What's your greatest find?

[pbjwilson]

What set me off into the world of toy trains was a box of trains I bought for $75.00. Some people I was working for were getting rid of "junk" when moving into a new house. They asked if I was interested in a box of trains. I was into H. O. trains at the time and also had recently purchased a Lionel set for under the X-mas tree. I looked at the box. On top was a couple of freight cars, not in the best of shape. Without looking thru the entire box I said I would give them $75 for the box. They accepted- and I took the box home. There is where I discovered my treasure. At the very bottom of the box was a 736 Berkshire, along with a KW transformer, operating gantry crane, 6464-1 boxcar, and alot more. It is still my greatest find and when I'm in peoples homes and they look "the age" I always ask if they have any trains they want to get rid of.

Paul the Painter
"I think the fumes are gettin to me."

[Anonymous]

Well, there were these two women in New Jersey once....Oh, you mean trains...Umm, okay...I found an original (Like 1935 isn't it?) Lionel M-10,000 at a swap meet (flea market for you East coast guys) and gave a whopping $25 for it. It needs work because it has worn rollers and all. Any suggestions where to take it?

[rlplionel]

Hey Amtrak Jack, I was going to e-mail you for your M-10000 and layout photos, but you don't have your e-mail enabled. [;)]

The original post brought back some memories for me. I was walking around a
west coast train meet about 10 years ago when I came upon this
seller's table that was mostly filled with toy cars and dolls. The
merchandise seemed a little out of place for the train meet and indeed
no one was even looking at the things on his table when I walked up. I
eventually noticed he did have a few toy train cars scattered around
the table amongst the other stuff. I noticed he had an operating cannon boxcar for
sale, but I did not know its value at the time since I had never come
across one. I had a 3665 Minuteman boxcar in my collection at the
time, so I figured it was just another variation of the 3665.
Apparently, the seller didn't know the car's value either, as I
remembered he had the car priced at $95. It seemed like a good price
to me because the cannon car was in like new condition. I asked if
there were any cannon shells for the cannon, and he said no. I asked
if he would take less for it, and we agreed on $85. It wasn't until I
got home and noticed the 3666 number on the side of the car, and then
looked it up in Greenberg's, that the car was valued at about 6 times
what I had paid for it. It was one of my greatest finds, and I didn't
even know it at the time! I guess the morale of this story is don't
pass up a table that looks unpromising on first glance - you just
never know what you may find.

[Big_Boy_4005]

This one is easy! One Sunday morning, for some strange reason, I decided to go to the warehouse space that I had rented after the mall display had been closed. I had a telephone there, this was before cell phones were cheap and common, and while I was there it rang.

I answered, expecting that it was someone who wanted to know about the display, and I was going to have to tell them that it was closed permenantly.

Instead, the woman on the other end said she had some trains that she wanted to get rid of. At first I thought, oh no, this is going to be some HO junk, and really didn't want anything to do with it.

She said she didn't want any money for them, and she would just leave the box on the porch and I could come over and look at it. She told me that the choice was mine to take or leave them as I pleased, but that I would really be doing her a favor if I would just take them away, as she had no one to give them to and she was moving and was just going to throw them in the trash, but she perfered to find someone who wanted them..

I said to myself, oh what the heck, and went over to the address she had given me. There on the porch, was a box, just as she had said. I picked it up, and and took it down to my car. I opened the flaps on the box and there on the top I saw a Lionel Santa Fe alco, and thought, OK, this was worth the trip, and put the box in the trunk and drove home without taking the time to examine the rest of the contents.

When I got home I took the box inside, and went to the basement, and started to look carefully at each piece. There was the engine, and a couple of common freight cars, and a couple of crappy looking plastic automobiles. There was a small Lionel box, 54 ballast tamper, but it was empty. There was a cheap steam engine, and a 6414 auto loader and a common caboose.

I finally got to the bottom, and there it was, THE BALLAST TAMPER! There were some odds and ends at the bottom of the box including another pair of these really cheap plastic automobiles, one red and one yellow.

I had always wanted a ballast tamper, but to find one with it's box, for FREE, WOW!!!
So, I grabbed my Greenberg guide, and started to look up the pieces......

