Back when Marklin mini-club was the hippest thing since the hula hoop in the great old USA, dealers needed a way to display mini club in a proper display suiting these truly unique and beautiful trains. The big ones in Germany came up with a solution for USA dealers. And it was not an inexpensive solution, dealers had to shell out bags of cash for these newly designed cases featuring 4 shelves: 1 base shelf plus 3 heavy glass shelves. The “Marklin __________z” logo was silkscreened in red over a storage area in the bottom of the case. Access to the contents of the case was through sliding doors on the reverse side which kept the overly curious out of the treasure chest. Also neat about the display were mirrors laminated to the sliding doors which allowed increased visibility to trains on display. Need I say more, these are great solutions for displaying a large collection of Marklin mini-club. Two downsides: 1. they are hard to come by 2. access from the back of display limits where it can be placed
These are also very heavy!!!!
My solution to both: ask dealers if they may want to sell these displays and keep an eye out of Ebay (you never know), for the passionate and inveterate collector you will need to transport these cases by going and picking-up yourself; I own three, and I drove to each business and home to pick-up in person: Georgia once and Wisconsin twice.
According to one seller in Wisconsin who had been a Marklin dealer years ago many of these cases were damaged in shipping from Germany, Marklin USA told him at the time only 27 survived. Like many things that are rare they do eventually turn up, my last one was new still in its original shipping crate.
The solution for home display is a table that can be accessed on both sides or even a custom made rolling cart would be ideal.
Dimensions: 36 inches (length) x 18 inches (height) x 9 inches in depth
Price: $150 – $450
I know two dealers who still have these, they are not selling them, but they might in the future. If you think this would be something you could use just let me know and I will point you in the right direction.
