Lost John Allen Loco recovered

[Anonymous]

There's only one surviving G&D locomotive that I'm aware of, 4-10-0 no. 34 that's sitting in a case in Andy's office.

John had two 0-4-0Ts. The first was a Varney Dockside, and it figured prominently in his early photos. John also had an 0-4-0T built by Sakura, an early Japanese brass manufacturer. It's possible that this latter model survived the fire. Is it made of brass, or does it have 'Sakura' somewhere on it? It would be numbered "10" on the G&D.

[CNJ831]

As I should have indicated in my previous post, your most promising path to perhaps defining any authenticity to the locomotive in your hands is indeed to contact Andy S. and see if he can shed some definite light on both the gentleman (seller) in question and this locomotive in particular. The next necessary step would be to obtain clear written authentication (with an explanation why this engine didn't come to light much earlier) from both these individuals or very few guys are going to accept the claim.

As I recall, for a long time only one G&D road locomotive was known to have survived (that one was in the Kalmbach offices at the time of the fire I think). Recently I heard another had surfaced in private hands and it did seem to have a reasonable provenance. However, with more than thirty years elapsed since the fire it's getting highly unlikely that further examples will surface. Good luck with any search you attempt.

CNJ831

[CNJ831]

One has to be very careful today regarding fakes, no matter how honestly they seem to be presented by a seller. There is considerable fakery of "rare" items in the Lionel collector's market and there are probably those in HO who are not above it either. Let's face it, an undiscovered, authentic, G&D engine would be worth a lot of money to collectors!

As for finding a photo of such a locomotive in print and citing it as documentation of a particular item's authenticity, I certainly wouldn't take that as real proof. I assure you that with just a little effort and my ALPS printer I could fake any of the simpler G&D locomotives (i.e. an 0-4-0 switcher) right down to aging it and matching herald decals, given a reference photo to work from. While John extensively modified his larger locomotives to make them unique, I seem to recall that many of his switchers were more or less "out-of-the-box" save for the herald.

My advice is to seriously question this engine's authenticity.

CNJ831

[IRONROOSTER]

If you have access to some old MR's from the late 40's through 72, you can find several several pictures of John Allen's layouts. Also, the book Guy mentions above has many pictures. You might be able to find your loco in one - if indeed it came from JA. Over the years there have been some cars and maybe some locos produced with G&D markings. NMRA's Heritage line of frieght cars started with a G&D boxcar in all the popular scales. I have the S scale one running on my layout.
Enjoy
Paul

[Anonymous]

Dear JohnAllenfan,

All the info I have is third hand. I have to say the legend of John Allen looms large.

I met the late Allan Fenton at the 2000 NMRA Convention in San Jose. He was a regular operator on G&D. I would suggest talking with him but he passed away a couple of years ago. I believe there are several others who were in that group who are still with us. I bet Andy knows who they are. Andy Sperando was an operator there for a year or two.

There was also a gentleman who did a clinic on the G&D at the 2000 convention. Look in the old convention intinerary to find his name. He was an operator there as well.

On the claim of salvaged G&D locos: The guy at the clinic had photos of the basement taken after the fire. I looked at them. The basement and the layout appeared to be burned beyond reconition. It is possible stuff might have survived, but looking at the photos it seems very unlikely that very much of it did. I think there is a part of in all of us John Allen fans that wants it to be true that stuff survived. There is also some discussion of the topic in Linn Wescott's book on G&D.

Maybe there are some on the forum with more info.

Guy

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Can anyone help me? I have a locomotive I purchased a few years ago that the seller claims was given to him by John Allen. Normally I would say this is a joke but he provided information that bolsters his claim, also he sold me the loco (0-4-0T ) before he mentioned the John Allen link. Does anyone know of a way to prove this loco came from John Allen? Does anyone know of a list of his locos? The seller claimed he was in the group that salvaged the layout after the fire and he retrieved this little engine in a cardboard box from under the benchwork. He also claims a Mr. Andy Sperandeo knows him and could help substatiate the claim. Any and all help greatly appreciated!