GAM Publishing was indeed Greg Mummert; those were his initials. I knew
both him and Barry and the book was a collaborative effort. Greg had
quite a collection of N-Scale at one time. He also ran a local hobby
shop, Paul's Model Trains in New Oxford, PA, for a number of years. I
purchased most of my very early Kadee cars (pre-MicroTrains) from him
when he was getting out of trains and going into printing full-time. I
keyed the entire book into my own database and have added most
production since then, as well. It has gotten to be quite a large
database. Last year I found a brand new copy of the book at a hobby
shop in Roanoke and promptly snatched it up. The "Collector's" book is
now itself a collector's item.
Mike Brown
George Irwin wrote:
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Wingard makes no mention of "A1G" because the term didn't yet exist...
it was your faithful webmaster who came up with that contribution to N
Scale Terminology. Occassionally I see it, most often in connection
with forum postings or eBay listings (with which I am not affiliated,
and I suspect the rest of you aren't either). I wouldn't say that the
acronym has taken the model railroading world by storm. (But then,
neither has "UMTRR"...)
You're right about the listings in the book-- the "second generation"
of Atlas cars, made in the USA, was already underway when Wingard
published "A Collector's Guide to N Scale." The listings are by
catalog number which mixes the A2G rolling stock right along with the
A1G items.
I consider the 94 foot "whale belly" tank cars to be the last of the
First Generation and the beer can tank car to be the first of the
Second Generation... and how's that for the 'long and short' of it.
While I agree that the publisher is no longer in business, I would
want to stay on the safe side of copyright law with respect to
scanning and posting pages directly from the book. The N Scale
Collector no doubt received permission from Barry Wingard (who was
still with us at the time) to reprint the Atlas section of the book. I
imagine that consent would have to be sought from Barry's widow or
whoever now owns the rights to the publication. That might actually be
Gregory Mummert who is listed as being "of GAM Publishing." I'll wager
he <was> GAM Publishing. It's noted that Mummert had written "a guide
on a much smaller scale" previous to Wingard's effort. A quick web
search revealed what looks like at least a few different people by
that name-- I'll leave it to another gang member to take that farther
if desired.
The good news is that no copyrights were harmed in the construction of
the A1G site, as the photos are mine except where noted (as are the
cars) and compilations of catalog numbers are a lot harder to slap
that "circle C" onto than, say, a bit of prose or a poem.
Just to make searching more difficult, by the way, there is no obvious
ISBN (International Standard Book Number, if I remember my acronyms
correctly) published anywhere in the book.
Cheers,
George
-----Original Message-----
From: RobertP <pars3399@... <mailto:pars3399%40yahoo.com>>
Sent: Sep 23, 2009 2:49 PM
To: a1g@... <mailto:a1g%40yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [a1g] Re: The Collector's Guide to N Scale
George,
I recently found Wingards book at Abebooks for $40.00. In reading
Barry's listings he makes no mention of A1G. In the Atlas listing he
shows freight cars #2450 Ore cars, #2460 Beer Can, and #2490 50' Reefers
and 50' Double door Stockcars in sequence with the #3000-#3130 cars. I
believe you would feel these to be second generation cars.
I had thought of scanning the 20 Atlas pages to make available to A1G
members., but I probably would run afoul of copyright infringement.
However, I am not sure the printer GAM is in business today.
Robert Parsons
