MPC 'Silver Dollar' Saloon (Cabin v.1) - Brown / Red / Yellow SP

Back in March 2023 I covered all the MPC Old West buildings I had at the time. A year later, this cabin was offered to me by one of the guys in the Meta (facebook) train groups. He got it with a bunch of trains and this just wasn't his forte'. Here we are now, a year after that and I'm finally circling around again to Western posts. I'm calling this a 'saloon' because that's what I associate with any building that has 'SILVER DOLLAR' emblazoned on the front door! It's in the style of what I've designated a 'version 1' cabin or structure - those MPC cabins that were made with interchangeable fronts fitting over a sturdy heavy-grade soft viny plastic wall set. This example is excellent in that its front door is still intact. Far too often the front doors go missing as they easily break from the wall due to their flimsy hinges. Be Blessed and Relish Life! Ed 

MPC's Take On Western Towns - Pt 9 Cabin v.2 Jail Brown SP With Peg Construction

You never know what you're gonna get when you buy job lots. So not too long ago I bought a job lot of MPC Western figures and buildings and stuff. The lot had two separate Jails in it but when going through the parts it was clear there were two variations of the same building. The first variation utilized the same tab-&-slot construction that I'm accustomed to with all the other buildings MPC made using these reed-thin walls and roof pieces. The second version I came across utilized a series of tabs. It's easier to look at the photos to see what I mean than it is to explain. With that in mind - Enjoy! Opa Fritz

The two facades are the same save for a slight difference in the shade of brown used

Notice the piece on the left has all those pegs sticking out. The piece on the right also has pegs but it too has the slots meant to accommodate tabbed walls.

Here's how the pegs are used when assembling the building. On my sample the pegs were so smooshed it was tricky getting everything to assemble correctly.

Notice the 'feet' at the bottom of the wall. When assembled, this looks better than the tab-&-slot version.

MPC's Take On Western Towns - Pt 8 Cabin v.2 Jail Brown SP With Tab-&-Slot Construction

I've been working on the train layout the past few days and trying desperately to build a couple of K-Line building kits for it without totally screwing them up! LOL  After I post this MPC building, I'll be back to work on the layout again.

Sooo, I've been calling all the MPC buildings in this Western series 'cabins' and have classified them as either v.1 (early style) or v.2 (late style). They all have a cabin superstructure: side walls and roof are all cabin-ish, while the false fronts turn them into a bank, a jail, or a cabin! Today's 'cabin' version has a Jail façade and, being the later style, all the pieces are wafer thin. I mean, MPC got real cheap with this style of building. I have already covered all these types of buildings MPC produced for their various space playsets and to the best of my knowledge I have all but one building MPC made (I'm missing the 'Construction' office). This particular building utilizes the tab-&-slot construction method shown Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Cabin v.2 utilizing tab-&-slot construction

The later style buildings never came with back walls and were left open so the kiddies could place their little soldiers inside.

Cabin v.2 with 'Jail' front

MPC's Take On Western Towns - Pt 7 Cabin v.1 as Log Cabins - Caramel Brown/Chocolate Brown SP

Well, I finally have the very last MPC Western Town building for my collection - at least that I'm aware of. It's the early style cabin walls/roof with the log cabin façade. I ended up getting a few surprises with this batch of toys. First, the front pieces only fit on the wall structures that you see in the photos. For example I tried to place the Fire House front on the black walls ultimately used for the Texas Rangers building and it just wouldn't fit. While all of these are a bear to assemble, the Fire House front only fit on the yellow walls/red roof combo. Another surprise: the Fire House and Texas Rangers are made of a different type of plastic than the Log Cabin! The first two are a rubber-like vinyl similar to that used by Auburn. The Log Cabin utilizes the same plastic as most of MPC's other plastic toys. The Log Cabin must be a 'later' early style building and has no tabs on the front walls to help hold the façade in place - nor are there any holes in the façade which would accept tabs. My next challenge will be to build some kind of dioramas highlighting all these buildings. But don't hold your breath - I'm a s-l-o-w worker! Enjoy! Opa Fritz

I'm postulating that the tooling for this particular wall/roof casting survived and that is what's used today to make the styrene plastic recasts.

You'll notice there are no tabs sticking out of the front walls.

Overall, this was the 'straightest' of the three early style buildings with only a slight bend to the floor.

Another bonus - the door is intact!! Yay!

Thw wall/roof casting is in more of a caramel brown while the façade is more of a chocolate brown.