If you could find it one, what is the single most expensive Lionel item?

[BigAl 956]

Discarding rare one-off prototypes and samples, one of the most valuble regular prodution items would be the Father & Son / Over-Under set from 1960. Complete with original boxes it would easily fetch 10K plus at auction.

[wjstix]

I suppose the rarest item would be a 1900-1902 "Electric Express" wood gondola powered by a battery, the first thing Lionel made. I doubt very many were ever made. I don't know if that would translate into a huge sale price if one ever came up for sale / auction.

 https://sosuke.com/the-history-of-lionel-model-trains/

 

[pennytrains]

That's a pretty good choice, especially if it's pencil signed by Cowen himself.  

Rarer though, I think, would be the batteries themselves that Lionel sold in the catalogs.  Both the dry and wet cell types, and especially the component parts of the wet cells, usually show up in guides with notations like "No Known Examples" or "No Market Data Available For Estimating Value".  2 7/8 Gauge is so rare most of us will never even see examples outside of a museum.

It would be interesting if someone could produce an authentic Eastern or Everbest dry battery with the identical dust and patina to an original gondola and track found in a disused storeroom of a turn of the twentieth century store.  Probably not quite as rare but a set of glass jars, wood box, metal plates, hook-up wire and an unopened bag of "magic sand" bearing Lionel Manufacturing Company info would blow collectors minds.

But there is one item more valuable, more rare and more grail like than even the Brute to Standard Gauge collectors because no one has found an authentic original yet.  Any guesses?

[pennytrains]

Hint: it's 2 7/8 gauge.  (Because 2 7/8 gauge is so rare, I assume standard gauge collectors would be the most likely segment of our community to be looking for one.)