Toy Garden-Lamp

 

Most of us have street lamps on our train layouts.  Whether they are vintage cast metal ones from the prewar days or more recent plastic ones, they provide that special aura that completes and enhances our layouts.  Most are electric, powered by the layout transformer or more recently by small battery packs.  But, what did layout owners do around the turn of the century when trains were live steam or windup?  They had real oil lamps in the shape of a street lamp. 

My example is made of plated sheet metal and is about 7 ½ inches tall.  The removable top has real glass lenses.  The stem of the lamp was filled with lamp oil and the wick was inserted in the stem.  The wick could then be lit.  There is no adjustment to the wick, so that adjustment would have to be done before it was lit. 

The plating on the top is brass in color and the stem is painted gold.  The 2 ½ inch round base is painted green.  There should be two bars for the lamp lighter to rest his ladder on but one is missing on my example.   There is a strip halfway up the stem that is embossed with the words:  PAT. APR. 6, 97.

The lamp was patented (patent #579,968) and manufactured by Fred Fallows of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was called a Toy Garden-Lamp. The manufacturer was organized under the name C.B. Porter Company in 1870 and then in 1894 name was changed to Frederick & Henry Fallows Toys. The original principals were James Fallows and his sons, Henry, Charles, and David.  They specialized in painted and stenciled tin horse-drawn, wheeled vehicles, trains, and river boats.

Kids! Here’s Your Electric Train!

I wrote this article a number of years ago as part of a publishing class I was taking.  I am presenting it here for your enjoyment.

Kids! Here’s Your Electric Train!

 “Kids! Here’s Your Santa Fe Super Chief Electric Train” is the headline on the instruction sheet in the box you just got in the mail.  This box is the fulfillment of a dream that started maybe months ago when you answered that advertisement.  Where was the ad, on the back of a cereal box or maybe in the back of a comic book?  It seems so long ago that you don’t remember.  But, a complete 60 piece train set in a gift box for only $3.00 postage included.  What a deal!  Sending off that envelope with the payment started dreams of the shiny passenger train racing around the layout past the many buildings and accessories.  You were to be the mogul of a railroad empire.  And now, here it is, the dream fulfilled!

But wait, what is this?  How could they get a whole railroad empire into that little box?  You excitedly open the box.  What emerges is a disappointment to your railroad empire dreams.  The box contains a small battery powered locomotive and 3 passenger cars that are not even shiny.  They run in the tracks not on the tracks like a real railroad.  The bag of plastic accessories and people is pretty neat but the cardboard buildings, yuck.  Well, you  might as well set it up; you have been waiting for this a long time.  You assemble the tracks, put a battery in the locomotive and open the bag of plastic accessories.  But, the cardboard buildings are not worth assembling.  You watch it go round and round for about 30 minutes, get bored, and put the whole thing back into the box and the box goes on a shelf.

Forty years later and now a train collector, you remember the little box of trains sitting on a shelf at your parents’ house.  As your mother hands you the box, you remember the day the box arrived.  But now, you take a look at the contents through a collector’s eyes.  Hey, this isn’t as bad as you remembered and it is in excellent condition in the original box.   So, what do you really have?

You have a battery powered train set made by Sago Products Train Miniature Company of Los Angeles, California.  The set consists of an F7 type diesel in Santa Fe silver and red with 3 silver passenger cars all about 2/3^rds HO size.  The rest of the set consists of an oval of track, the unpunched cardboard buildings, the decals for the locomotive and passenger cars, an instruction sheet, a re-order blank, and the bag of plastic accessories.  The plastic accessories include telephone poles, people, tiny vehicles; freight station accessories and a crossing sign which doubles as a train whistle. 

You think to yourself, this deserves a better shelf than the one in my parent’s closet.  You take it home and place it on a shelf with the pride of your train collection.  Forty years later, a collector’s spirit turns disappointment into enthusiasm.