Have you figured it out yet???

All of this stuff in front of me on the table, I looked at the auto rack, and wondered, where were the cars??? Then I saw it, 2 cheap plastic yellow cars and 2 cheap plastic red cars, the kid must have lost the real cars that came with the auto loader, and found these substitutes. I had never seen these cars before, they couldn't be Lionel. BOY, WAS I WRONG!!!

From a dollar perspective, those cheap plastic cars were worth way more than all of the rest of it combined. But, the dollars don't matter, because I'll never sell any of the stuff I got that day. Combined with this story, its priceless to me. I ended up promising the woman that I would find the trains a "good home", and it has been ten years almost to the day. I never had a chance to thank her, but in a way my telling this story is doing just that.

To see a photo of this click the link below.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12926

[Anonymous]

This topic is very interesting! I've always been searching for bargains anywhere that there could be trains. Well, I have two finds that are both really great. I couldn't decide which one, so I'll talk about both of them.

The first was a find from ebay. I always like to browse the "Other Scales" category because that's where all the dummies who know nothing about trains sell their stuff, so there's a better chance of getting a bargain. I notice the title "Four Old Toy Bavaria Tin Train Cars". I check it out and it turns out to be 4 Bing 4-wheeled cars from a 1920's clockwork set. They are in fairly rough condition. There was a tender, a caboose with the roof gone with lots of rust, a Penna Coal & Coke hopper in not too bad of shape, but the one thing that immediately caught my eye was the boxcar. It had the roof missing, but otherwise wasn't too bad. The words "Canadian Pacific" proudly emblazoned on the side. Before seeing this I had known that there were only 3 examples of a Bing CP boxcar known to exist worldwide. Now a fourth had shown up! I couldn't believe it! There were no bids and the minimum was $4.99. I bid on it. For quite a while I was the only bidder, until the last 20 seconds of the auction, when 2 more bids were placed. I won the auction, though, for only $27.67! This was truly an incredible find and I am now one of only 3 collectors anywhere who owns one (2 are owned by the same person). This just goes to show that even if you have a lot of money to afford the rare pieces, you still have to have the luck of finding them first. You can see a picture of it as well as some of my other trains at www.geocities.com/tintracks (the boxcar is on page 2).

My other find came from an antique store in Brandon, Manitoba. There's one antique store that I visit whenever I go there. If they find any trains they save them for me. I called them once and they said that they did have some trains in. When I came there I immediately noticed a big orange Lionel set box on the floor in front of the counter waiting for me. I opened it up and it turned out to be a Lionel military set. It was set #1647 with a 45 mobile missile launcher, 3665 minuteman, 3519 satellite launcher, 6830 submarine flatcar, 6448 exploding boxcar and a 6814 Rescue Unit work caboose. It was all in mint condition with most of the parts there and some of the instructions. The only major thing was that the submarine was missing, but I have since found one. They had each car priced seperately, but would only sell it as a set. It added up to something like $350. When asked if they'd do any better, they went down to $300. Also remember that this is Canadian money. What a thrill it was to find that!

Like Big_Boy_4005 said about his find, they might be worth a lot of money, but they mean far more than that to me!

[cbq9911a]

My greatest find was a Lionel 6460 black cab crane that I purchased for 75 cents when I was 10 years old. Still have the crane - gave it the proper string and hook.

[Anonymous]

Email is enabled---sorry guys...Or just copy [e-mail]

[spankybird]

Hi all,

I think my greatest find really isn’t a train but is train related. As I was building my layout and wanted to add cars on the road, that is automobiles. This has lead me to looking for 1/43 scaled cars. My collection of cars is almost equal to that of my trains. This includes from Franklin Mint, both the 50’s and 60’s to anything of the ‘not so often made’ and unusual.

It became time to determine the time frame that my layout was to be in. I love steam, so the hay day of steam was in or around the 1920’s. Over time I have added may cars that are between 1900 and 1920, including many Steam trucks, made by Matchbox Collectables.



I have also found some horse draw wagons and coaches in 1/43. These are from Matchbox Collectables.



