Products and collectibles
Over the years, the Märklin marque became valuable to model train collectors, some of the very early models fetching impressive prices at auction. The range of products is extensive, and collectors also pay attention to the packaging that was used for the products. Collectors also look for rare and hard to find models, such as the SBB Crocodile model, the AMTRAK ICE model, the Western Pacific 'California Zephyr' model, and the famous Union Pacific Big Boy model, among many others.
The Märklin toy company systematically included a print run number on almost all printed material, including the boxes in which their products shipped. These print run numbers indicate the printer and also the month and year of printing. This is useful for dating an item that is known to be associated with some printed material. The second group of digits indicates the catalogue number. The last set of numeric digits in the print run number indicates the month and year that the item was printed. The last group of letters identifies the printer.
Koll's Preiskatalog issued by Joachim Koll in German lists all 00/H0 models and provides price estimates. Märklin's products are mainly German (DB) model trains. However, Märklin also produces Swiss (SBB), Dutch (NS), American (various independent railways from the Golden Age of American trains), and various other model trains from around the world.
In January 2005, the Märklin museum in Göppingen, Germany, was burgled and more than 100 pieces, with an estimated value of more than 1 million Euros, were stolen. The items, which included one-of-a-kind prototypes along with pieces that dated back to 1891, were recovered in March 2005.[6]
The third game in the Ticket to Ride board game series, released in 2006, was named Märklin in their honour.[7]
In 2010 Märklin announced the release of its sixth model of the Russian Railways, the Russian Velaro SAPSAN high speed train. The model is based upon the DB ICE 3MF model which began to be sold in 2008. The first SŽD railways Russian HO models was a Transsiberian 100 ЛеТ Транссибирской (100 Let Transsibirskoy) tanker wagon, a rare limited edition from 1991, two locomotives, steam locomotive Series TЭ-5293 (Märklin ref. 34159), a second version of the same Cold War military reserve steam locomotive TЭ-3915 (Märklin ref. 37159) and two SŽD car goods wagon sets (Märklin ref. 47897 and ref. 47899).
Nominal size H0
The largest segment of product range and sales is nominal size H0, with a scale of 1:87 and an H0 track. Märklin introduced it in 1935, about half a year later than Trix, and today it is the most common size worldwide. The company is market leader in H0 in German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), having a market-share of approximately 50 per cent. So, in the area of H0 tracks, there are two categories of similar size - the track system with two conductors, produced by multiple companies on the one side, the middle-conductor track system dominated by Märklin on the other. Also, in this area Märklin is the only company to offer a complete assortment of goods - the range in this track size consists of a huge variety of rolling stock, tracks, analog as well as digital control systems, trolley systems and other accessory parts.
