Currently on vacation on the cape. Went to my first flea market in a long time and I ended up doing pretty good!
One guy had various S gauge freight cars and a hodgepodge of O gauge tinplate cars, mostly Lionel. Pricing felt fairly arbitrary- all $5, except for one car he felt was worth more. Some were better bargains at $5 than others.I limited myself to 3 cars because I was trying to keep my spending down, and while $5 for a usable S gauge car is hard to complain about, it adds up fast if you buy more than one. I picked out a 911 C&O Gon with the pipes missing and the stakes all snapped off, a 633 B&O boxcar with a bit of chipped brown paint, and a 937 MKT boxcar with only minor paint chipping. I'm hoping to make some replacement stakes and a new pipe load for the 911.
The flyer car were nice, but personally I think the best find of the day was a Lionel 132 station. I've been interested in getting one for a little while now, but didn't want to go out of my way to get one. Then lo and behold, there one was... original box too! And only 10 bucks... the price was right.Unfortunately, the condition of the box leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm missing an insert and one of the paper station labels. But frankly I'm skeptic this station saw much, if any use, since the original parts envelope was in the box, along with all of its original contents. Everything looks quite good considering how horrible the box looks, and with the wires still neatly coiled and the insulating track pins present in their envelope within the larger envelope, it really makes you wonder if the station was actually used by anyone, or if it was simply taken out of the box a few times, examined, and then put back away.Regarless, here's a few pictures.The icing on the cake, however, was discovering that the parts envelope was present, and so were its contents- all of which appear to have been removed and inspected, but never actually used.There's still a little more to tell about the station, but I'll cover that in another post. Stay tuned...-Ellie
Some great finds there Ellie, especially the station for $10 and those Flyer cars for $5 each, and one of those cars has the original link couplers too!
I'm not sure what to tell you on the station box, it's certainly nasty looking and I'm not sure whether it adds to the value of the station or not. Maybe the best thing to do is stabilize it the best you can and keep it "Just in case?"
I'll tell you what though, it's always a good idea to check out flea markets 'cause you never know what you'll find there. My two best flea market finds were an MTH "Texas" 4-4-0 for $80 and a complete K-Line Hershey 100th Anniversary set for $85!
As promised, a followup!While I was looking the box over, I noted that there was an old price sticker on the labeled end of the box- with an original price of $10.75, marked down to $7.95. This price sticker also has the name of a store, though one corner is damaged. I was curious if I could maybe find more information, so I did my best with what was legible.It currently reads "???? ?nd Harry's A??o Stores"- question marks filling in for obscured parts of the label.To me, it looked like "[unknown] and Harry's Auto Stores". So- I started by looking that up. And initially it wasn't turning up results- but then I found a link that mentioned a chain discount store called "Jack & Harry's"- around from the '20s through the 70s, according to a blog post I found, with locations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This seemed to match up well, so I did some searching for Jack & Harry's, and found that Jack & Harry's auto stores were indeed a thing. Bingo!But they were a chain, with around 20 stores- which store could my station have come from? Where were the stores even located?I found an old online auction listing for a Jack & Harry's catalog from 1960 that had their locations on the back cover, and found that in fact there was a Jack & Harry's located at 476 Main Street in Hyannis Massachusetts, not all that far away from where I found my station. Unfortunately there were no pictures I could find of the Hyannis store online, nor any current business with the same address today. But still, I think it's pretty neat that I was able to figure out this much!-Ellie
Wayne, the box may look bad, but structurally, it's in pretty good shape. Sturdy and square, not really falling apart anywhere. I have a feeling the box probably adds very little to the value, outside of maybe nostalgia related to the store chain it was sold at. But for $10, it wouldn't have been such a bad deal even if it was just the station all by itself.I really need to visit more flea markets, or maybe I don't if the odds of me finding goodies are too high...-Ellie
That's some great detective work concerning "Jack & Harry's Auto Stores" Ellie! And it makes sense, auto parts stores did sell electric trains as a sideline during the holiday season as an extra money-maker and sometimes sold them year-round. The same with hardware stores. I remember going to a hardware store with my father during the Christmas season when I was six years old and being VERY impressed with the wall full of trains!
Sure, it's always good to visit flea markets, especially if they're in your general area. It's no sure thing you'll find something but you never know unless you try. Even antique malls can be a good place to look. Last year I found a nasty old Post-War caboose and whistle tender at an antiques mall for $8 each. Cleaned up an rewired both, sold the caboose for $20 and repainted and decaled the tender which I kept. Not bad for $18 for the pair!
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