LGB STAINZ Train Sets - years 1990/91

The 1990's. A time of economic thrive in Germany. LGB made money. Or so they thought. Wolfgang Richter had borrowed money, lots of it. And he was forced to change banks at a time where he didn't need more trouble. And he had decided to take his son on, Rolf Richter. Made him 2nd in command. Rolf had no knowledge of the business at hand. and no love of it either. But LGB still had their crowd pullers. One of them the Stainz engine family. And a thriving US market.

LGB 20540US

LGB 20540US - Courtesy of worthpoint.com

This Christmas train set was advertised  in the US only and had an edition volume of 2,000. It sold for roughly $ 350.00

The year 1991 brought a number of LGB Stainz specialties. The most outstanding was the 

LGB 20100NB

LGB 20100NB 24 karat gold plated - Courtesy of Only Trains

Initially it was planned to have 1,000 manufactured. Then that number was lowered. The plan also called for the train set being sold exclusively at German high-end porcelain retailers. Go figure. Well, in the end less were made, the numbers swing between 200 and a little over 50. And 30 years later, the 'Golden Train' had found its way into the USA where as of the time of this article you can find an offer of one single gold-plated gondola for US$ 500.00 on eBay. Also at this time on eBay the complete train set in original black box for US$ 4,000.00

You think that was weird. Wait - there is more:

LGB 2020EM

LGB 2020EM - Kompendium LGB 2012, pg 1204

This "Aqua-Florian-Zug" was made for the event of the founding of the LGB Club "Friends of LGB Niederrhein (Lower Rhine)".  The edition volume was 10!! YT could find not one single photo of the set on the internet but could find an offer of the boxcar in picclick.fr for Euro 430.00 for the car alone.

The company who served as the train set donor seems to be still in business in Germany at the time of writing.

The Christmas set for 1991 for the USA was the

LGB 21540US

LGB 21540US- Courtesy of worthpoint.com

Dear reader, have a little fun and do a pic-comparison with the two Christmas sets. Your "Spot the difference"- game will find a pretty limited number of  differences...

Edition volume had sprung up from 2,000 to 5,000 this time and sales price was again around US$ 350.00. It was an USA- exclusive also.

LGB 23301 

LGB 23301 - Courtesy of eBay

This set was an LGB mainstay as was the 
LGB 23401 

LGB 23401 - Courtesy of worthpoint.com

This set came with a smoke generator. Another change in construction was the motor block,. Until 1990 LGB used 2-shell motor blocks (left and right shell) and changed that to a three-part motor block (top lid, main body, bottom lid) in 1991. The price was around US 200.00.

++++++++++++++++++++++ to be continued................