually, yes I did.  Right after I read this thread and posted I ran over there.   I just checked my e-bay mail box and have not gotten a reply.

marknewton wrote:

Funny how a model described as "mint" appears to have neither rods nor trailing truck. I reckon she's trying it on.

I suppose this is where the phrase "some assembly is required" comes in.

Whether the parts are actually included or not is another matter.

Here is what I just received fron the seller.

Quote

Response from tamarav444
-------------------------------------------------------
Yes, it seems the instruction sheet is made by tyco, but the engine is definitely brass. Sorry for the inconvience.

End of quote 

I did not think of asking about the side rods. 

Rich 

I just got a response too. They said they are positive it's an all brass Tyco...
If I had an extra $100 to blow, I'd bid on it just to find out WHAT the heck it is.

I just got a response too. Two words: thank you. I guess this means they're not going to cancel the listing?

My take on all this is that a relative has died and left a bunch of trains.  Survivors know nothing at all about trains and are attempting to sell them on e-Bay without a clue of what something is.

It might be marked "Tyco" on the bottom of the engine or tender, and the tender wheels may be brass, but I doubt very much if the rest of it is anything other than Zamac, and possibly some plastic.

I have a couple of Tyco engines from this same time frame that were cast metal kits.  One is an 0-4-0 with slope back tender and the other is an 0-6-0, also with a slope back tender.  I think Tyco called them the "Little Joe" and "Big Six."

Tender wheels are the only brass used in both of these locomotives.

 

The reply I got about the shipping charge was this: 

Yes we know, we must fix the shipping cost, and we do not have any better pics, sorry for the inconvience, we assure you that the train is in great condition.

 

Its not unusual for boxes and model to be entirely different. A modelr could have replaced the tender trucks and not painted them (yet)

Theres a model up on ebay now I will try to buy, a Pacific Electric interurban car...woops, its really a south shore car...I spotted the error and let the seller know, no probs we know now.

 

The engine is looking to me to be brass all ways around and may be a tru-blu brass engine in a wrong box.

 

I don't recall Tyco making a engine that look like that..

My thoughts is it*could* be a brass engine in a Tyco box.