Category Archives: Marklin Special Imprints

IBM Starter Set

Starter sets for Marklin Z have been released in a variety of formats each includes track, train and transformer, and they have been released as regular production and special imprints. Special imprint starter sets are not released anymore, but in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s they were released in small editions that included a special imprint freight car sometimes combined with a special imprint locomotive. The “IBM” starter set is one such example, it included the ‘8615’ type car with the special imprinting of “Eye-Bee-M” designed by Paul Rand in 1981. This colorful imprint against a black ground was accompanied by a printed tag and pin each with same imprinting. This starter set includes a European mini-club transformer, small oval of track, BR 89 locomotive, and an brown 8610 freight car. The special imprinting of the “Eye-Bee-M” car includes the printed ‘m’ denoting Marklin special imprinting. This set was produced in 1995 in an edition size of 300, its Koll’s #95701. The car was featured on the cover of “Koll’s Spezial Katalog-1997”.

Koll Marklin Z catalogs

If you collect Marklin Z regular production or special imprints before 1997 your helpful guides on the journey are the very informative Koll catalogs from 1996 and 1997. Koll published two catalogs for each year: “Marklin SpurZ” and Marklin SpurZ Speczial”. The two Marklin SpurZ catalogs cover regular production items and their variants along with approximate valuations. The “Speczial’s” catalogs cover special imprints produced and printed by Marklin almost completely illustrated and accompanied by edition size, valuation and Koll’s number. The Koll’s number is important in that it identifies year produced and sequence of release that year. Marklin has produced special editions and one time series locomotive and car sets sometimes accompanied by a numbered certificate, special imprints including white box editions are a little different often produced in editions as small as 100 and commissioned privately; they have never been available through the dealer network, collectors of special imprints purchase these cars through secondary market passing from the original owners through dealers and then new collectors. One exception are Hbis style cars with Swiss imprints, they were produced for the Swiss market in an edition size of 300, but they were sometimes then imported to USA dealers without being sold in Switzerland first. Great graphics and rarity have been two reasons to collect Marklin special imprints, but gaining a wider understanding of the companies depicted on these cars adds tremendously to the appreciation of the historical value of collecting Marklin Z.

Notes:

-Special Imprints are also assigned another set of numbers besides Koll, these numbers are known as ‘Miba-Monk’ numbers based on the collection of Gilles Monk of Belgium, they are assigned numbers based on the sequential release dates. There are thousands of special imprints so the work of archiving these very special cars is to be admired.

-Special Imprints also include another subset referred to as ‘Industry Prints’. Industry prints are not covered in the Koll catalogs. Industry Prints were privately printed in Germany by Baur-Druck Bad Waldsee and sold by Schmidt, Germany for distribution in Europe and the United States. *If you have a special imprint car, and it does not have a tiny ‘m’ printed on it then it is an Industry Print.

Kraft Marken-Express cars 1984-1986

In 1984-1986 Marklin released in cooperation with Kraft 11 special imprint cars in Z scale. Nine of the cars were included in printed cardboard sleeves comprising car or cars respectfully along with track or accessories comprising a complete train and layout if you collected them all. The illustrations on the sleeves are fun, they depict the car included hooked up to the other cars in the train in their progression of release. It has taken me many years to collect all of these cars, each features the little printed ‘m’ for Marklin notating a special release car. Two cars that were printed at the same time as the “Marken-Express” cars were ‘Frapan’ and ‘Knack & Back’, these cars differed from the “Marken-Express” releases, they included illustrated Kraft product sleeves. The Marklin style 8615 and 8600 freight cars were used for these two editions.

Here is the list of Marklin Z Kraft cars in order of release with Koll’s numbers:

1. NUR GUTES VERDIENT DEN NAMEN KRAFT + Tomaten-Ketchup: two car set that included a BR 89 loco. Koll’s #84710 (1984). Marken-Express release.

2. Scheibletten Koll’s #84711. Marken-Express release.

3. Mayonnaise Koll’s #84701. Marken-Express release.

4. Miracoli Koll’s #84702. Marken-Express release.

5. KRAFT-VELVETA Koll’s #85702. Marken-Express release.

6. Miracel Whip Koll’s #85703. Marken-Express release.

7. PHILADELPHIA Koll’s #85701. Marken-Express release.

8. FRAPAN Koll’s #85701.

9. Knack & Back Koll’s #85702.

10. jocca Koll’s #86701 Marken-Express release.