World Famous Comics: Standard Catalog of American Flyer Trains
Standard Catalog of American Flyer Trains
By: David Doyle Publisher: Krause Publications Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Krause Publications Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 400 Publication Date: September 26, 2007
Product Description: Highly sought-after model of trains, second only to Lionel, by 30,000+ collectors who attend the largest train show in the U.S., held twice a year in Pennsylvania.
Is the ONLY full-color guide on the subject, serving the needs of toy train collectors who rely on detailed color photos to accurately identify trains.
A bargain buy when first introduced as "Chicago Flyer," American Flyer trains rose to premier toy train status in the last half of the 20th century, and maintain the second spot today! The company's claim to fame, the S gauge train, is supported by the wide gauge and prewar HO and O gauge trains, in collector popularity, and this one-of-a-kind guide covers all three groups in extensive detail. The most comprehensive overview of the American Flyer line, this book follows the winning format of the Standard Catalog line of toy train references.
Nice Pictures, but very innacurate At first glance, this is a nicely done pictorial of American Flyer Trains. However, there are numerous errors and omissions. The omissions include very common well documented items.
The HO section is almost useless as the number of missing items are so numerous.
Many items are missing the dates of manufacture. Also the Sacristy numbers are in many instances absolutely void of reality.
Value is changeable, but not as subjective as the values for a large number of items. Many items are so miss-valued as to be a real disservice to the user.
Use the book for the pretty pictures only.
Good book for American Flyer train owners I'm not a collector, so I can't comment on the accuracy of the material contained in this book. However, the quality of the photos, completeness, and overall look are excellent. I first saw this in a local bookstore, but the price kept me from purchasing it. It was only when I found it on Amazon at a much reduced price that I decided to buy it.
I received my first American Flyer train set for Christmas when I was about 6 years old in 1957. My father continued to add to it until I ended up with four engines, many accessories, and a lot of track which was enough to make a really nice layout. This book has been useful in helping me identify the value of items in my collection, their date of manufacture, and rarity. Overall, a very good book.
American Flyer Trains I ordered this for my husband and he absolutely loves it. He had seen it other places at a much higher price and was thrilled you had it.
Thank you.
Train book Great book with many excellent photos and variations. A must have for any Flyer fan!
Better than Greenbergs, but has some serious issues. I too was waiting in anticipation for a new better written book on American Flyer. I am primarily an S gauge person, but to finally have at least the basic refreshed info on HO, and basic info on O and Wide Gauge presented again is a big bonus.
Not to put down Greenbergs works, but Greenbergs are getting very dated and the repeatative descriptions just for the sake of saying something were nausiating. David Doyle in his book, has changed the format to a much more concise format. There are a few brief paragraphs at the beginning of each chapter giving important but generalized information on the chapters subject matter. For each variation of a numbered item, they give another brief general description then list each variation with a range of values and a rarity rating. This is better than other guides that simply give an EX or LN value and move on leaving the other grades open to abuse by sellers. One word of advice to David is to stick with common item names. Calling the Box Cars, House Cars was wierd and a big turn off. Train people know them as box cars, talk about what they are familiar with, not some abscure name no one has ever heard of before.
The book is chock full of pictures, and they are new and bright and clear, not recycled from other previous publications. For the most part the photos are very well done, but some items they photograph are in poor condition and a superior example would have been easy to find. An example is the chapter on Hopper cars shows a beginning photo of a 921 CB&Q hopper, a very common hopper car, with a broken step. Other photos are of items that are covered with dust like the 283 at the beginning of the steam loco chapter. David tries I think to show photos of the scarcer versions at least half the time. I'm not sure if this was a chance thing or a deliberate move.
The chapter on paper is short, sweet and helpful. There is only so much you can say about dealer catalogs and consumer catalogs and the like. The chapter on HO is also shorter and sweeter than the S gauge chapter(s), mainly because they made so much less of it compared to S gauge. Even more brief in the overall information offered are the O and Wide gauge chapters. These are grey areas in American Flyer collecting the same as OO is for Lionel. But we rarely hear of the Lionel people complaining about the lack of material in the small OO chapters when they are included in books. American Flyer people are already complaining about the O and Wide gauge chapters, and I say leave them complain as these are small niche areas, and the book was more about the mainstay of American Flyer trains, S gauge. It is a welcome blessing to see anything on the O and Wide gauge areas with more up to date pricing so everyone into those areas should be grateful they got anything at all instead of whining. There have been other HO books put out, but they are very dated as well, and the fresher HO data was welcome, even though the amount of time spent on the chapter was not overwhelming mainly because there was no need to.
I have been into American Flyer trains since I first became congnative about the age of 4 or 5 and remember my first encounters with the train set up at Christmas. I've collected American Flyer S gauge for over 30+ years and am working on my 4th collection. I know what I've seen, and what I've not seen over 30+ years of searching and collecting these trains. With that said, I can say here what is wrong with this book. David tried very hard to avoid ambiguous information, something Greenbergs did not do. I saw only one or two examples of this in the book. One example is the alleged existance of a 293 steam loco with a whistle in the tender. This was NOT made that way. The whistle was either added by a previous owner or the tender was swapped from a different loco. But because some big time collector somewhere said it was made because it exists in their collection, so it was listed. The second example is the listing for a 290 pacific with Reading logo on the tender. This loco was never made that way. This is a tender swap by someone after the loco left the factory. This, unfortunately, is a big peril when writing a book of this type, the author is at the mercy of the collectors he asks for information from. The other big issue is with values vs truly scarce variations. As I said before, I know when a variation is tough and should demand a premium. There are several instances where a scarce variation is listed but given the common versions value. I'll give two prime examples. One would be the 24720 Civil War coach. The very earliest versions of this car are painted but do not have American Flyer Lines stamped on the car sides. In my 30+ years of collecting and searching, until about two weeks ago, I had only seen one of these cars and it was in a boxed "One of the First Fifty" sets. This car is HARD to find. Yet it was given a value of a meager $90, only $10 more than the painted version with the American Flyer Lines logo stamped on the car sides. Sorry Dave, this car is at least a $150 to $200 car. Second example would be the 625 Gulf tank car. Its hard enough to find this car without the 625G number indicating a change to Gulf from Shell. But to find the plain 625 version with the SEPX shell markings and Gulf logo is difficult to say the least. Yet David lists all variations of this car at $25. Again, this car is scarce, and is worth at least $150 or more. There are other examples exactly like this, such as the 636 spool flat with small lettering, and 934 caboose. One other item of note. In the O Gauge accessories section they show White with Red trim S Gauge items in the photos. This is incorrect. Pre-War O accessories that were carried over after the war were originally painted in Yellow (Dark Cream), with Brown trim.
Other than the issues mentioned above this is an excellent book. Well laid out, much easier to read, and it has a range of values for common people who want to deal in average grade tains instead of the high end collectors grade stuff. Photos could have been better and some of the values definately need tweeking. Over all, I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into collecting and/or operating any of the American Flyer equipment offered from the early 1900's to date.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
