MAC Forum

Very hard. Very very hard except for the what part.

This is a Dornier Wal made in Germany by Maerklin, a firm better known for its train sets, though it made all kinds of tin toys beginning in the 1800s.

When? I am not certain! No, I do not have one of these, I don't even have the Spanish "Plus Ultra" Wal from the 70s.

Catalogue number #5524, made from 1938 to 1940 by Maerklin in Goeppingen (!?).

There is confusion about the type. In most cases this plane is described as "Wal", but in fact it is a DO-18. The Wal is a DO-15, which was also attempted to issue by Maerklin, but no mass produced specimen of the Maerklin DO-15 Wal is known.

Chris is right- it is a DO-18 and it was sold by Marklin and dates from the wartime period. 1/200 scale
I know of only one other example in a collection {in England}. Rare toy airplane, that.
But, My research makes me believe it could have been made for Marklin when the Nazi's occupied the French Dinky Toy factory in 1942 in Bobiny France, outside Paris. I will pursue with Chris to see if he knows more and verify his dates or mine. Marklin only made this one 1/200 sized die cast airplane toy. Its other airplanes were large and beautifully made in painted sheet metal, with elaborate clockwork motors. Their JU-52 was reproduced about 15 years ago and is superb, but pricy.

According to my knowledge Maerklin wanted to start a 1/200 line in 1938 (similar to Dinky), but war was faster... After some issued DO-18, the toy production was ceased and the line dropped. Some prototypes of other models are still existing, see link below.

Even though the plane looks similar to Dinky, I assume, it was made in Goeppingen. During that time Maerklin was going full throttle ahead with designing zinc alloy casted HO trains to replace the tin based 0 gauge trains. So they had the capacity to mould die cast toys, as they did already for their car and military models.

Another Maerklin DO-18 was sold I guess a year ago on German ebay. It had the ink writing on the below rear flaps applied and went for around 400,- Euro (I gave up at 250,-).

Here ist the link for those, who are interested in Maerklin planes (tin and die cast). It's Swiss origin and German language, sorry...

http://www.tinplatefan.ch/WWW/LIGONET/k ... enDocument

PS: Take care! The Swiss author did the same mistake as S. Richardson in her book and named the DO-18 also "Wal"! This may cause confusion!