I was thrilled yesterday to find out that while my uncle was out at the local dump, he discovered "two train cars and some three-rail track"! This turned out to be Marx. The two cars are both 6-inch tin with plastic knuckle couplers: a 59 UP cattle car and a Sinclair tank car. The cattle car has a few scratches, but overall is very nice. The tank car, on the other hand, has a lot scratches and the paint on the ends and dome is flaking badly, so this piece will be relegated to my parts box. The track is six straight and six curved pieces of O27. This was all in a box full of assorted electrical parts and junk sitting out at the dump. My uncle looked around to see if there were any other pieces to the set, but didn't find any.
In terms of rarity, this certainly isn't an amazing find, but to me the fact that this was rescued from the dump makes it very exciting! I'm always shocked at the things people will throw out. A collector I know was once given a rare Hafner Candian Flyer passenger car in mint condition by a friend of his who found it in a garbage dump.
Anyway, I thought I had to share this with you guys. Has anyone else rescued trains from the garbage? I'd love to hear about it!
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Yes, Sask, a few years ago, while driving down a residential street in
Cleveland, I saw a box on the tree lawn, with a 3 rail track sticking out
of it. It had been set there for trash pick up. I knocked on the house door
and asked the guy if I could have it. He said " Go ahead, it's junk ". I
took it home and in the box was a 275 watt ZW, a 671 engine and tender,
and a Prewar metal Lionel bridge. Plus a few other pieces. I rebuilt the
ZW and it's the one on my layout. That was some exciting junk.
I know the feeling.
Chuck
Sask,
I hate to admit it but I threw some old Marx train cars out many years ago. I was cleaning out the in-laws basement and came across some Marx cars. At that time I was into HO trains and considered Marx worthless junk. Into the garbage it went. I recall a NYC caboose, the others I cany remember. Oh well, live and learn.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Had a friend from a church I used to belong to who was a driver for a garbage truck. He told me stories of all the great things he gets. I went to his house one day and it was loaded! He gave me a brand new battery operated Dremel tool. I may never find a great train find in the trash, but, because of him, and stories like those above, I will always keep an eye out.
Dennis
TCA#09-63805
Congrats Chuck,
It drives me nut to hear storys about how people consider this "treasure" as worthless. Ive heard countless stories about how a family had a handfull of Lionel sets from way back and either the boys fought over who gets what and the dad sticks it up in the attic to be forgotten, or the kids are just not into trains. Either way the dad dies the sons dont care or arent around and the wife or whoever sells the whole "find" to some guy (that cant keep the drool in his mouth) for like 50 bucks and once its all said and done..... he ends up with anywhere from 500-5,000+ dollars worth of "trash/junk"
Einstein said, "Everything is relative". One man's junk is another man's gold. What tickles me about these kinds of finds is the knowledge that acquisiton of train stuff for zero dollars helps to average out the insane price tags placed on these very items by dealers, and collectors. The ditty about the husband dying and the wife throwing it out is a beauty! I am especially stimulated by the thoughts of a man "Investing" in an extensive collection of "Rare" train items complete with all the original boxes in "Mint" condition "NIB" and drooling over the prospect of selling all of this magnificent collection some day for a HUGE profit to support his golden years in luxury who dies suddenly. Those left behind waste no time in finding a broker to "Clean out" the "Train stuff" and convert it to money for execution of the will. The sympathetic broker gives pennies on the dollar then hawks it on E-bay for way more that it is really worth, claiming "I dont know anything about this stuff, Im just selling it for a friend"
Well, I have new stuff, and I run it. I throw away the boxes because I dont have room, and with my luck if I bought old rare vintage stuff with the hopes of supporting myself in my golden years, I would earmark myself for an early death.
Life is too short. Enjoy your find and I hope you find more, just make sure you check everything for Tetnus, Hepatitus, and Brown Recluse spiders before you take it home to where your family lives.
When I was a flea market dealer I would hit about 50 yard sales a week and I would find some train stuff most weeks. The peaple who held the sales had no idea what the had. Now that I have converted to O scale (I was in HO at the time) I wish I had saved some of the stuff for myself. The profit motive got in the way. But if peaple saved all their old trains the would not be rare. No thanks I don't need that I already have 4 scale Hudsons, just picked one up last week for 10 bucks.
There is no such thing as a bad day of railfanning. So many trains, so little time.
"Dump", no. "Dumpster", yes. Too many to list. I have kept some, sold some on E-Bay, cleaned some up and donated them and returned some to the dumpster (missing parts). You never know!
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