Now an octogenarian I am sorting through my extensive Maklin HO collection gathered over many decades and slowly downsizing it. I have discovered an intriguing mystery, which I failed to notice before, with one of my locomotives which I originally bought new from a local and long established Marklin dealer here in Christchurch New Zealand. The number on the box is #3083 which in Marklin and Koll's catalogues, etc refers to a 4-6-2 steam locomotive Class 231 ETAT France, green diecast body with black wheels. However the locomotive in the box is actually a #3091 4-6-2 steam locomotive Class 18 DB numbered 18 478, with smoke unit but, here the mystery deepens, with a black diecast body and black wheels. The catalogued versions as far as I can tell have red wheels. The polystyrene insert has #3091 imprinted on the underside. I have never had a #3083 French locomotive in my collection so it is not a case of accidentally switching boxes but this wouldn't explain the discrepancy in the colour scheme anyway. It seems as though the body of a #3091 has been fitted to the undercarriage of a #3083. One wonders if this resulted from a mix up on the factory assembly line back in the early 1970s. I would be delighted if any of the members of this community forum could "throw some light" on this oddity.

Thanks river6109/John. Wheels & tender body all black. Yes dealer had some 'interesting' practices!

Graeme

Thanks Kimball

My thoughts exactly. The box itself has a Marklin 'stick on' label with the number 3083.This overlays the original printed label on the box which is 3021 - Diesel loco Class 220. I had wondered before I peeled the label off if the underlying number might have been 3091. Using surplus boxes relabelled for other locomotives etc is not uncommon with Marklin.

I am at a loss as to why the dealer would switch the housings on the French and German outline locomotives unless the earlier customer had particularly wanted the red wheel set on the French loco. He must have struck this particular dealer on a really good day as I didn't always find him the most helpful despite the large purchases I made from him.

The dealer concerned back in the '50s through '80s had an interesting approach to marketing. Nothing on display had a price sticker attached, and everything was sold off the current price list no matter how long the item had been in stock. I experienced this on more than one occasion when a model I had looked in previous days and then went back to purchase had jumped $50+ in the interim because a new price list had arrived in that morning's mail! Ultimately this 'practice' forced a group of us to purchase directly from retail shops in Germany and despite paying the country of origin retail prices plus postage we still paid significantly less than buying locally plus we had a much wider selection of models to choose from. I think our problem stemmed from there being just the one long standing Marklin importer and a small tightly controlled dealer network. The freedom to purchase overseas only became possible when the NZ government relaxed import and currency regulations.

As a matter of interest do you think that this 'modification' decreases or increases the value of this locomotive or really has no affect at all?

I have posted photographs of my locomotive and the box detail in "My Albums", "Marklin Locomotive - A Mystery".

Kind regards

Graeme

Hi Graeme,
Not being a collector of any standing term, I would hazard a guess that the effect on value is neutral, or even less than normal.
As for Shannon's suggestion of contacting Marklin, again I guess they would have no comment to make as the production is past distant.
The only way to find its real worth is to offer it for auction, probably on ebay.de, or one of the European toy auction houses.

regards
Kimball

Hi Dereck, he did indeed have his shop in Riccarton Road but later relocated to Cashel Street if my memory serves me correctly. He passed away many years ago (mid '80s?) and the business was sold and re-established at the Windmill Centre in Riccarton. Eventually it closed down and others took up the Marklin franchise. The original dealer started his business in Timaru which is where I first met him in the mid '50s as a high school boy (TBHS) interested in making and flying model planes. While I couldn't afford to buy Marklin trains at that time I did buy the catalogues and Marklin 1:43 model cars. The dealer later shifted to Christchurch and set up his business there while his brother took over the running of the Timaru shop. While the dealer was very knowledgable about Marklin no bargains were to be had in my experience.
Cheers, Graeme