Some very nice pieces, but it's always a bit suspicious to see "unused" pieces coming out of Germany (or Europe in general). Typically I've seen in Germany, Marklin is played with and always heavily used (why would it not be?). In the US, it's possible to find "unused" trains because perhaps one part was broken and it's difficult to source the part all they way from Germany.

Many sellers find good quality items, replace certain parts with reproductions (or heavily cleaned original parts) and put together various packing materials to make these items look factory new when really they are not. In a way it's deceptive, but it's what many collectors are looking for and so the practice continues.

Paul

I do not think those are fake,The seller have a good feedback and the items are not so old.It is a possibility those nice classics are a forgotten stock from an old store as mentioned above,or a very well stored collection.

This is what the seller says about it ...

"Hallo liebe E-Bayer, heute möchte ich Ihnen in meiner neuen Auktion wieder einige absolut hochwertige Märklin Modelle vorstellen, die Loks und Wagen stammen alle aus meiner eigenen privaten Sammlung und sind alle aus Laden auflösungen oder damals selbst gekauft worden !"

Translation: "Dear e-Bayer, today I want to show you my new auction with again some absolutely quality Marklin models, the loco's and cars are all from my own personal collection and are all out of shop clearances or been bought at that time by myself !"

Marco

Well, my thoughts on this without specifically targeting this Sellers items is that sometimes the locomotives are too complete, i.e. that some parts are not genuine.

The inspection plates are far too frequent, I have almost none of these in my Collection.

But I have bought several locomtives from the late 50s and 60s that are almost mint in that they have very Little wear of anything apart from pickup.

I sometimes by instruction leaflets from the right age if they are missing from my own model, likewise boxes, but here I am careful to match the box age, by its production year and month so that it is not too new or old vs the production year of the model. Most often a less good optically model but with box and leaflet still here.The inspectors thing I do not bother.

I do not want replica things in general, but I must admit I have a few boxes for DT and ST as these are almost impossible to get.
But on the other hand it is a question what the seller claims that they are....
Likewise I got the ST restored by Ritter, the alternative was to have the set handpainted dreadfully with loads of rusty parts and not working. Interestingly Mr Ritter asked which version I wanted but I took it as it was namely red version, it is my own so it is not restored to sell. I Think it is obvious that it is restored should I ever offer it that Ritter restoration would be part of the description, and besides I personally treats any perfect ST or similar stuff as restored unless absolutely proven otherwise. However I think that at least some auction houses indicates that (Lösch f.e.)


I suspect that many models are partly genuine but then sometimes completed up to "full standard".

But it is not unreasonable to find at least models from the 60's and so on, when I talk to collecting friends that are older some have told me about good models from the 60's they bought from closing Toy shops in the early 80's. One thing that I have come across is also a few very good optically models that has been driven much with noisy and worn machinery, but the owner has only driven it a lot but seldom physically intervened with the model. They looked very good.

Do you collectors out there also think that f.e inspector labels are too frequent?

Paul, not only Germany, I have seen collectors/re-sellers do the same thing here in the USA...
I personally try to stay away from NIB and try to purchase good to excellent used, that way I don't fell bad running them.
One can only have so many "shelf queens"

Well he's got active bids now up to 87 Euro's (!!) just for an inspection tag / Prüfsiegel , which I assume for that price is a rare and unusual colour - Purple/Violet - (looks Blue on my monitor)

Yellow one is just slightly less, and other colours besides - Paul have you done an article on these yet? (yes please)

http://www.ebay.de/itm/M..._Modellbau_Modelleisenba[img]nu[img]null[/img]ll[/img]hnen&hash=item43c503cffe

However I would not suggest that those buying them have any intention of fraud. I have only one loco which has one, but I would love to have a few more, I think they look cool attached but if I was ever to resell a loco I would either remove the tag, or simply state that it was not the original one that came with it but is representative of one that 'would have' come with it.

Steve