Bing 8.5 cm coach

This small, 8.5 cm long, lithographed 0 gauge coach was made by Bing over a long period, from around 1902 till 1927. It can be found in a British Bing catalogue from 1906, made in the colours of three British railway companies, the Great Western (cat.no. 18791/0), the Midland (cat.no. 18792/0) and the London and North Western Railways (cat.no. 18793/0, but without any company lettering. Early coaches had printed windows, like this example, which is finished in the red of the Midland Railway. For the German and continental market the coaches were finished in bright red, brown, blue and green, the red and brown ones being lettered for 1st and 2nd class, the blue and green ones for 3rd class. There was also an accompanying bagage van in brown. The coaches all had the cat. no. 10154/0, later cat.no, 10/51, the bagage van had the cat.no. 101555, later cat.no. 10/52. In the 1909 German catalogue it was specifically stated that the coaches had punched-out windows, so this example dates from before that, but the Bing logo on the underside consisting of the letters GBN in a so-called ‘sunburst’ was introduced between 1904 and 1906, so that narrows the production period of this small coach down even more. The ‘sunburst’ logo was used until around 1919, when it was replaced by the more modern logo of the horizontal capital B resting in a capital W, which Bing used intil the end of the firm in 1932.