Just wondering how many others have a Primex Collection?

Myself:

3 x 4194 Coaches
1 x 4195 Baggage
1 x 4196 Baggage

1 x 3182 Sarrasani KLVM
1 x 4584 Sarrasani car (w/o package or Culemeyer)

1 x 4552 Hapag-Lloyd Container car (no printing on frame)

Not many, I know, but well loved!

Jimmy

p. s. no track, buildings, or accessories

I have bought their Berlin S-Bahn and some spare coaches to make up a nice train which I hope to digitize and install interior lighting.
Also have a couple of items that are the 'unprinted' version of the Märklin item.

Out of what used to be a fairly extensive collection of Primex,
all I have left is the Orient Express Set and the three extra cars associated with it.

I have a number of Primex items, including some that I wish to sell. I'll try and sort these out over the Christmas break and put a for sale notice up.

I forgot the Becks beer refrigerator car, different to the Marklin refer cars through not having any platforms on it.

I have a few items.
2 Eaos; 4-axeled high sided open goods waggons.
2 (or more) 2-axeled rungenwagen (#4595).
I had a BR141 Ocean-Blue/beige. Which I have always suspected to be a Primex model, although the white foam-inlay says Märklin, it came without the original box.
Maybe somebody with a Primex loco can veryfy if the styrofoam inlay has the M-name embossed on it, on the underside?! (And no; I dont remember the running number of my BR141 and it has now been repainted...)

I was always on the lookout for these -slightly- cheaper models, but as I only wanted "full" and "printed" models, it was rather difficult to find suitable models for my collection. Add to that, that in Denmark the Primex brand was almost unknown anyway.

I never liked the idea of using the -already- absolutly cheapest and least detailed models from Märklin, and making versions even LESS detailed and incomplete.
The almost white M-track also didnt appeal to me.
The other approach; Using very old and totally obsolete models (BR23, E44) and re-issuing them under the Primex brand also didnt make much sense to me (although development is 0 cost, the production is still as much as any ordinary M. -maybe even more than more modern models, because of re-tooling to use older standard components).
I mean; What M. needed, was an entry-way into MRR via huge cheap super-store chains; For that, they should have made a nice newly designed product, where the production cost -already from the design point-of-view should have been taken into account. (Like Ikea does; the first thing they deside for a new product, is its price!)
I think they have done it right in the 2000´s, with the simplified models sold in Aldi and Lidl, etc. But these sets where then sold under the Märklin name anyway...
No wonder that they lost out with Primex in the 80´s...

Is, for example, a Primex loco branded Primex or Marklin? I'd be interested to know.

i always thought the point about Primex was to be able to make a discounted offer available to certain major retailers without upsetting the rest of the trade too much.

I don't know much about the toy trade in Germany but I think that it might have been under some sort of retail price maintenance arrangement at the time? Hence the need for a 'non competitive' discounted line.

My understanding about the origin of the Primex brand by Marklin is as follows: -

A major department store wanted to sell Marklin but Marklin refused to sell to them as it did not consider a department store to be a suitable sales venue for the product line. The store threatened to take them to court under German trading laws (I don't know the relevant laws involved), so Marklin came up with the Primex line to distance itself from the situation. For this reason the catalogue leaflets were only ever printed in German as it was not envisaged that the brand would be sold outside Germany.

Later as the overall situation in Germany changed and the brand waned, Marklin stopped producing Primex and labelled equivalent products in the Marklin range under the HOBBY (now Start Up) moniker.

Around 5 years after stopping production of Primex, Marklin produced the 30031 Br24 in photo grey as German product law required a product to have a gap in production of less than 5 years to keep registration of the product name. After a further 5 years they produced the 33005 Br23 (a re-run of the Marklin 3005 but with a Delta decoder) for the same reason.

I don't know if the law changed, or whatever (whoever?) was a potential user of the brand for model railways went away, but Marklin didn't keep up with a Primex product every 5 years. The E44 and coach set produced last year was the most recent under the brand, and was produced as an anniversary set for Primex.

John Cousins was a major enthusiast for Primex, and that was a big focus of his collection. I spoke to him about it more than 20 years ago, and Primex was all he wanted to talk about. And you know how much other Märklin he had as well!

I don’t know what special Primex items you have, but it’s worth cataloguing it all carefully.

Nigel

I have some of the "Dental Surgery" wagons with the wording heeding you to 'brush three times a day', but unfortunately antiquetoys1 got the locos and wants insane prices for them (somewhere close to £300 for a marklin 3029 with an imprint the last time I saw them). One train is a set of coaches, and the other is a set of the red plastic hopper wagons IIRC.

Also have some Primex items, love them as they are so basic and simple, just like Marklin of the 50's and early 60's.

Rei,

Hi
I have most of the Sarasani sets: 4584, 4585, 4586, 4589.
One fun wagon I don't have is the "Leigeinheit" 4596 (two covered wagons with a close coupling in-between).
They are fun but toy-like.
Cheers
Jean