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Champ decals
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Clark Propst
During the custom decals thread it was mentioned that Champs decals were
out of date. Generic data, real inch size instead of scale inch size letters,
etc. Just curious, would these short comings be deal breakers if the decal line
was resurrected tomorrow?
Clark
Propst Mason City Iowa |
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Tony Thompson
Clark Propst wrote:
That statement is too general. As was mentioned, in more recent years Rich strove to create better decals, and had many experts on individual railroads helping him. For example, Richard Hendrickson contributed a lot to the improved Santa Fe freight decals in the line. However, it is quite true that a few of the items in the line dated back many years, and were lacking in many respects. Older ones tended to be oversize, to have very approximate sets of dimensional and capacity data, and to be printed in a variety of lame fonts not matching prototype lettering. So yes, some of the decals in the catalog were fairly crappy; others were darn good and we could sure use them back. Do not believe anyone telling you a flat statement about "all" Champ decals. Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA 2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com (510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, tony@... Publishers of books on railroad history |
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Actually, Champ was in the middle of upgrading many of their decals (I think originally they were mostly printed by the letterpress technique - ala Ben Franklin but were being switched to the better offset printing method). They had some of the only sets for many Fallen Flag Railroads. I still have several hundred sets (and they are still good). Only trouble was that some of the decal film got rather brown (I think they call it Foxing in the print business). But, yes, there are dozens of sets I would buy if they were available, because no one else made them then, nor have they made them since Champ's demise. Some of the issues with the small lettering could be handled by "decal bashing" (using different parts of decals from different sets), which I used to do on a regular basis anyway. Some of their later PRR freight car decals had reweigh stencils for just about every scale on the PRR system, also covering several decades in time. They had other shortcomings too, but I think most of us old timers had pretty well figured out how to work around them. -- John |
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Those who need to know the name of the paint shop foreman on the day that car was painted might find little of use in the Champ line. Those of us who are into fallen flags and older eras could welcome back many
items from Champ. Yes, the line would need some culling and updating. New technology and new data could be applied to make improvements. I think that could be an on-going process with most products.
But I would still buy a lot of Champ if it were available. My 70 plus year old eyes are learning that what they can't see doesn't matter quite as much as it used to mean. And speaking of "hoarding", I do have a couple of hundred Champ sets stashed away.
Chuck Peck On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 8:06 PM, cepropst@q.com [STMFC] <STMFC@...> wrote:
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As an example, most of the Champ PRR decals had been redone and were very accurate.
Regards
Bruce Smith
temporarily in Saint Looey
From: STMFC@... [STMFC@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 7:18 PM To: STMFC@... Subject: Re: [STMFC] Champ decals Clark Propst wrote:
That statement is too general. As was mentioned, in more recent years Rich strove to create better decals, and had many experts on individual railroads helping him. For example, Richard Hendrickson contributed a lot to the improved Santa Fe freight
decals in the line.
However, it is quite true that a few of the items in the line dated back many years, and were lacking in many respects. Older ones tended to be oversize, to have very approximate sets of dimensional and capacity data, and to be printed in a variety
of lame fonts not matching prototype lettering. So yes, some of the decals in the catalog were fairly crappy; others were darn good and we could sure use them back. Do not believe anyone telling you a flat statement about "all" Champ decals.
Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail,
tony@...
Publishers of books on railroad history
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John Sykes wrote
Actually, Champ was in the middle of upgrading many of their decals (I think originally they were mostly printed by the letterpress technique - ala Ben Franklin but were being switched to the better offset printing method). Really? I received a 3-page letter from Mr. Meyer in response to a letter I'd written him back in the 1990's (in my RPM youth) and I got the strong impression that the only method he used for printing was a letterpress. Certainly all of his heralds were done that way. (I had questioned why he didn't switch to thin-film silkscreen decals.) Champ's BRH sets for ATSF, SFRD and almost all of the SHS sets were state of the art. The only error I ever found in one the SHS sets (so far) was in SHS-257 (NYC Early Bird reefer) which has incorrect data -- Fortunately Greg Komar came to the rescue on that one. Other revised sets included B&O/CB&Q/GN/NP/SP box cars, N&W/RDG/ERIE/NYC/GN hoppers, GN/SOU gondolas and even some "roadname sets" -- ACL/CNW/CRR/CRI&P/ERIE/GN/NP/NYC. There are probably more, those are just the ones I noticed. Tim O'Connor |
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Tony Thompson
Tim O'Connor wrote:
Tim is correct, AFAIK. One of the items in the Champ business that was sold right away is that press, which I know Rich was using almost up to the time of his passing. Whether he ever made ANY offset or silkscreen decals, I don't know. But the press was something Rich knew how to use very well (an acquaintance of his told me once that Rich "could play tunes on that press"), so it's natural his mastery would have led him to keep using it. Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA 2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com (510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, tony@... Publishers of books on railroad history |
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Mike Fortney
I don't chime in here too often (stuck in lurk and learn mode) but I just have to mention this.
IMO, one of the best products Champ made was their light grey, embossed HO brick sheet. It wasn't styrene but may have been some sort of ABS. The bricks were right on the money for HO-sized standard bricks, a feat no other manufacturer has attained since. These were great for scratchbuilding steam era depots and railroad buildings. Mike Fortney Bloomington, IL |
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I have some of that -- Yes, I agree, a very good looking product!
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I don't chime in here too often (stuck in lurk and learn mode) but I just have to mention this. |
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