I bought three 5 locos in a 3 week period. One a week. I posted the thick rim version with pedestal headlight earlier in this thread that dates from from about 1912-15. The last 5 came in today from Bertoia.
I opened the box and it was double boxed:
That shows the inner box pulled out of the peanuts. The inner box has the receipt taped to it.
Opening the inner box reveals more peanuts:
After pouring some peanuts off, the loco comes out in it's cocoon:
I don't like it when the trains come in wrapped in bubble wrap and teped, but the brown tape they used did make it easy to pull off.
Here's the loco:
They made a little bra for the front end. The paper is actually a thick tissue paper. Nice stuff.
Here it is in all it's glory:
Fantastic packaging. The shipping was not cheap, but they did a great job packing. I've bought expensive items from other auction houses and had them damaged from poor packing. That box would have to be run over or dropped into a lake to damage the train.
It's a thick rim with slide on headlight and wire handle reverse unit from 1912.
Here it is with it's younger brother:
And with it's older brother:
Note that the thin rim loco has different lettering and straight couplers, but otherwise is the same as the 1912 thick rim loco.