M is for More on Märklin

We have looked at the larger Hong Kong copies, and mentioned the smaller ones in passing once or twice, but we've never looked at the originals, nor properly compared them all, so this is really the first proper overview of Märklin's OO/HO figure sets.

The original manuscript-notes from my old book-project, it's not been updated since . . . ooh, before 2005 at least, some of the entries are now '2nd format, second draft' with older ones being fourth draft, 1st format, so it's a while since I last edited it, and it may date from the early formation of the manuscript in 1994-7?

 

However, it stands up well, I suspect that item '6' (figure type) is incorrect, they will be centrifugal-moulded, poured-lead, rather than what we think of nowadays as 'die-cast', and obviously '11' (format/packaging) is wrong, they came in little boxes of ten items each, as we are about to see!

 

I have five! Three from 0201 (top left), and two from 0203 (top right) compared with the little piracies which turn-up from time to time. They were pirated twice, the small ones are unpainted, reduced-size polyethylene, and may date from the late 1960's-early 1970's, there were a few in my biscuit-tin, back in the day.

 

And, almost certainly earlier, they were 'used' as a basis for caricature, cartoonish copies (of 0201 only), in a larger size, coming out of Hong Kong in a hard polystyrene - lower right, in the 1950's, we looked at them here . . .

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/c-is-for-carded-cartoon-characters-for.html

 

. . . and I needed the lady in green to complete my loose sample!

From the 1959 catalogue we have the full contents of 0201 and 0203 (sans the guy leaning on his shovel who is hidden under the overlapping corner of 0201!), with 0201 blown-up and compared with some recent newcomers, sadly, three damaged including the guy in green who was (is) the last one I need whole, for a complete loose sample, but, good things come to those who wait!

 

The full contents of 0202, with an 0201 lid, courtesy of Jon Attwood, I saw a few of these in the listing room at the old A4 Bath Road site of SAS Auctions many years ago, and a few weeks later they didn't go cheap, hence why I only have the five loose ones! Having been copied in neither of the pirated sets, these are the rarer 'sculpts'.

 

From Schiffmann's Band 12 collectors catalogue (pp.147) I can further tell you 0203 also had a seperate label on the box, which showed the track-gang ('maintenance of way') in action, 0202 shared the label of 0201 despite not being illustrated on it.

 

I almost prefer these, they take rough handling and are very colourful, although we had the better stuff from Hornby-Tri Ang, and later Wrenn, Graham Farish et al, when we were kids, they were added later, to our first carpet-railways, which were the grey, plastic-tracked, clockwork trains from Tri-Ang (and Playcraft?) with primary-coloured wagons, and these guys are just made to go with them!

So far, the silver is proving the hard-to find colour, and pose-wise, now I've found two more carrying shovels, the site-Forman/surveyor, with his map, is the 'rare' pose! There is a clear HONG KONG mark along the beam of the sleeper (tie) being carried by the duo, and all the above are to a lesser or greater extent flats or semi-flats (demi-ronde).

Right, many thanks to Jon for the boxed set's images, and I think that's done them all justice! Boxes ticked!

 

But we still have this similar 'mystery' set . . . 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2014/10/u-is-for-unknown-ho-railway-flats.html

C is for Carded Cartoon Characters for Concourse and Carriage!

I can't remember if we looked at these properly or in passing as part of a show report, but I know Peter Evans gave me some at PW's show earlier this year, while I added a few I had here, I've now added the card from storage, but was sure I had some lose figures in storage too, and I haven't found them yet, so there may be another few somewhere, however - the card is the important bit . . .

. . . as it adds two poses to whatever we looked at whenever we did/didn't last look at them!

So; the full breakdown is five staff members, and five passengers, semi-flat, Hong Kong and around 25mm. I think I have a spare of the green chap elsewhere as well, due to his looking like a meant-to-be fully-round figure, if/when found on his own!

Based on/scaled-up from the old lead HO figures from Märklin (via Hans Wettig?), specifically set 0201 and limited to the ten poses from that set - There were two other sets in the Märklin catalogue, a forth in Schiffmann 12 (under Wettig) and the unknown set we looked at here, none of which have turned-up, scaled-up in hard Hong Kong polymer, although the rail-maintenance set (0203) were pirated in soft polyethylene, same size.

Close-up of the fat lady (she hasn't sung so Small Scale World goes on!) and a member of the rail staff from the era when A) there were rail staff to find on the platform and B) having been found they were happy to oblige!

U is for Unknown HO Railway Flats

Straight into the image I think...

...right; these are a mystery. They look at first glance to be Märklin, same size; HO, same design; flats, same slightly lozenged oblong bases, but then you notice the colours, far too bright for Märklin, so next thought is did Märklin produce a 'budget' range in simpler colour schemes? Well, there are as many colour changes on these as on Märklin originals, just a brighter - more primary - pallet, so that doesn't really wash.

OK, turn to Schiffmann's catalogue, volume 12...nothing, not under Märklin or anywhere else, what does become clear though is that these aren't Märklin poses either, similar to but not the same, to the point where you think that they are trying really hard to look like Märklin?

I'm guessing they aren't German, so early French? Jouef liked some bright decoration? Two of the poses who might be mistaken for railway staff seem to be a postman and a wagoner (wagoneer? Spellcheck's not happy), so they might be for enhancing a wooden toy village or something and nothing to do with model railways? Although the guy in blue buying a paper seems to be rail staff.

So does anybody have any idea who made these and when?

Added the next day; I'm going to suggest they are by Spielwaren [Hans] Wettig, who were apparently the supplier of the Märklin flats, and who made a set of their own 28mm flat civilians (see the above mentioned Schiffmann pp.196), and might therefore have also produced an HO range, despite the Märklin contract. The fact that some of these figures are similar to both Wettig's 28mils and the 18mm Märklin's helps?