261 - Märklin H0 set of six express coaches, international sleeping and dining cars, 1936–1950

Märklin H0 set of six express coaches, international sleeping and dining cars, 1936–1950 Set of six coaches, gauge H0, by Märklin: the coaches 342J, 343J, 344J and 353J, a red Mitropa sleeping car 353 as well as a blue dining car. Among them sleeping cars (lettering VOITURE-LITS / SLEEPING-CAR) and two dining cars (VOITURE RESTAURANT). The long blue dining car and the red Mitropa sleeping car bear stamped lettering, the short dining and sleeping cars have pre-war tinplate bogies and small bar couplings probably fitted later. Played-with condition, with signs of ageing. The absence of smaller, delicate add-on parts cannot be entirely ruled out. The international sleeping and dining cars of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) shaped European long-distance traffic; Märklin listed them in H0 as express coaches. The short coaches of 17.5 cm, dining car 342 J, sleeping car 343 J and luggage van 344 J, appeared from 1935 and 1936 respectively, the long coaches with roof ventilators, dining car 352 J and sleeping car 353 J, from 1938; Koll lists all these types only up to 1950 (Koll's Kompaktkatalog Märklin 00/H0, 1983, pp. 70–73). The luggage van 344 J is the pre-war version of 1936 to 1939 with claw coupling (no. 344 J, variant 1); the short dining and short sleeping cars, with their tinplate bogies, likewise come from pre-war production (nos. 342 J and 343 J). The long blue dining car with stamped lettering 'VOITURE RESTAURANT' corresponds to the hand-painted 1946 version (no. 352 J, variant 3), as does the red Mitropa sleeping car with stamped lettering 'MITROPA SCHLAFWAGEN' (no. 353, variant 3). The three short coaches have been recorded in the consignor's collection index since 1982.