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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 0:52:25 GMT
Drag out the albums...let's see 'em. Christmas trees, gift piles, decorations, toy trains, naughty gifts, stockings, etc. C'mon...I need some inspiration. Here's one I saw on Flickr recently to start it off:  Prewar tinplate, Plasticville, and tinsel, all in the postwar era. |
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Post by af3020 on Nov 26, 2023 1:02:10 GMT
Christmas 1980. Being single meant I could do whatever I wanted with respect to a Christmas layout so I would move all of the furniture out of the living room and cover the entire floor with a layout - since a tree would have just taken up needed right-of-way space I never got around to putting one up.   |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 1:10:05 GMT
Now that's a lovely photograph, af. Here's another "found" photo:  Looks like a mixed prewar/postwar consist in the postwar era. Remember that brick-paper/corrugated skirting? This almost looks homemade. Nice fencing, and that "Native American" village. I'm having flashbacks of the Marx Fort Apache playset... |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 1:26:00 GMT
Christmas, c. 1920's:  Early Lionel, a canal boat, a cast-iron Arcade sedan, all well-scenic'd behind ornate fencing. Courtesy of Shorpy and the Library of Congress. |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 1:55:03 GMT
More Plasticville, more postwar Lionel:  More of that corrugated brick-paper skirting... |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 3:20:12 GMT
This looks like a Hafner wind-up set, maybe:  Nice bunch of toys for some kid(s). |
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Post by Bill on Nov 26, 2023 3:25:42 GMT
There's a bunch of photos on the "Vintage Village" page of my website, along with some history of layouts Bill |
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Post by edlloyd on Nov 26, 2023 3:37:53 GMT
This is vintage and an actual photo from our living room when I was little. Not sure of the exact year but most likely late 60's.
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 3:42:54 GMT
Great shot Ed...mid-century modern, I believe. Not sure what this is, but a nice big "garden" for sure:  If I was a betting man, I'd wager prewar Flyer. |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 3:56:00 GMT
Looks like another Marx wind-up, c. 1954:  This looks similar to the first set I ever got, a clockwork Marx set headed by a #533 stamped-steel wind-up. The next Christmas I received a second-hand Flyer Mountaineer set from 1956 (most of which I still have). The Marx still saw some track-time, especially after one of my younger brothers got the same Marx set and we combined the track from both to double the size of loop. |
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Post by josef on Nov 26, 2023 11:28:30 GMT
Our first Christmas in America. We had a tree and some decorations given to us by our sponsors. The only presents we had that year was each other, a warm home, 3 meals a day, warm clothing, and no longer fearing a knock on our door. I treasure this picture of me and my sister, and mom and dad always said how sorry they felt that there wasn't at least one present for each of us. But this picture was and is the best picture they could have ever given us, it was taken by our sponsors and they gave it to mom and dad years later. My sister passed away in 2014.  |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 12:52:12 GMT
A great picture, for sure. When you peel it back, family is the critical ingredient in all of this. My paternal great-grandfathers arrived in Baltimore from Germany in the 1870s, sent to America by their parents. With little more than the shirts on their backs, the learning-curve was steep, yet filled with opportunity. We stand on the shoulders of some pretty extraordinary folks.
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Post by af3020 on Nov 26, 2023 17:35:13 GMT
healey36, I think you would win that wager on the Flyer setup with the young cowboy in the foreground. The watchman's tower looks like this one  but it has solid litho window treatment as opposed to this one which means it would have been made before 1933 (In 1933 Flyer offered several accessories with lights inside the shed which meant the window panes were punched out - this also meant any unlighted accessory, such as this one, would have the same shed window treatment even if no lighting was present). The #2 bridge was first offered in 1938 when Gilbert bought out Flyer  and it looks like the aluminum zephyr set is the original 3 car version offered in 1934. It had the earlier power car which looks like the power car in this version of a similar set.  The cowboy outfit looks to be a 50's version so my guess would be the picture dates from that time and the train set is his Dad's layout. |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 18:28:09 GMT
That's some good photo-analysis, af; thanks for the confirmation. It looks like maybe a few bits of Plasticville in there as well. The cathedral is really interesting...can't tell if that's from a kit or a scratch-build. The bridge and the watchman's tower look familiar, and I couldn't quite make out which Streamliner it was.
That's a lucky kid to have a dad that puts that around the tree in some form annually. Too bad he's more interested in the Hop-Along Cassidy impersonation, lol.
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Post by healey36 on Nov 26, 2023 18:33:40 GMT
Here's a snap from 1959 or 1960, me and my cousins over at my Uncle's looking at his "garden":  More of that brick-paper skirting, which clashes terribly with my striped pajamas. That's my grandmother behind us, making sure nobody gets out of line. |
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