Weeden Information

The Weeden Manufacturing Company's production of toy steam engines has left a memorable legacy. Founded by an ingenious watch maker, William Nye Weeden, this U.S. company made its mark in history competing with German manufactures from the Nuremberg area such as Bing, Doll, Marklin, Plank and Schoenner as well as Mamod, Bowman and Burnac in the UK. My retirement had given me more time to pursue my interest in toy steam engines, and I soon discovered there is actually very little available online information about Weeden Manufacturing's history or its products. The goal of this site, with the generous help of so many, is to preserve the history of these marvelous little engines. I have tried to provide enough views of the various engines to make identifying them possible, I do have additional photos of some models on file and will gladly share them with anyone that needs more information for restoration purposes. I have listed a range of selling prices as engines come up on eBay to give a idea of the value of the models, however as with everything else on eBay there are a lot of factors that come into play so take this for what it is worth. Determining the actual year of manufacture for many of the models is difficult, units such as the No. 14 were manufactured over so many years. Many factors come into play, availability of material, particularly during and after the war years, special models made for major retailers such as Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, and sometimes it seems they may have used excess inventory of parts for slower selling units for the more popular sellers. We have to bear in mind that at the time these were toys, built for the enjoyment of youths, not made as collectable items, A steel boiler was probably deemed sufficient to last for the few years that the engine would be played with, then put on a shelf and forgotten about until one of us old codgers would find it many years later. As a collector I am also interested in acquiring complete engines or parts of engines for restoration.