Plasticville Collectors Association

winced36 · Post by **winced36** » Tue Feb 16, 2016 7:31 pm

Here's the website for the Plasticville Collectors Association. Lots of good info here, but you need to be a member to get at most of it:

http://plasticvilleusa.org/index.html

If you're really into it, might be worth signing up.

Paul II

Post by **paulrace** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 8:38 pm

Thanks, I had a bunch of pieces but nothing that was really collectible. I "ruined" the collectibility of a few by painting them so they wouldn't look like plastic.

They're all on someone else's railroad now.

winced36 · Post by **winced36** » Sat Feb 20, 2016 7:29 am

The few pieces of Plasticville I have I "ruined" as well. It always bugged me that if one put a light inside a Plasticville building it would illuminate the walls, roof, etc., not just shine through the windows. A coat of paint, inside and out, went a long way toward making the walls opaque and cutting down the amount of escaping light, thereby making them a bit more realistic in appearance.

When I was a kid I had quite a bit more of the stuff, and remember being intrigued by the way it could be assembled without glue. A lot of industrial engineering went into the design and manufacture of Plasticville, probably the reason it is still made and sold today, mostly unchanged from those early years.

K-line sold a line of similar plastic buildings, probably derived from Marx kits. Some of those were as nice or nicer than Plasticville.

Post by **paulrace** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:55 am

Paul, I've seen a couple K-line buildings that could have almost passed for Plasticville. Agreed that the buildings, especially the lighter colored ones, took on a radioactive glow if you illuminated them. My favorite buildings from that collection where the big white station with the green roofs over the waiting platform and the switch tower. I painted both of mine, and they "held their own" with my more expensive kit buildings.

winced36 · Post by **winced36** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:52 am

Yup, I remember that green and white "Union" station. It was sized perfectly for the S-gauge Flyer set I had. I think they made an HO-scaled version as well.

Post by **paulrace** » Wed Jun 08, 2016 8:12 am

When I went into Large Scale, I couldn't believe that Bachmann - who makes many Large Scale trains - never bothered to upscale their plastic buildings into Large Scale. They did make some cardboard ones, which, of course, are useless outside. But the idea of having to spend $40 or more for a single Alpine-looking house (now closer to $80) for my garden railroad never exactly thrilled me.