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Lying steam engine, boiler diameter 60 mm, flywheel diameter 88 mm, casting base 360 x 240 mm,
History
History
Model steam engines enjoyed a popularity starting in the 1880's, and extended into the 1960's. These models really were not a child's toy, any more than an elaborate model train is a child's toy today. Expensive, ornate, and complex to operate, they were more of an art form, practiced for a brief period, and now virtually extinct.
Beyond mechanical sculpture, these steam engines also served as a primary information resource. Mechanical models played a greater role in the emerging industrial revolution, than they do today. They were the 19th century counterpart of film and video. In a period of time that saw dramatic change in how our civilization was powered, but no motion pictures to illustrate the complex workings of the new engines, models were a primary instructional and reference material. If you wanted to see it in action, a model was the only way, and the public was hungry for knowledge of the machines that were transforming their lives. This was the Victorian era, when anything was possible, even having a functional model of a power generating plant on your desk before you had electrical power in your house. Machines were transforming the world, and everyone but everyone wanted to be in on it.
Upwards of five million model steam engines were made during this time. Most of the finest live steam engines were made in the Nuremberg area of Germany, which had become one of the centers of precision machinery manufacturing. In this locale could be found everything mechanical, from the first pocket watch; the Nuremburg Egg, to the precision drafing instruments with which engineers were designing even greater creations. Throughout the 1800’s, Nuremburg was famous for the very elaborate mechanical clockwork models, and this talent reached its peak with the live steam models, and the toys that they powered. In Bavaria, there resided the finest metalworkers in Germany, who were in general the finest metalworkers in the world. This was no coincidence, Nuremburg is located in one of the richest mineral deposits in all of Europe, and had a ready supply of the various metals. Precision machinery was invented there, and refined to a point of excellence.
Eight major manufacturers of model steam engines conducted business in the Nuremburg area: Bing, Carette, Doll, Falk, Krauss Mohr, Marklin, Plank and Schoenner. There were a number of minor manufacturers as well; Bischoff, Eberl, Hess, Heubeck, Issmayer, Neumeyer, and Scholler to name a few, but none approached the major builders in either volume or variety. Fleischmann also turned out a line of steam engines during this time, but their products were much simpler than those of the Nuremburg masters. There were two major builders of elaborate steam models in France: Rossignol and Radiguet, but current prices have precluded adding examples to this collection. The trade was not limited to Germany and France: Mamod, Bowman, Burnac and others in the UK, and Jensen, Empire, Ind-X, and Weeden in the US also produced modest steam models. None matched the elegance, the variety, or the precision of the Nuremburg makers.
If there were a 'golden age' of live steam models, it would be in the 1890-1930 time frame. Around 1900, production soared, as did diversity, and continued until the early 1930s. Even in the post WW1 era, when Germany was bankrupt in the wake of the Versailles treaty, elaborate models were still in high demand. The Nuremburg makers were one of the few bright economic successes in an otherwise dismal situation.
It was not to last. Schoenner had ceased active production by 1905, though formal purchase by Falk was not completed until 1912. Carette, still a French citizen, was deported from Germany in 1917, his company taken by Karl Bub. The worst was yet to come. As the Nuremburg makers rode the post WW1 boom to success, so they followed the subsequent Depression to failure. Germany was particularly hard hit, and precision model makers were the first casualties. Only those companies that had diversified survived, and those who specialized in elaborate models: Doll, Plank, Falk, Krauss Mohr, and Bing.http://johno.myiglou.com/steamgeneral.html
