Interesting Auction Items

[Terry]

Mike - my snipe was too low to be accepted.

Here's a new listing with something I want so bad you can call it a need.  I'm not going to buy this one because it's overpriced, and I'm feeling broke with taxes being due.

 

Midnight blue 33 set. The cars look to have been scrubbed or compounded, but the loco bothers me. The paint is orange peeling. That is not something you see often with Lionel trains.

 

A little flaking paint, but the texture just looks off. The same seller also has a black 33 from the same era that  looks like it has been relettered over the original lettering with dry transfers:

 

Here's the blue set:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lionel-Midnight-Blue-DSS-33-0-4-0-Montgomery-Ward-Standard-Scale-Set/333956776951?hash=item4dc16003f7:g:w4sAAOSwfY1gdHh7

Here's the relettered 33

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LIONEL-Black-33-Standard-Gauge-Engine/333955683596?hash=item4dc14f550c:g:c4QAAOSwEU9gczSK

[early0electric]

WOW! That is high. So much is now overpriced. That's good, I guess, if you're selling but not if you are buying. Granted these are hard to find pieces but you can't build a collection of overpriced trains unless you are flush. That leaves a lot of us out. Not looking for bargains, but just reasonably priced.

[Terry]

I just clicked on the link to the 33 set to see if it sold. It didn't but the seller listed a mohave 38 which is better than mine at a price I can live with so I grabbed it. My mohave 38 loco is the actual example of a poor condition train in the TCA grading pamphlet.

[early0electric]

Terry,
That looks pretty decent and a good price, also.
Mike

[Terry]

It seemed like a fair price. Even better. . . One of the forum lurkers called me on the phone and asked to buy my beat up one. That means I won't have my money tied up for long unless they are different in more than condition.

[Terry]

Here's something interesting on ebay:

 

I've never seen that hopper car.

My dad and I had the black 816 with nickel plates. The black 816 has dish frames and later trucks/couplers.

EVERY original car I've seen that had late colors and nickel plates has the dished frame and late style trucks.

Either that car is really special, or it's junk.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144013299183?ViewItem=&item=144013299183

[pjdog350]

I like that. 226E has always been one of my favorite engines. Plus the 225E.

[starfire700]

That is an interesting 2816 hopper. I have the 1940 black 816, but have never seen the one pictured with 1938 auto couplers.

[starfire700]

Photos of my black 816 with plates, dished frame, high couplers, black trim

[Terry]

The  car Jim shared is the normally seen black car with plates. It has blackened trim and later frame/truck assemblies than the 2816 above. ALL of the nickel plate cars in RS colors I've seen have trim and trucks  like Jim's car. I'm not going to say it's fake without holding it in my hand, but the fact the guy has other repainted and mucked with with 2800 series cars in his other auctions, does NOT increase the chances of this car being original.

Paul bought the set with the 2816 so we can find out what it is. He won't use the forum because I won't let him post pictures bigger than 180KB each, but I'll get some pictures when he gets it.

[Terry]

Paul says the black 2816 was repainted.

Here's something you don't see but twice a year:

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/lionel-electric-rapid-transit-gondola-train-car-126-c-8a14715bbb

[starfire700]

I saw this car on Milestone and concluded that someone made it. Nice quality and done long ago, possibly in the teens, but does not make sense as a Lionel factory prototype.
Assembly with so many screws is too labor-intensive, even for a 1-off prototype.
Link-pin couplers would relate to pre 1910, pre 1906 if made by Lionel and the coupling pockets look smaller than those that Lionel used on 2-7/8" equipment.
Also why would factory R&D hand-make a car-body with wooden floor when Lionel already had the #12 carbody since 1906.
Trucks are single hollow large eyelet, so are later than this car would have been made by Lionel R&D.
It still is a great looking early car, but does not justify the price of an nearly factory prototype.

[starfire700]

Speculation, but to justify it being a real LL R&D prototype, it would have to have been made pre 1906.
Lionel did not have a freight car truck until 1906, and that was the first 4-rivet then 3-rivet truck made through 1912. So, it could have sat in the archives until someone decided to take it home, where it eventually got single-rivet trucks installed, some time between 1912 and 1920 or so.
If trains could only talk and tell us their history.

[Terry]

I realized last night one of my freinds has a loco that matches that gondola.  I'll get him to send me a picture or bring it over and put it on the layout so I can do a video.

[Terry]

Here's something interesting.

 

Looks like copies of Lionel 600 car frames and maybe roofs with some kind of odd body and a motor in one that was made by ETS in Czech republic.

Here's eBay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174765599239?hash=item28b0d76a07:g:KjEAAOSwBKFgmtEG