Is One Of These Lionel Transformers 100 Years Old? Dating Lionel Prewar Type A, B and N Transformers

Hello again, this is Mike with Toy Train Tips and Tricks. So I was digging through the quote-unquote junk box that my friend had dropped off to me some time ago. This is the box that, among other things, contained that Marks 404 signal that I featured in a previous video. But also in the box was a bunch of transformers of different types. And so in finally getting sorting through and seeing what I had, I came across these three pre-war Lionel transformers. Now when I first pulled them out of the box, there was so much dirt and gunk and stuff, I really didn't know what I had at all. I could not read any of the markings on any of these three. So I ended up taking some of this old Tarn-X here and using that to work on these metal plates here to see exactly what we had to work with. So let's take a look at these. They have interesting stories behind each of these three transformers as I pull this one out. All right, so not in alphabetical order. Lionel's pre-war transformers, they tended to use letters as the model numbers. This is a Model B transformer. These were cataloged from 1916 up to 1938. So when I first started looking this up in the guide and I came across 1916, I just kind of jumped thinking that, you know, I might have an item here that is more than 100 years old. But a little bit more digging. The first thing is these came in two wattages. They came in a 50 watt version and a 75 watt version. So after cleaning off the plate and looking very closely, we can zoom in here, and if we look, we see 110 volt, 60 cycles, 50 watts alternating current. And then the other thing that you see on the plate, you also see Model B up here in the corner. Let me get my finger in there in the shot. There we go. There's our Model B. Okay, and also in this very fine print, you see the different voltages that you can obtain by wiring up to different combinations of the four posts. Now one thing that's curious about these early pre-war transformers is what we are used to today is a variable knob that you can control different amounts of voltage with. These I like to refer to as step transformers. You see the copper nodes here, and as you run the switch on top of these different nodes, it lines up to different windings on the transformer to give you different voltages. And again, in combination with which wires you have hooked up, you can get anywhere from two volts up to a maximum of 25 volts on the highest setting with the right combination, depending on where you go in there. Now these were different times, and for consumer safety, think about this. These copper nodes, this metal arm, when you attach the metal arm to the copper nodes, part of the circuit is running through this wire arm here. So this little porcelain knob later they would make them a plastic, is really all that's protecting you. If you happen to touch part of the rails, you can complete the circuit and get yourself a little tingly surprise. That's one of the reasons that I don't recommend that anyone actually use these today. If you find one and you say, well, the cord looks good, I wonder if it'll fire up. For safety purposes, you don't know what's going on inside. So in theory, you say, well, you know, 25 volts, it might give me a little tingle, it's not going to hurt. Well, that's assuming that everything is right in here, and you're only getting 25 volts. If something is disconnected or connected the wrong way, you could be getting the full 110 house current through this thing and light yourself up pretty good. So I don't recommend you actually use these. These are display pieces, whatever. So going back to the dating on this, 1916 to 1938. So is this a 1916 transformer? It's hard to say. Doing some research. Researching pre-war items is a lot more difficult than post-war. There just isn't as much information. There wasn't as much information gathered and not as much survived in the pre-war era as the post-war. If we think about it, one, the collecting hobby in itself, by the time post-war trains came around, collecting was a thing. Not so much in the pre-war, especially if you throw in the Great Depression, World War II. People really didn't have time or money for hobbies such as collecting things when they were worried about feeding their families and fighting global fascism. So by the time the collecting hobby came around, one, a lot of these items had been destroyed. Again, thinking of World War II, a lot of the transformers, a lot of the trains went in scrap metal drives, and a lot of the documentation, the catalogs, the newspaper ads, things that we use from the post-war era to date things, also would have been taken up in paper drives. So there's a lot less material to research. So it's a smaller collecting market. There's less available data. And then thirdly, unlike in the post-war era, Lionel made a lot of things in the post-war era a single year only, or maybe two years. So it's very easy, like in my previous video about my Lionel Hoppers, to look at a certain item and say, well hey, this one was 1951, this one was 1954. In the pre-war era, they tended to continue things for more years. So pinning down a specific time becomes more difficult. But here is what I was able to find. Now the guides that do exist, I found five different answers for what we might have here time-wise. So comparing those answers to some other research that I did online, looking at photos of not only individual transformers, but of box sets, that helps us give some of the dating. What I found with the Model B is that there's basically three different varieties. Variety number one comes with this copper plate. This is engraved copper plate that has all of the information on it. It's difficult to read. And again, it was actually engraved, so little work involved in that. Difficult to read. But these would have been the earliest models. Somewhere before 1925, they switched this information to a bigger plate that went on this side, filled up this side, and it was copper or gold colored lettering on a black background. Also it had, it was done in an Art Deco style font, and so that dates it to a later period. But looking at box sets that had Model Bs, by 1925, these were gone and were replaced by the bigger squares. Then towards the very end, that was again changed to a silver colored plate with