I just bid $250.00, the Brass Guide price and the reserve was still not hit. Turns out, his reserve is $295.00. It's a bit high. I retracted my bid due to a misunderstanding that was not the fault of the seller. It was mine.
This guy sets his reserve too high and as a result he will keep relisting over and over until it either sells or he gets tired of listing it. IMO $250 is too much. He had a 4400 on there forever. I don't know if he ever sold it. I've gotten lazy and just put a Buy it Now price on something and if it doesn't sell, I'll relist it once at a lower price. If it doesn't sell then the heck with it. Plus I don't put ridiculous prices on things.
I've seen that Coffin FWH story somewhere else, probably copied from Bobbye's sheet. I've never seen any evidence of any of the engines were so equipped. No signs of a Coffin water pump, which would be awfully hard to hide. I'm going to do some more investigating, but I don't think it ever was. Normally when a Coffin is installed, the smokebox is a foot longer to accomodate the bundle. Stand by until I look into this.
I need to go to the photo archives. I don't know where they would have hidden to pump on them without it being obvious. Perhaps this was something they did when they rebuilt them to try out. Got me stumped.
I hunted up some old photos of 183 and 187 and they indeed did have Coffin FWH on them when they were rebuilt. I don't think they lasted very long because some photos from the '30s show them without. Maybe the Coffin salesman talked them into two of them. They did have a Thermic Syphon, front end throttle and lightweight Walschaerts valve gear applied along with the new cylinders. They were beauties! I still don't have a left side view of either of them with the FWH and I'm still mystified as to where they hid the pump. They don't show on the RS.
Scored another Frisco 182-187 4-4-0 today. $189.00. That makes two. No more need to get anymore unless a super-dooper steal comes along. They will be painted black with graphite smoke box.
Yeah. I couldn't believe that no one bid on it. It was $60.00 under book value and is in great shape. Not even used. They will be assigned permanent passenger service.