Scored these vintage Atlas and AHM kits today an estate sale. Super excited to find them cause I model European Trains now. I have no idea regarding the history of them, I assume we are talking early 1970s??? They are kits that were produced in Germany and imported by Atlas. I Also got a Kibri Swiss lodge too. At $10 each….sweet. Would appreciate if anyone had any more info? I also scored a Fleichmann 0-6-0 tank engine and an Arnold SBB Swiss railways electric. I discretely tested them with a 9volt, and tried to hide my huge smile inside…. both engines were priced at $24 each!
Congrats on picking those up. I also collect euro locos so am curious to see your locos if you get a chance to post them up.
The Atlas structures were a part of their original offerings from 1967/68 on. I don't know exactly when they discontinued them. Pola manufactured the first ones and then some were made by Vollmer and maybe Kibri. And yes, these original structures were based on European prototypes. With the exception of a couple, I, at one time or another, acquired all of them and some are on my current layout. Ross Fink's website documents the Atlas structures: http://www.rossfink.com/Atlas First Generation Building Kits/ I also have bought some Arnold European prototype locomotives and they are beautiful. I particularly like the little Swiss "Crocodil" with the unusual driver running gear, the BR41 2-8-2 smokers, and the huge BR5 4-6-4. I was also able to get a BR221 with Simplex couplers. And, re the Three Houses Under Construction, in the MR review, they stated that according to the measurements, the "houses" are actually more like cottages and they combined two of them to make a larger dwelling. I did the same thing, leaving the third one a cottage. Doug .
I agree, hopefully he will post some more picture of them and let us see inside the boxes. Imagine how often stuff like that gets thrown away?
Loved your post and the link Doug. Many of us N Scale "old timers" bought these kits way back when and just seeing the boxes brings back happy memories for me.
OOO gauge--Aurora Postage Stamp trains--Con-Cor 4-6-4's--Floqiul Paints--Testers Plastic Cement--The list goes on & on. Am I showing my age YET?
Thanks, Dan. Remember when Testor's liquid plastic cement originally came in the same square bottles the chemicals in Gilbert Chemistry sets came in? With a built in brush in the cap. The brush was actually too course for N scale work. I built many of the subject Atlas kits on a card table in my girlfriend's (later wife) kitchen in her apartment. Doug
I built my first N Scale kit as a preteen kid in 1968 and I still have it as found tonight, typewriter-made sign and all. The base is marked KleiWe W. Germany. I'd never heard of KleiWe, so did some research and found KleiWe has some history I found here [ http://davidksmith.com/birth-of-n/kleiwe.htm]. I see it in their catalog as linked in the website, their No. 124. They sold their line to Arnold in 1971, so I'm going to dig out an old Arnold catalog this weekend and see if I can find it there. My model is pretty beat up, but it would be fun to attempt a restoration for my new layout.
The typed sign is great! At least it's a step up from me trying to hand paint things like the lettering on this Hormel car I made when I was about 12 years old. I would never be able to do even that good, these days: I do remember seeing your building back then, too and I'm sure I have seen it in one of my Arnold catalogs. Doug
Yep, quite the achievement back then. I remember placing my oval of Arnold track on a card table, cutting out roads and fields from colored construction paper, then setting my new structure and plastic Treble-O trees (as found at a local drug store) in place. I had one locomotive, two or three cars , a caboose and not even one switch, but it was grand. I wish a had a picture of it.
I'd say your Hormel car turned out great! For sure, there's no way I would begin to even try such a thing today.
Sure enough, as seen below, there's my former KleiWe station in Arnold's 1970/1971 catalog as Arnold 0643. Cool! As a history lesson on the terrible effects of inflation and currency exchange rates, this same kit in Arnold's 1973 price list had risen to $3.75, an 89% rise in just two years. As prices rose uncontrollably, Arnold and others omitted printed prices in their catalogs and instead inserted loose pages of price listings.
Yeah, I remember prices rising almost as fast as the catalogs were released. Most of them had the separate sheets with the updated prices on them. I have pieces of the little California Bungalow pictured under your Freight Shed. They came as extras in some auction I won and I have never known what they are. I guess the Hormel car looks OK. Kind of crude but - 12 years old and it's all balsa. It originally had Treble-O-Lectric trucks on it, later changed to Kadees. It actually doesn't look as tall in real life. Must be some camera distortion. I followed drawings either in MR or the book Kalmbach published for building freight cars. And yup, I would never try one these days, either. Doug
Somewhere around here I have a beat up copy of the Arnold/Rapido "large transformer." On the previous version of the Wilmington I had one of the "City Tenements." Yes, it's a European prototype but works well as a small apartment building. Just the thing to boost the population of my small town.