black lettering on it with the same font. So we have three different types of plates. The other issue is that there are two different wattages associated with the Model B. There are some that are 50 watts and some that are 75 watts. What appears to have happened was that the original models, starting in 1916, were 50 watt models. And these continued into the early 1920s when they switched to the first side panel type of label. And the side panel, the first version, you find both 50 watt versions and 75 watt versions with that label. You do not find any, at least I have not yet, found any 75 watt versions with this copper tag on them. Then the third version with the silver with black lettering, I have only found 75 watt versions. So it appears that in the mid-20s, sometime when they were transferring them from 50 watts to 75, is when you find the gold lettering on a black background plate. You find some of those as 50 watts, some of those as 75 watts. Another wrinkle that pops in is another collector told me that based on observations with other lino transformers, that models made before 1920 would not have had this sheet metal case, but instead would have had a cast iron bottom with a slate top. Although he had never seen a Model B transformer in that configuration, the other models made at the time, like Model Ks and Model Ts, he had seen that way. So there's no verification of that for certain, but most likely any Model Bs from before 1920 would have this cast iron. So if that is true, then this particular model would have been made somewhere between 1920 and 1925. Looking at the cloth cord, the porcelain insulated connections, and the type of lettering, the type of plating, that makes sense. So that this is somewhere between 1920 and 1925. So it may not be 100 years old, but it's certainly at least 95 years old. And there is a slight chance that yes, it was made all the way back to 1916 if the information from that other collector is inaccurate. All right, let's look at another transformer. This is, we're out of alphabetical order, this is the Model A. This one was made a little bit later, and you can tell the difference. Our big copper knobs for voltage have gotten smaller. It's a little bit easier to handle. We have the same type of wiper arm, same porcelain knob, same porcelain insulator up here where the cloth wiring goes through, and we have the same type of plate that we saw on our Model B over here. This one, this Type A is a 40 watt transformer, made sometime between 1921 and 1931. Then there was a 60 watt version that came out later that was cataloged from 1932 to 1937. So here, this one was made sometime in the 1920s, and that makes sense, dating this one sometime in the early 1920s. Very, very similar design. Although, you know, there were some of these made in the 30s. With what we know about the decoration on these, it makes sense that both of these would be early 1920s models, the Model B and the Model A. Now our third one is a whole lot easier to deal with, but it's interesting the changes. Now this is a Model N. Here we've gone to the same type of black-on-silver plate that I was describing in the later Model Bs. It's smaller, but it's the same type of thought and same type of arrangement. Our copper knobs have now become steel. Our insulating knob is smaller, but this one is a lot easier to drag across than this one, getting over all the bumps. Much easier to operate. And again, there is our porcelain knob coming out the back. This, the Model N, is a 50 watt transformer cataloged 1941 and 1942. So right at the end of pre-war production, before production was cut off for World War II. So with all of these step transformers, I don't recommend using any of them because of the electrical issues. Secondly, from a practicality standpoint, if you're running your train and you want to speed it up, you have to move it from one spot to another. While it's in that gap, power is cut off to the track. So your reversing units are going to be incapacitated during that time. On, off, on, off, on. So even without that. To compensate for that, Lionel marketed a separate standalone rheostat. So the idea would be you set your speed range first here, ran the outputs through a rheostat where you could fine tune the speed of your train with the rheostat. Then from 1936 on, if you were using these and you had a whistle, you would then also have a standalone whistle controller. So this was all replaced by the concept of the all-in-one variable voltage transformer with a whistle button that we started seeing in 1936 and later, and then we saw throughout the line in the post-war period. So again, a Model B, 1916 through 1938. This one probably made in the early 1920s. Here we have the Model A, the 40-watt version from 1921 to 1931, 60-watt version 1932 to 1937. This one most likely made in that early 1920s, somewhere between 1922-1925. And this one, our Model N, this is 1941-1942. So they're cool to look at. I'll clean them up some more and come up with displays for them, but I'm not going to actually use them for power. There's no circuit breaker on these, and the cords are questionable. This is original cloth insulation cord, and who knows what's going on inside the cases on these. So pretty to look at, and of historic value. Value-wise, honestly, in this condition, none of these are going to be worth more than $5. Some people try to list these on eBay in the 30s and 40s. Good luck, people aren't really paying that for them. Generally, in this condition, $5 or less. You're going to pay more if it's pristine with the original box, all the original cords in that. You might get a little more out of it, maybe $30 or $40, but not a great deal. But interesting historical value. So how often do you hold a toy that's 100 years old in your hand? So here we go. So I hope you enjoyed this, and I hope you understand the perils of trying to date pre-war Lionel items as opposed to post-war. Post-war is much simpler, but this is how the process works. If you're going to try to date it, you compare, you contrast, you get the information that you can, you do a little bit of detective work. But anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoy the video. Like it, subscribe, share, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, and join us for our next video. Until then, this is Mike signing off with Toy Train Tips and Tricks. Happy railroading!