Before Bachmann, there was Beemak Village and Matchbox Village. As bachmann had done to jumpstart their O&S line by purchasing a major competitor ( in this case Littletown), they purchased the Plastic village rights to items made by Beemak Plastics.
Bachmann started their HO Plasticville line in 1952, 2 years after they introduced their Plasticville O&S line. The first items were pretty much scaled down versions of the standard O&S item, with no flair or small accessories.
Accessories now included!!!! As with the O&S line, Bachmann now added a few small accessories, like people, signals and packages to make the items a bit more realistic. With the houses, the first "accessories included" were window shades! Later accessories included a covered porch and outdoor furniture.
Trip to Disneyland???? This was an HO, as well as an O&S promo, in 195???
Detail is King!!!! With the gaining poplarity of HO, it was more important to have many details and made the buildings look even more realistic.
The Plasticville Edsel!!!! No, it was not a car made by Bachmann, but a completely assembled house, which went against the whole idea of Build-it-Yourself. Cataloged in 1958 and again ins 1959 ti dispose of excess inventory, these custom build homes never were popular with train collectors or operators. Their colors would clash in any neighborhood!!! Bachmann quickly realized that they were going away from their strengths and never made a completely asembled HO house again and never used the same terrible color combos! Custom homes were build upon the Cape Cod House, Ranch House and Colonial House and came in a unique, but flimsy box, mounter on a strip of fake landscape materials. These were soooo ugly that even collectors did not waste their time puying them.
Before Bachmann, there was Beemak Village and Matchbox Village.
Before Bachmann, there was Beemak Village and Matchbox Village.
Before Bachmann, there was Beemak Village and Matchbox Village.
Before Bachmann, there was Beemak Village and Matchbox Village.
The Post Office, Supermarket and Chain (5&10) Store and Drug Store have changed very little over the years. The all share the same color back and sides, which ironically are a different color from the fronts!!!
The roofs matched the window and door trim, so if you have a red roof with gray doors, then somebody switched some of the parts. The only known variation is that some of the gray roofs were more of a silverish color. The silver color is much more rare than the standard gray, which again, was common to a number of items.
The Police Station and the Fire Station are the same sized with the same number of pieces, but they have unique colors. If your Fire House has a green roof, then it was swapped from the Police Station; likewise for Police Stations with red roofs.