MAR (Marx?) toys metal trains?? and some other questions....

[Anonymous]

at a recent auction that i went to with my dad, i found several boxes of train stuff up for sale. being an HO scaler, i bid on them for the HO stuff they contained. but in a box, under a ton of old lionel 3 rail metal track i found several locomotives and tenders and cars. they are all made of sheet metal and most of them are marked MAR toys, made in the United States Of America. from reading another post, i guess they are MARX, not just MAR.

i was wondering if any of y'all could tell me anything about these. they are all in very poor condition. some of them were bent up and most of them have scratches and dents and rust.

here are some pictutres of what i got.























are they worth trying to salvage? could i get anything for them if i tried to sell them? the boxes also contained a few American Flyer cars and some Lionel stuff. they are in pretty good condition and i might be able to clean them up and try to resell them. one of the American Flyer train cars is a flat car with a metal spotlight. i might have to try to hook it up and see if it works.

one more thing, i now have a couple boxes of American Flyer 2 rail and Lionel 3 rail track. it's the old stuff with the metal ties. is that stuff worth anything? how about some old Lionel and American Flyer transformers, do people collect those?

[Anonymous]

what lionel transformers do you have? get us some pics of the other stuff

[Anonymous]

Yes, you are correct about the Mar trains actually being Marx. The Marx logo has "MAR" in a circle with the "X" behind. The best piece that you have is the St. Paul & Pacific combine car, which comes from the Marx Tales of Wells Fargo train set and is worth about $35. If it was in excellent condition, it would be worth $75.

The rest of the stuff you have pictured, however, I'm afraid is worth very little. It is all extremely common and the condition is obviously quite poor. With this in mind, I'd estimate the engines to be worth maybe $10-$15 a piece-no more. The 897 engine is a harder to find piece, so it might be worth slightly more. The frieght cars would probably be $5 or less each. For the specifics on what exactly it is you have, the first engine you have pictured is an 898 engine. The ones with the fronts missing (they would have had plastic fronts) are 591 engines. The Wyandotte Railway engine is not made by Marx, it is made by Hafner. Hafner was a company that produced windup toy trains. In 1951, it was bought out by the company Wyandotte Toys, who manufacturered Hafner trains until 1955 when Marx bought the Hafner train line from them in order to eliminate the competition and shipped all the tooling to Mexico. The frieght cars are all of the Marx 6-inch variety.

However, there are certainly many people out their who would be interested in purchasing these trains. They could be used for parts or else for certain kitbashing projects. It's amazing what many people will create out of old junkers like the trains you have. Since these are so common, it isn't worth restoring them, but that makes them prime candidates for customizing.

Please send us pictures or at least give us the numbers of the Lionel and American Flyer trains you have! The track isn't worth a whole lot, but if it's clean, people can use it and will want it. As for the transformers, if they're really basic ones, they aren't worth much, but some of the better ones can be worth a good price. It's important that their working.

I hope this helps you out and I'm looking forward to finding out what else you have.

[Anonymous]

here is the other stuff that was in the boxes.

first up are the American Flyer train cars







the american flyer cabeese



and the American Flyer transformer



here are the Lionel cars. all look recent except for the boxcar in the top left. it has metal trucks and some kind of mechanism inside



here is the Lionel transformer



this military train has no manufacturers marks on it so i dont know who makes it.



these are some unknown locomotives



here is some more Marx stuff. the St Paul & Pacific car and the C&O gondola are all metal, the rest are plastic.



here are a couple of really poor Marx plastic steamers



here is a really heavy all metal steamer that is missing a bunch of parts



and last, a Hafner metal tender and a Midget toys transformer. it is missing the control knob and the plug.






thanks for the excellent help so far. maybe something good will come out of all this stuff.

[ben10ben]

The military train you picture looks to me like Kusan, who made 2 rail semi-scale trains. In the next picture, the FA is also Kusan, and the little switcher looks like Lionel. The 8142 looks like MPC era(1970-1986) Lionel. The Lionel cars you picture also look to be from the MPC era.

The Lionel and Hafner transformer are both of the type known as a step transformer. Each copper tab on top of the transformer increases the track voltage by 1-2 volts, and no voltage is possible in between each step. The technology behind them is obsolete(variable core transformers are far safer and operationally superior), so they have little value other than as a collector/display piece. Also, definitely don't try to use any of your transformers without first having them examined.

[Anonymous]

Well, I've got my price guides with me, so here it goes. I listed the values in excellent condition as well, even though obviously some certainly are not in excellent condition, just to give you a better idea about how the values work with these things. Some would probably rate somewhere in between good and excellent, so use your own judgement. It's hard to judge the condition from some of the pictures. I identified the Lionel pieces as being either MPC or Postwar (1945-69). The American Flyer pieces are all postwar and so are the Kusan and Marx items, except for the Marx IC work cars, which date from the early 70's.
AF 923 IC refrigerator car: $13 good, $25 excellent
AF 25071 Tie-jector car (That's the name that was given to it.): $7 good, $35 excellent
AF 24328 Shell tank car: $7 good, $21 excellent
AF 24566 NH flatcar: is missing it's load, so probably only $10-$20
AF 804 N&W gondla car: $7 good, $15 excellent
AF 904 caboose: $11 good, $25 excellent
AF 25052 silver caboose (it originally had a brakeman on the back that moved): $49 good, $149 excellent (remember, those values are for one with a brakeman still on)
Lionel MPC 9011 hopper car: $6 good, $8 excellent
Lionel MPC PC gondola car: $3 good, $5 excellent
Lionel Postwar NYC operating boxcar (there would have been a man that came out of the door when activated): $11 good, $27 excellent
Lionel Postwar flatcar with fences (would have had horses): 2 posible numbers (can't tell from picture)
1877: $40 good, $70 excellent
1887: $80 good, $160 excellent
Lionel Postwar 6112 gondola car: $4 good, $9 excellent
Military Set: Ben is right about it being Kusan, a company from Nashville that made 2-rail trains in the postwar era. I don't know too much about values on them, but it's a good set that's worth a fair bit.
Lionel MPC 8769 Republic Steel switcher: $19 good, $39 excellent
The Kusan Kannonball FA actually came in train set that was sold as a floor toy, even though it went with O gauge trains, so there never was a powered unit to go with this.
Marx 1015 ICG work caboose with tank: $30 good, $40 excellent
Marx 24 IC searchlight car: $20 good, $35 excellent
Marx 1024 IC flatcar (missing yellow rails): $25 good, $45 excellent
Marx 234 US Army caboose: $25 good, $45 excellent
Marx NYC crane: $10 good, $15 excellent
Marx St. P. & P. passenger car: $35 good, $70 excellent
Marx C&O gondola car: $10 good, $20 excellent
Marx 400 steamers: probably $5 a piece in their condition
Lionel 8142 steamer (goes with the C&O tender): would have been worth $47 in good condition, so much less than that
Hafner tender: around $10

All in all, I'd say that you did pretty good at that auction! Good luck in selling them!

[Anonymous]

i'd say i probibly got a good deal. i got all 6 boxes of stuff for 65.00.

thank you very much Sask_Tinplater for looking all those up for me[:D][:D]

[Anonymous]

That's no problem at all. I'm always glad to help someone out with information about their trains. Wow, $65!!!!!!! That sure is some deal! I wish I could have been there!