Holiday Releases Week: Easter Cars in Z – Marklin

One Time Release 2000

I have to admit, I did not start collecting Marklin Z based on their holiday releases, they came later after settling in for the long haul collecting Marklin. For collectors, Marklin’s holiday releases are “One Time Series” thereby making them limited and eventually rare. For train collectors who concentrate on prototypical railroading holiday themed cars will probably not cut it.

But collecting trains can have an outlaying interest: making fun and not so serious holiday layouts or novelty layouts which are theme based diverging from serious railroading which is ever present in most railroaders’ mindsets.

Kids and grand kids or those young at heart will respond with joy and amazement at one other version of model train collecting with Marklin’s theme based releases: Halloween, Christmas and Easter. Roughly speaking the first limited holiday releases were for Christmas in 1997. Plus this is an excellent opportunity to have the family creatively contribute to your hobby.

This week I thought I would share some of these cars from my collection which is complete for Christmas, incomplete for Easter and complete for Halloween.

Today is Easter! The first Easter release in my collection is a complete dealer display including wooden bunny which holds silver tray with one Easter egg ornament perched atop. This One Time Series for 2000 was released with 5 color variations of the paper insert including orange, blue, yellow, green and red. The design featured 3 colorful bunnies gracing the sides of a type 8615 box car with brakeman’s cab used mostly on holiday releases. Dealer displays included backlit graphic sign which slide into a custom made Marklin display which could be switched out for future releases.

Marklin 00811 Dealer Display “Bunny with silver tray” . One Time Release 2000 included type 8615 boxcar with acrylic Easter egg. 5 color variations of paper insert including: orange, blue, yellow, green, and red.
Marklin 00811 Easter car with 3 bunnies and chick
Marklin 00811

The One Time Release for 2001 is the “Frohe Ostern (Happy Easter)” car featuring flower design which also incorporated the type 8615 car.

Marklin 00000 Easter car with dogwood flower design. Note: ‘m’ symbol lower right indicating a limited release car. Note: may have been given to Marklin employees(?).

2003 was the year of the ‘chick’ with Marklin’s Easter release depicting yellow chick: 00813.

Marklin 00813: One Time Series 2003.

Breaking with tradition the type 8615 car was swapped out with a sliding wall boxcar for the 2016 Easter release: 80416.

Marklin 80416
Marklin 80416

An adorable “Happy Easter” design followed in 2017 with a design depicting two bunnies against colorful blue background: 80417.

Marklin 80417
Marklin 80417

Skipping a year due to hole in my collection we proceed to this year’s release combining a relatively new technology being used at Marklin: laser cut card-stock constructions. In this year’s release bunnies are depicted as cardboard cut-outs: a bit of sculpture as interesting cargo: 80419.

Marklin 80419 Note: car has a slight curl or warp suggesting a defect in manufacturing, if you get hold of this car consider returning it for exchange.
Marklin 80419
Marklin 80419

Marklin Easter releases are far more encompassing than simply a freight car in an acrylic Easter ornament, they include a large colorful gift box with Easter basket and grass.