Hello all,

Ever since I started collecting Marklin catalogues, from time to time one would come my way complete with a price list.

ie a separate full printed price list for that year rather than a catalogue with the prices already printed in it as you might get in Germany or the US. Many of these pricelists are professionally printed and may even have been printed by Marklin on behalf of the importer, this appears to be the case for the 50's ones but they may also have been printed locally using a template supplied by Marklin.

If anyone has any input or knowledge on the printing of these please share.

Anyway I started separating these pricelists into their own folder and slowly the bug caught on. They make quite interesting reading to see how prices have changed etc.

My issue for now is that I have a few which bear no dealer stamp and the currency is not specified which makes it hard to determine if it's an NZ price list or Ozzie (or even somewhere else).

I'm interested in finding out if any of our Australian & NZ members also collect these, or at least have some set aside that could be used for comparison.

Below I'll attach some scans of the front pages which a few of you may recognise. If anyone has the same price list with a dealer stamp that would be great, or if it does not have a dealer stamp but you can be reasonably certain it's an NZ or AU pricelist because you remember where/when you got it etc for validity.

A helpful point would be that if someone has the same year price list but the $ values are different, that may help also to determine which currency it is.

I'm happy to share what I do have with anyone else that may be interested. An ideal aim would be to have these entered into a spreadsheet to make comparison much easier but that's a lot of retyping. I've tried scanning into OCR and then importing but quite honestly, with proof-reading, corrections and editing it's about the same amount of time as just entering them manually.

Anyone with a similar interest?

Confirmed NZ Price lists I have so far are.....

1953 (for the 1952 catalogue) - Yellow paper
1954 for 1953 - Pink
1955 for 1954 - Green
1957 for 1956 - White - H W Clarke Ltd
1965/66 - H W Clarke Ltd
1970 - Blue
1972/73 - Blue
1973/74 - Yellow
1975 (circa, not exactly dated)
1979
1983
1985
1987
1988
1990
1992
1993
1994

If anyone can fill any blanks in the above it would be great. Below are the images for the ones I need to confirm country currency.

They will be full readable size if you save them to your PC but to help, here is the first item (206 - Track Stencil) for each one and price...

1974 - 0206 - $5.10
1975 - 0206 - $6.35
1978 - 0206 - $8.91

But are these $NZ or $AU ????

Cookee

Hi,

I found this one recently.

Marklin Recommended Retail 1995.pdf

regards michael

Whack . soap & water & maybe a bit of carbolic acid to wash your mouth out , & then off to the naughty corner with you .


And no I am not a Taswegian .


Cheers Tom in Oz.

See how this goes, Price list 1962/3 from J Searle & Sons, Sydney. This would have been when Email had the Import & distribution for Australia .

Yeah and they (Email) were glad to get out of it too I heard. A lot of stock went "missing" when they were the importer. I've had a long association with that company. First when my father had to have a shop to get an account to sell marklin and then later as a white goods repairer. Today electrolux owns what remains of the original email brands and I'm a sucker for still working in the industry.

regards
michael

Train Trader : Was started by a German immigrant to Australia in the late 80's / early 90's. From what I saw in his shop ,he imported a lot of second hand items form Germany , probably estate items mainly ] & developed a thriving business for "M" devotees . He itemised his stock & sent out lists probably 4 times a year to customers on his mailing list . He obtained a lot of sought after models which had never seen the shores of Australia in previous years . Below I have attached a 1996 price list for his Summer sale [Christmas for us down under ]. 28 pages of stock he had on hand ranging from track to 800 series loco's . I may have stuffed the uploading around as the original is on double sided pages & I am still learning how our new printer/scanner works so please be patient , after all we who live down under have to work upside down to the rest of the world. Opps just realised this wont work on Quick reply ,I will attach the booklet in the next reply .

Tom in Oz

Tom, when you mention about the owner of the Australian Model Craft (which I'm sure I must have some more old price lists from still) spending time at a motel for misunderstandings about money. I heard it was for something different but needless to say it was an extended vacation for poor old Bill. His wife handled the business while he was "away" and he continued it for a little while when he returned. I'm a little hazy about time now but I'm pretty sure we were still buying from them up to about '96.
However either marklin found out about his "vacation" or his sales were too poor so they then took exclusive rights away from him and allowed Nathan's Trains to take over.
At the time I was told it was a new parallel import policy from marklin in that anyone able to place a large enough order with them could be an importer as well.
But I never heard of anyone else doing this so could be just rumor. I tend towards somebody who had something to gain either financially or out of spite told Marklin about Bill's holiday.
I only met with Noel once I think from Nathan's by that time I was buying the stuff (as a hobbyist now not a dealer) from ets in Germany and then I had a big break from it.

Train Trader 1996 Part 2

And we talk about provocation !! (just kidding)

I will have you know that Tasmania had the first electric city lights in the country, they were in Launceston and powered by the first hydro generator !!


Regards,

PJ

This is correct, I have a 1983 NZ pricelist on EMail letterhead, when they were located at 46 Cable St and when Hank Edwards was running that division. My latest pricelist from HW Clarke is 1965/66.

Only a year later in 1984 he was still in the same building but was then operating as "Edmac Agencies Ltd", a partnership arrangement with Bruce MacMillan of Smiths Cycles in Lower Hutt. That agreement disolved and my next distributor marked price list is in 1990 as "Edwards Hobbies & Toys" by which time he had relocated to Frederick St.

