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 Posted - September 11 2006 : 2:37:23 PM
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Can anyone answer this:
What year did the brown box appear? Was it right after consolidated foods bought Tyco in 70? Did the power torque motor come out at the same time? Was there any brown box era product that came with the old Mantua truck drive. I have a F7 with a mantua truckdrive. trying to figure out if it was pre brown box, or Deluxe F7 that came out in 76 or a mantua product that came out after 77 when Tyler family bought mantua back. Did the Mantua product built after 77 when Tyler Family bought the name back say Mantua Tyco on the fuel tanks. Did consoladated foods and mantua share tooling after the split in 77?
sorry so many questions, just trying to figure out how to indentify products made in the period.
Neil
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Country:  USA ~
Posts: 73 ~
Member Since: September 11 2006 ~
Last Visit: May 05 2014
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 Posted - September 12 2006 : 6:13:58 PM
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Neil:
Hopefully some of the real brown-box experts will chime in but here are some recollections, for what they're worth:
My "Railroad Empire" set, purchased in '71, had a combination of old picture box action cars from the "transitional red box" era, old-style yellow box inserts but all brown-box cars and Mikado. These were the first "Brown box" Tycos I'd seen and the cars and engine were indistinguishable from their predecessors.
Over the ensuing years I've seen a few sets with both box styles together in the same master box. The owners and sellers insisted they were shipped that way but I wouldn't swear to it. Tyco seems to have made a concerted effort to update the shelf stock with the shiny new brown boxes, often at the expense of unit identification. As I've mentioned elsewhere, many early brown box items have blank unprinted end flaps, some have stock numbers scrawled in pencil or pen: perhaps at the factory, perhaps by the retailer.
Power Dork Drive seems to date from '73-'74 but really takes off by the time the 1975 catalog is released, with a big mention on page 19 of same on how it represented "four years of development."
As a result, many of the really fine old mu-2 power trucks are to be found in the early brown box Tyco engines: from the EMD F's to the 430 Alcos.
My 400 series Mantua EMD F's (some purchased in 1978) have nothing written on the fuel tank bottom; only two heavy parrallel raised lines.
Hope this has been of some help.
Magnolia Academy
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