Post your photos of Ives O-gauge trains here.

A set of Ives six-inch freights recently acquired:

Ives 63


Ives 65


Ives 69


Ives 67


Ives was a great company, at one time one of the largest toy companies in the world. They made all sorts of toys, not just trains. By 1930 they'd fallen on hard times and were acquired by a combination of Lionel and American Flyer. Ives had developed and manufactured a superior reverse unit for their trains which Lionel coveted. Further, Lionel developed some of the Ives trains into a line they called O-27. Lionel manufactured Ives-branded trains for a few years after the acquisition, but by the mid-1930's the Ives name had disappeared.

Paul II

Love them all!

I've always loved that stock car. Thanks for posting.

Drug out the Ives 3251 from the bin...now this will be a project:



The little bugger deserves a refurbishment, but where to start...

Paul II

How does she run?

Barely...hopefully the motor just needs a bit of cleaning and lubrication.

I'm back from York. I wasn't looking for anything in particular other than a Hornby LNER coach for a buddy of mine. I came up dry on that, but I found a few other things that were interesting (pics posted on the appropriate galleries).

Here's another Ives 3251 motor from 1919-1920:



Bought this from a dealer from Virginia. Nice shape for being 96 or 97 years old. I haven't had it on the test track yet, but he tells me it's a runner.

Paul II

EDIT :: In showing this to another collector he confirmed that this is an early 3251 body/frame, but that it has a late version motor. Somewhere along the way someone swapped out the early version for a more reliable, better-running motor.

Ives 551 in olive from 1916-1922:

Very nice, especially the loco.

I would love to see one of these made for outdoor railroading, wrong proportions and all. The big standard gauge stuff is pretty close to Large Scale. If it was made out of UV-resistant plastic instead of steel, it would look great in my garden.

I have to admit that the whole garden-railroading concept is starting to appeal to me but I'm not sure the wife would go for further expansion of the right-of-way beyond the basement