TRAIN TIME: Custom Marx Army Commodore Vanderbilt Clockwork Train

A couple of months ago I latched on to this custom painted 3-piece Marx Commodore Vanderbilt (CV) set which included the engine, tender, and caboose. The paint job was nice enough and the person who redid it looks like he used a homemade rubber stamp for the US * ARMY lettering. The three piece set was very reasonably priced so, what the heck, I took the plunge. I went from being anti-clockwork a couple of years back, to grudging respect, to being fully on-board with the whole thing. I finally realized that trains like this were at the low end of the price spectrum and often times were the only trains some families could afford. It represents a simple pleasure from days gone by and I now accept it for what it is. As I was playing with this I toyed (pun intended) with adding cars, but hey, watch the videos and see for yourself. 

This portion of the old train board is just big enough for an oval of track. For this video I pulled out vintage Army toys from Ideal, Auburn, Marx, Tootsietoy, Triang Minic, Renwal, and Payton. Oh, and BTW it wasn't 'til after I was finished filming that I noticed the tender was on backwards - DOH! Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Three unit train

Four unit train

Five unit train

Processed Plastic NASA Titan Rocket - White Capsule

Here's the second Processed Plastic NASA Titan Rocket I had made up from pieces culled from other toys. I believe this one was actually in pretty good shape except for the exhaust cones at the bottom. They looked to be cut-up, or chewed, or whatever and I was able to put on an exhaust from a donor rocket that was in good shape. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Processed Plastic NASA Titan Rocket - Red Capsule

Of late I've been in Processed Plastic mode. Today, and for our next post, we'll take a look at yet another of PP's space race toys. This was one I had hoped to feature for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing but I was waiting for parts. I had only a partial rocket and was lucky enough to find a 'donor' toy I could cannibalize from to make one complete rocket. Like the USAF Missiles posted a week or so ago, this too has a spring loaded 'launch' mechanism. Press down on the Command Module/Service Module assembly and it engages the two latches seen at either side of the rocket. Press the latches inward and the CM/SM flies into the outer reaches of space - or at least about 12' or so LOL. Inside the CM is a removable floor with three astronauts. The toy measures 12 1/2" (31.75cm) H x 2 5/8" (6.66cm) overall diameter. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

The Command Module/Service Module - or at least Processed Plastic's version of it

Manoil No. 706 Zeppelin Car

Gosh, I have been wanting to do a post all week, and have been working on taking and editing photos but the time to sit down and actually post just hasn't been there. I badly wanted to do something for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing but ended up waiting for more toys to come in - I had some rockets missing pieces and was waiting for job lots of parts to arrive. Oh well, it is what it is and I'm here now with this vision of the future from around 1936.

Founded around 1936, Maurice Manoil and his brother Jack formed Manoil Manufacturing Co. in Waverly, New York and was known for their diecast or slush cast figures and vehicles. Utilizing a combination of the Airflow design in vehicles popular at the time, and the then popular Zeppelins floating to-&-fro between Europe and the U.S. this car was made somewhere between 1936-38. There's been some discussion in the hobby groups as to whether these originally came with white wheels or black wheels. If white wheels were OEM then that means at some time during the past the ones on my sample were replaced. In any case it's still a 'futuristic' blast from the past. The toy measures 6 1/4" (15.87cm) L x 1 7/8" (4.76cm) W x 1 5/8" (4.12cm) H. Enjoy! Opa Fritz