nice work if you can get it...

[ScaleCraft]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LIONEL-6464400 ... 4212184575

The B&O roundel is a decal on 6464-400. Seen alignment marks like that before on decal sheets. Besides, it's peeling around the edges.
One of the lesser quality orange stripe paint jobs I have seen on one of those. Bad.
The mark certainly doesn't make it worth $975 more than a unblemished decal unit.
'sides, the worker bees have them in different locations on each side. I guess that's a variation, huh?

Oh, and it's "one of a knid". Or, in evilbait speak...ONE OF A KNID!!!

oh, well.

[chuck]

Wonder if this is where they got the decals from?

https://www.protocraft.com/category.cfm ... egoryid=20

[Roy]

I'm not seeing the alignment marks you're referring to. Even through the fuzzy, low-resolution photos I can see this isn't like-new. Lots of silver paint worn off the roof. The trucks and door guides look like hell.

[ScaleCraft]

on one side roundel, at, oh, ten o'clock or so, halfway out from middle. There is a + sign in the decal.

Moron thinks that makes it worth a grand.

There are two alignment marks, little white tabs on the outer ring of the roundel, that align with wherever the top of the orange swath is. Look and you'll see, but that's not the mark under discussion.

[Roy]

Now, I see the X. It's a registration mark, for the decal ink? Normally, such registration marks are completely off the artwork. It's not even oriented correctly.

If those are lifting decals, I would expect that portions would have flaked off, by now. Odd.

[Roy]

Wonder if this is where they got the decals from?

https://www.protocraft.com/category.cfm ... egoryid=20

The B&O in the roundel is light blue in your link, but black on the Lionel 6464.

[chuck]

Registration marks are printed material on the decal sheets. If you aren't careful when applying the decal you can lift them off and they will transfer with the decal itself. The mark probably floated off and then attached itself to the main decal when they went to transfer and went unnoticed.

Those are pretty thick, reminds me of the old Champ decals. They were pretty heavy duty. Microscale was the exact opposite, so thin and the edges had very little clear overlap.

[ScaleCraft]

No idea what Plastical is. I suppose I could look it up:

"Lionel 6464-400 Time Saver Box Car water original decals, (pkg. of 2). This decal is original as evidenced by Plastical on the back as this is the company that manufactured them in 1956. These came from Madison Hardware in New York."

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lionel-6464-40 ... 1925555520

[chuck]

Decals were actually manufactured by Meyercord in Chicago. They made a lot of decals for a lot of projects, not just Lionel

The Meyercord Company continued to manufacture decals through the 1950s (designs featuring fruits and flowers can be found at antique stores and on eBay; some with Lucille Ball are currently hot collectibles). Faidy died in 1965, and most of his furniture designs exist today only in drawings; the Meyercord, now occupied by a fraternal lodge and a social services organization, is the only one of his buildings still standing. In the 30s and 40s, fully lit at night, the building looked so stunning that the supplier of the glass bricks showcased the place in its advertisements. Today the entryway is partially obscured by plywood and no light shines through the glass, but the edifice retains its high style.

https://www.antiqueadvertisingexpert.com/meyercord-company/

[ScaleCraft]

Plastical appears to be a brand name. Not a company name.

[Roy]

I remember reading how some model makers used Alps inkjet printers to make their own decals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroDry

[chuck]

It just wasn't worth it. Even the people that have functioning ALPS printers are running short on the media. The technology was impressive but had limited audience. There were much cheaper/faster ways to print in color. We had one lab that purchased one and wound up not using it because of advances in other printer technologies. It wasn't that user friendly in terms of printing decals. It took a lot of effort/work to set up and scale stuff.

[chuck]

That is a spectacularly bad paint job on the orange "arrow/stripe". I looked in Doyles book "Standard Catalog of Lionel Trains, 1945-1969. The description indicates first run of cars were actually molded in blue plastic 56-57. 69 version has a painted shell and no built date stamp. All had heat stamp lettering and the decal for the TimeSaver logo. 69 version may have been built in Haggerstown, Maryland and the poor paint job on the stripe may be legitimate. 1970 everything was sold to General Mills/MPC and production moved to Mt. Clemens MI.

In 2010 Lionel re-issued the paint scheme on a scale PS-1 box car. The prototype was not a PS-1 and was actually 6" taller than the M55 that the B&O used. There were apparently only six cars painted in TimeSaver livery. A lot more in Sentinel Service. Lionel does have the car stamped as an M55 even though it isn't.

[Roy]

One advantage the Alps printer had was that it could print white. That's pretty important in a lot of decal applications, like the B&O Timesaver roundel.

[chuck]

Yes. It could also do real metallic colors like gold and copper. It seems someone has come up with white toner for an HP laserprinter to make decals and other transfers where white is needed. Pretty expensive and I haven't seen any reviews regarding quality.

You could try to get away with printing the TimeSaver logo on white decal paper with just a very thin outline of black or dark blue for the edge of the circle.

Biggest issue with printing on white decal paper is when you need to do cut outs like lettering (like the letter A) or a bleed through design element where background color needs to be seen in parts of the design.

Ghost White toner is about $500/cartridge and the decal transfer foil is about $3 per sheet. Kind of prricy.