Here's another boxed set I bought today. Promotional outfit 7003 from 1940. A promotional outfit was an uncataloged set availible to any retailer. Mostly low end sets without uncouplers or whistles.
This set features a dull black 1668X loco with matching 1689T tender. I'm not able to see any reason this loco would get an X designation on the box, but there is an X visible after the last L in "Lionel" on the label panel.
The cars are a 1679 naroon roof Baby Ruth boxcar, a 1680 orange shell tank car and a 1682Red NYC caboose. The cars and the tender have latch couplers and blackened journals.
Loco and car boxes are shown below. Note the X on the 1688 box.
The set box is a plain cardboard affair sealed with Lionel tape and a Lionel Label affixed to one end.
Paperwork with the set is a lubrication sheet dated 5-39, an O27 1067E set instruction sheet dated 6-40, and the original receipt showing a purchase date of 12-13 but no year. The set was $5.98
The set came with a 1038 30 watt transformer. The transformer box is dated March 1940.
To read the month you subtract the number of dots in the date code from 12 and then convert to months. This has nine dots so it's the third month. The large number "40" in the middle is the year.
There is no date code on the setbox:
To round out the set there is an OTC lockon, some track locks, two sections of straight track, and 8 curves.
Because this is an 027 set everything need to run the train fits in the set box. There was an envelope with the lcok, two wires and a small tube of grease, and some kind of filler - probably just plain white newsprint wadded up.
A search on Google brings up this same 1940 set, and a 1941 version with a brown NYC caboose, an aluminum 1680 SUNX tank and a 1689T tender with rubberstamped Lionel Liners rather than the engraved nickel plate. The 1941 set has box couplers, the 1940 has latch.
