This beautiful poster has been re-mastered from a 1950 advertisement for the Gilbert Company’s American Flyer Trains and Erector toys. The classic scene shows an American Flyer train steaming past a carnival with rides built from Erector toys.
The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.
The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.
The 13"x19" format is an excellent image size that looks great as a stand-alone piece of art, or as a grouped visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom framing, and a wide variety of these frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online.
A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!
A.C. GILBERT COMPANY’S AMERICAN FLYER TRAINS & ERECTOR TOYS
AMERICAN FLYER
American Flyer model trains are best remembered for the large S gauge trains of the 1950s that were produced when American Flyer was a division of the A. C. Gilbert Company. But in fact, American Flyer began as an independent company whose origins date back to the early 1900s.
In 1901, Chicago, Illinois-based toymaker William Frederick Hafner developed a clockwork motor for toy cars while working for a company called Toy Auto Company. According to William Hafner's son, his father had developed a clockwork train running on O gauge track by 1905.
American Flyer introduced its first electric train in 1918. It was an O gauge model that was powered by an electric motor instead of the clockwork motor.
In 1925, American Flyer began offering Wide Gauge electric trains at a premium price, in an attempt to compete with its high-end competitor, the Lionel Corporation. American Flyer did well during the 1920s, selling more than half a million trains in its best years, but the company suffered through the Great Depression.
In December, 1937 W.O. Coleman turned over control of the American (Chicago) Flyer company to Alfred Carlton Gilbert. Coleman agreed to give his struggling American Flyer Co. to Gilbert in return for a share of the profits, and Gilbert quickly agreed.
Gilbert moved the company to New Haven, Connecticut, and re-designed segments of the product line. 1938 through 1941 saw the production of Gilbert's "Tru Model" 3/16" O gauge trains, which later became the postwar 3/16" scale or S gauge line. Gilbert also introduced its HO product line in the 1938 catalog.
In May 1967, Lionel Corporation announced it had purchased the American Flyer name and tooling, even though it was also on the brink of financial failure.
Within two years, the Lionel Corporation was bankrupt, and its train lines were sold to General Mills, including the American Flyer tooling. In 1979, General Mills' Lionel division began to reissue American Flyer products under that name employing a mix of previously unused railroad heralds and traditional Gilbert American Flyer designs.
In 1984, General Mills sold the Lionel Co. to the Kenner toy company. One year later, the company was sold to Richard Kughn, a Detroit toy train collector who made his fortune selling and developing real estate. In 1996, Kughn sold a majority interest to Wellspring Partners LLD, a Chicago-based firm headed by Martin Davis. Kughn retained a small percentage, and rock star Neil Young, another toy train buff, also became a minor investor. The new company is known as Lionel, LLC.
ERECTOR TOYS
Erector was first envisioned by Alfred Carlton Gilbert (A.C. Gilbert) in 1911, as he rode the train from New Haven to New York City. This section of track was being converted to electrical power, and Gilbert watched as steel girders were erected to carry the power lines, inspiring him to develop the toy.
The first Erector set was made there in 1913, called "The Erector / Structural Steel and Electro-Mechanical Builder," and labeled as "Educational, Instructive and Amusing."
Erector quickly became the most popular construction toy in the United States, most likely because it was the only construction set at the time to contain a motor. In 1916, the company was reorganized and became the A.C. Gilbert Company. The product was renamed "Gilbert Erector, The Toy Like Structural Steel."
Through 1932, Erector was sold in wooden boxes, but 1933 through 1962 the sets would be sold in colorful boxes made of painted steel. Early boxes were colored red, green, or blue; by the 1950s all set boxes were painted red.
A.C. Gilbert died in 1961, and the company went into decline, filing for bankruptcy in 1967. The product was redesigned, adding many plastic parts, but the "clunky" looking models failed to compete with the new, more-realistic scale plastic models coming onto the market. The Gabriel company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania bought the Erector brand name and continued to market the recently redesigned system, though by the mid-1970s.
Sales declined, and by the 1980s, the trademark Erector was acquired by Ideal Toys and then Tyco Toys. In 2000, Meccano bought the Erector brand and unified its presence on all continents. The two brands are now sold under the Meccano brand name, with the Erector Set being marketed as "Erector by Meccano."