Yesterday I was at the Medina, Oh. train show and came across these. The price wasn’t all that bad, $25.00 for the coach with 4 horses down to $8.00 each for just the coaches.




These were made by Brimm.

[TonyGG1]

Mine was a postwar Pennsylvania N-5c caboose, #6447, found in only one Lionel set from 1963.


Tony Sincius

[Anonymous]

My greatest find was the American Flyer 5 digit Western Electric mint in box. I got this a Long Island Train Meet and the dealer looked it up and by the picture of the 3 digit sold it to me for $35.00. This was in the late 1980's and I later sold it for $900.00.

[MA and PA JCT]

About 10 years ago, a person I got friendly with on our bus ride to/from work mention he had a train set for sale. He knew I was a dealer/collecter of PW LIONEL, and wondered if I was interested in buying it. Asking what was he selling, his vague response was "all I know is its red/silver, and has SANTA FE
on the side". Ahhhh, F3 set, my attention was 100% now. We struck a price, sight unseen, for $150. Surely even in decent shape, an A-A set + any cars has gotta be worth $150.

The next day we met, rode the bus to park 'n ride together. Standing at his car now, he handed me the set, in its original set box....MMMmmm....worth more now, a set box. On top was the A-A; I took a quick look, noticing I had bought a freight set. I was hoping for the pass set, with aluminum cars. With a quick thank you, payment made, I rushed home to take a better look.

Out with A-A, run of the mill rolling stock, I suddenly saw in a box , 6468 B&O box car. RATS! Another blue Auto car, I thought. What to my sheer amazement, out came the hard to find TUSCAN auto car, made one year only!!
With shaking hands, I opened the GREENBERG guide to discover the car worth over $300!! [:0]

Nothing has topped this find![^]

[Anonymous]

Went to an older hobby storenear my daughter dance class, there in the case was a American Flyer Baltimore and Ohio 4-8153 and a 4-8154 A-B-A set brand new in box never ran plastic around all units. I paid $400.00 or so Then I asked what else he had. He pulled out a set of American Flyer Budd like cars
660,661,662,663 $ 180.00 which these were in nice shape compared to other swap meets. I've seen the cars going for $ 230.00's or more and not nearly as nice. The A-B-A set I think I paid to much for.

[lionelsoni]

I found my prewar Lionel 253 boxcab in the back of an HO shop in Prague.

[yellowducky]

Right away I can think of two, both Lionel 027. The first is a DTI switch engine set. Found it at a garage sale in the country. Fair cond. Fair price, $25. What makes this a great find is the rest of the story--- about my niece and nephew and going out of our way to take one of their friends home after the swimming pool closed; and the 2nd chapter about a friend (since deceased) that gave me the same engine(but not operable), and some cars, which I got $45 in trade at a model train shop.

The 2nd find, was a blue bobber caboose to add to my collection of bobber cabooses (cabeese?). I had been looking for one and pretty much gave up. A guy at work, a few years ago now, brought me in a beat up and dusty cardboard box of trains, that he had found on a linen closet shelf at the house his dad had just bought (and was moving into). Not only did I get the caboose I had been looking for, but the engine that matches and a couple other cars. They were free, but it's not the money, it's the friends.[:)] FDM

[nitroboy]

This hobby!!!!

Dave

[Anonymous]

Lionel NYC H16-44 Full TMCC/RS 50 bucks..........

[yellowducky]

Ah, Lehigh Vally RR. I almost added that a recent good find was an LV Lionel boxcar (blt'95).

If I can get away with it, I'll say that the HO (Montg. Wards) "Transformers" train set that my son and I found at a train show about a dozen years ago was a really great find for us. Someone had given him some mostly broken "Transformer" transforming cars. Imagine the delight of an 8yr. old boy getting something akin to "his wildest dream". The box looked its age, so while I was trying to determine if it really was still factory sealed (glued, no plastic) liked it looked to me, the dealer said he would take $20 instead of the $25 on the tag! It turned out that it had never been opened, and the outside of the box was the only thing that wasn't A1. And we didn't care about the box!
My worst find is that children grow up way too fast. FDM