Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

The last few weeks a number of Empire items have gone up on eBay by slowjoeys antiques (Joe).  I have spoken to him on the phone and he told me he has the Empire display, which can be seen in Donald Stilson's Empire book that some of us have (photo of that attached to this post).  It seems that Donald, Carl, and Art (another fellow mentioned in the book for photos) were near each other and likely friends. Joe is a older fellow, in his late 70s and is very nice to speak to.  I called him to suggest he should likely push the "Carl Pilletteri's Empire Collection" part in his sales.  While that is likely shooting myself (and us) in the foot, it seems the right thing to do to give the province of these Empire items.  Oh, Joe bought from Carl's son the whole collection... so many other items are on their way to eBay (I assume).

Anyways, Joe isn't sure about shipping the display as it is rather large and has its own custom made storage/shipping boxes.  Joe is in the Rochester New York area and as much as I think it would be cool to have this display, driving to NY from Texas for Steam engine stuff isn't going to happen for me!  Perhaps one of you guys here are interested in it for a local pick up?  Just PM me to reach out for his contact number.  I did asked him if he was okay that I am posting this and he was thankful.  I am not getting anything out of this in return and made the point to Joe I am not looking for anything in return on any sale.

Photo of Page 39 that Joe referred me to of what he has from Carl Pilletteri's Empire Collection.  I should be getting some photo's from Joe too.
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@txlabman tells me via a message that the oiler isn't original.  Though I have to agree with what he told me, it does look pretty good sitting on the engine :-)

If it was used as a means to display Empires in a store, then the mesh
around the B-40 was probably to keep fingers from getting burnt on the
fins while it was running.

Both my B-38 and B40 have the oiler hole threaded.  So I guess some B-38s don't have their oiler hole threaded?

The B-40 engine showed up early this morning on my door step, looks like the box couldn't fit in mailbox out on the street.  One box of the display, I expect its the pulleys, is being delivered later today.  I'm just waiting for the postman to finish at the street mailboxes.

The Carl's B-40 engine has a new heater, since the back chrome plate is missing.  That's a bummer but no big deal but I'll be looking for another B-38 now as that will bother me to no end.  What I have done is move my current B-38 heater cylinder to the B-40 base.  I also took the time to flip the front plate, the shaft oiler was clocked wrong for whatever reason.  It was fun getting all those aluminum rings off but now I can oil it properly.

Both my B-38 and B40 have the oiler hole threaded.  So I guess some B-38s don't have their oiler hole threaded?

I have seen quite a few B38 engines without the oiler hole threaded.

Here's a video of the B-40 and the Repo'ed Display (minus the mounting board).

I have been doing a bit of Goggle Book searching, there was the magazine "Playthings" that had great ads for toys.  Sadly only a few are fully scanned and searchable in Google Books.  However, I did find two different B-40 ads and in color no less!  Also putting in a B-30 here too, which shows the early solid fly wheel.

I love stuff like this.

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