TRAIN TIME: K-Line #K-410008 Coca-Cola 'Top Choice' Supermarket

In regards to the recent post concerning K-Line's Road&Rail Packs, as well as their combo packs, blog reader Don Huovinen sheds more light on the issue:

"Just a brief note related to your latest blog.

All of these sets did indeed contain "something special".  The set you showcased most recently, #4, included a Country Store which is similar to K-4150--05 Coca Cola General Store which was included as a component of Set K-1711 Coca Cola Steam Train Set which was shown in the 1997 and 1998 catalogs.  But as I r3ecall the artwork was different.

The other Road & Rail Pack sets all included buildings which I believe were never otherwise offered for sale,

Set #3 is intriguing on 2 counts.  The "Transportation Station" (Suburban Station) has signboards that read "POPADOS".  I have no idea what this means.  I'll have to ask a former K-Line employee if maybe there was an employee with the last name of Popados.  Also the billboard included with this set, Travel Refreshed, is in the smaller frame.  The same billboard was part of set K-418711 which used the larger frame.  Finally the billboard included in Set #2 came in a red frame.  When it was packaged as part of K-41872A it was in a sea foam green frame.

Ah such are the mysteries of life (or collecting K-Line).  While I'm thinking about it another mystery:  The signboards for the Station included in the C&O set read SWOOPE.  Swoope is indeed a very small unincorporated town in Virginia with a population of 1,326.  Why pick this?  Was it an inside joke?"

K-Line had such a prodigious output that little mysteries and backstories are bound to crop up quite often. Many Thanx Don! 

K-Line marketed a series of combo packs (my designation) which they simply called "Coca-Cola Train Accessory". These combo packs include a building, a Coca-Cola licensed SunnySide Ford Model A stakebed truck, and several figures. Today's post features the #K-410008 Coca-Cola 'Top Choice' Supermarket. I only have two of these combo packs in the collection, so after the next one hits the blog we'll move on to the SunnySide cars! Yay :-) Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Bothe ends and both sides are duplicates

TRAIN TIME: K-Line Coca-Cola #K-59005 Road&Rail Pack #4 with SunnySide Coca-Cola Truck

I'm gonna post a few of these K-Line combo packs before pulling the plug on the whole SunnySide Ford Model A truck series. Today's post feature K-Line #K-59005 Road& Rail Pack #4 which includes a bright yellow Coca-Cola box car, Coca-Cola General Store (based on the old Marx L-shaped ranch house, seven figures, and of course a SunnySide Coca-Cola stakebed delivery truck. As stated in previous posts, there were a total of six Road&Rail Packs, all of which are a real bear to find. I was lucky to happen upon this last year and snatched it up ASAP! :-) None of the packs contained anything special - no pieces exclusive to the set - it was just a way for K-Line to re-package some it's stock into nice little all-in-one packages. Somewhere out in The Cave I have this general store already built-up but I'm not gonna look for it now - perhaps in the next week or two. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

K-Line 2004 1st Edition Catalog Extract Featuring SunnySide Stakebed Trucks

Including the front and back covers, the 2004 1st Edition catalog from K-Line was 164 pages. I don't think I wanna post the whole thing here :-) However, let's take a look at the SunnySide vehicles K-Line had to offer - individually as well as in sets. What interests me are the six 'Road and Rail' packs offered as Coca-Cola licensed products. This catalog features numbers 4-6 while the Coca-Cola catalog I posted yesterday shows numbers 1-3. Each set contains a building, a boxcar, a SunnySide truck, and figures. These are very hard to come by nowadays and I've only managed to latch on to one so far. Secondly, K-Line offered combination building/truck sets (minus the boxcar) which are also very nice and a tad bit easier to get a hold of. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Here are the four SunnySide Coca-Cola trucks offered for individual sale that have been posted here on the blog. The pick-up truck is not SunnySide.

The Heinz licensed weren't nearly as abundant as the Coca-Cola stuff. Here we see the four separate sale trucks which have been posted on the blog.

2003 K-Line Coca-Cola Catalog Featuring SunnySide Stakebed Trucks

One of the activities I've been pursuing to help keep my mind off of things is scanning my old K-Line catalogs. They had been sitting in a filing cabinet out in The Cave for many years and it seemed like a good time to break them out and scan them. It's not a complete collection by any means and it's been hard as heck to track down a lot of them. Why? Wellll, K-Line's catalog output was quite varied - they were busy beavers over there. They had First Edition, Second Edition, and sometimes Third Edition catalogs. Then they Toy Fair Catalogs, supplements, and something called 'The K-Line Connection' which apparently was a quarterly newsletter publication. One newsletter wasn't enough because anyone who was a member of their collector's club also received a quarterly K-Line Collector's Club ('KCC') publication starting in 1999. Not enough? Want more? We got more - they also put out a myriad of specialty catalogs for licensed products. The one posted here today is my only specialty catalog but they made them for products like NABISCO as we've seen from the extracts provided by Don Huovinen as well as who knows what! :-)

All that being said, my collection is still fairly rounded and I even have examples of some of Maury D. Klein's original price lists when he was just a re-seller, prior to him offering products under his own 'K-Line' banner. Essentially, the collection includes most years from 1979-2008 with only a few gaps - which I'm trying to fill. 

This specialty catalog is the first time I've seen SunnySide vehicles offered by K-Line. They don't appear in any of my catalogs prior to this 2003 offering. As we've seen, SunnySide had been producing this same line of Ford Model A Stakebed trucks since the early 1990s and possibly even before, which makes it a very l-o-n-g production run for a toy. Are they still being made? One person claims they are but has offered no photographic proof, so if any reader can verify this please let me know. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

K-Line (by SunnySide) No. K-94527 - Ford Model A Stakebed Truck Coca-Cola (silver-red) - No load - Chassis No. 4625-30

I've noticed several K-Line by SunnySide trucks being sold without any loads on the bed. I have this truck both in a boxed version and one bought loose, and neither show any signs of a load ever having been attached. Also, these past three Coca-Cola trucks have no copyright info (therefore no guesstimated date of manufacture) on the boxes and while I do have a K-Line Coca-Cola catalog it too has no date on it! But I believe it may be from 2003 - just waiting for confirmation. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

K-Line (by SunnySide) No. K-94526 - Ford Model A Stakebed Truck Coca-Cola (yellow cab, red truck bed) Chassis No. 4625-30

 Pretty much the same truck posted yesterday but with slightly different color scheme. Enjoy! Opa Ed