Plenty of gaps to be filled here in this timeline if anyone can add anything?

Regards

Steve

Looks like a book could be written about the history of "M" in Oz . I will try & contact a few people who may know more & report back . Was the shop at Asquith co joined with one at Hornsby down behind the Bowling Alley , I remember that they were advertising "M" only a few years ago before the shop closed .


Cheers, Tom in Oz

Hi Alan,

It was quite a saga during that time, and sad for the sudden loss of Hank. I always found him to be pleasant to deal with, plus he was Patron of The Märklin Model Railway Club for many years.

The bit about Train & Hobbies is largely accurate . It is true that Ian Barrett was already active in Marklin, but at that time he was operating under the banner "The Digital Experience" - if I recall, he did not start "Trains and Hobbies Ltd" until he had actually purchased Hank's former business and agencies including Faller, Preiser and possibly a few others.

Ian meant well but the declining market and his other business interests simply meant too much dilution of his resources. He got off to a good start, employing a dedicated Sales Representative and holding a rather enjoyable dedicated Marklin Expo in the old Auckland Railway Station (which our club attended).

Around the same time, Marklin opened up their ability for ordering direct from the factory and the first person I was aware of to become involved in this way was Peter Mathers from Te Awamutu (Pirongia to be exact) operating as "The Eisenbahn Depot" which was structured more as a kind of Marklin 'Buyers Club' . I met Peter, he was a nice friendly guy but ran into some issues along the way although I understand this is all long behind him now because I see him active on the auction sites with items here and there and his feedback it very good.

Philip Fedorenko is the Gent you are thinking of in Wellington from Advanced TV in Newlands with a story similar to Ian's actually. Again a nice guy with excellent knowledge and good intentions, but I suspect insufficient local interest to make the hobby business self-supporting without impacting on his primary business. And as anyone who has tried it will know, running a model agency, particularly one as fickle as Marklin is very demanding - delays from the factory, handling warranty issues etc. It's hard to justify it as a part-time thing and very time-consuming, but not profitable enough to put everything else aside.

It would probably be a winner for a retired or semi-retired person and especially so for anyone who can add the all important 'point of difference' and I believe this is where Toot Toot has gained a lot of ground - good old-fashioned family service from Dion & Bryan, stock in the showroom (yes, a showroom!!), and a high level of technical support and knowledge in Marklin generally, and Digital in particular.

The impact of the Internet and the ease of international buying goes as far back as when Hank passed away and has been a challenge for every retail trader since.

The few times I've been to Merv Smith Hobbies I've been underwhelmed by the stock availability and they are barely on the radar but it has been some years since I last ventured into Newmarket - perhaps it's improved?.

Interesting topic and apologies if any of my own recollections are off the mark, any corrections are graciously received.

Cookee

Train Trader : Just made a phone call to a friend & he told me that Henry Hoffman was the first owner & Peter ??? the second . When Peter brought the business he moved shop further down the street for some reason & eventually sold to Brent & Nick who moved to Pymble .


Email factory badge appears on my price lists from ???? up to 1974 & then 1979 for Marklin Distributors till 1986 , I then have a gap till when Nathan's took over.


Before Email it looks like all the price lists were printed by "M" , I have up to 1972 all printed in Germany in both the old & new currency for the particular years .

He also mentioned what had induced the extended holiday regarding Bill S. which I would prefer to keep to my self.

Asquith Hobbies only had 2 nd hand "M" for sale & the owner apparently was rather a person who would only sell some things to his mates . He moved shop to Hornsby in the later years under a new name & but with the same rules as in the old shop . I believe he may have passed on & the shop is now closed.

Tom in Oz

No it hasn't Cookee. I was up in Auckland a month ago, and went into Merv Smith Hobbies. They are still in the same building in Newmarket, but have moved out of the ground floor shop and gone downstairs into the basement in an area about half the size of the previous shop. Their stock of Marklin is now next to nothing, just a few bits of short pieces of track, a small amount of rolling stock (2 or 3 pieces) and not much else. I picked up a book on Mini Club (German text) for about $10, but nothing else. Clearly the business has gone downhill, and they are obviously getting out of Marklin. There wasn't much in the way of Faller kits there either.

That jogged my memory Bryan. I think it was Glynn rather than Glenn Eden and I'm wracking my brain as to Bill's wife's name. I think it was Tess? Who I think was his second wife if I remember correctly.
As for Henry Hoffman, never heard of him sorry. Are you sure he was involved with Australian Modelcraft?

regards
michael

I don't think they brought it all, as one of our club members has been selling some of Ian Barrett's left over stock on his behalf. I think it has all now been sold.

Hi All

Just one point on Train Trader, there was one owner before Henry Hoffman. I cannot remember his name (Barker???), however he lived at Avalon on the northern Sydney beaches. From memory Train Trader started in the Sydney at Pitt St and moved to Narrabeen later. Also when Bill S. had the Marklin agency it was AMC. AMC was the main importer of Peco products and is where the business was, especially the flexible track. The company Southern Model Supplies seem to be the Peco agents now.

Cheers
Bryan

1978 prices, 5those sure were the best of times! The middle class had just peaked in standard of living and income/cost of living ratios. My GM financial reports production numbers even refelct accordingly. Peak years for Holden were 76, 77, 78.