Dime a Dozen

We all have heard the phrase “dime a dozen”, it certainly does not apply to ‘Industry Prints’ those rare and elusive freight wagons mostly produced in the 1980’s – privately printed cars with advertising ranging from beer to car phones. Marklin was producing their own special imprints at a time when an enterprising few decided to get into the action. Making your own mark in ‘Z’ scale has certainly been tried many times through its history, but sadly special imprints referred to by collectors as ‘Industry Prints’ were produced for only about 10 years. Should the collector care about these rare items: yes yes and yes. If you collect Marklin’s special imprints you know the crisp pad printing achieved in the graphics, Industry Prints vary with generally thicker paint of a more opaque saturation. Collectors of special imprints know the 1986 release of the beer cars Pabst, Blatz, Chihuahua, Bass, Miller (numerous variations), Labatts, Coors Lite and Michelob, all were produced privately for exclusive distribution in Germany and the United States. The excitement for these models maybe the saturated colors or it maybe the history documented by the graphics who knows they are that and everything else.