can some tell me how to tell the age ov the Athearn blue boxs kits. on the assembly instructions thares a # that is revised L.J.M. 10-75 is that the yr it wus maid. thank you for all the help.
All that is telling you is the date that the instructions were revised. I think it would be safe to assume that those instructions were not included in any kits packaged prior to that date. But on the other hand those instructions could have been included in any kits packaged beyond that date. So assuming that there were no further instruction revisions that would mean from approximately 10/75 conceivably up to the point where the blue box kits were discontinued.
I think it’s been less than a decade ago that most of the Blue Box kits went out of production, basically after Horizon bought Athearn.
However, there was not a lot that changed with those kits over the years. You could buy the kit in 1975, 1985, 1995, heck maybe even 2005, and it would have changed little if at all. As maxman noted, 10-75 means it was in kits sometime after that date. My guess would be that the date may be from the kit’s actual introduction date, or at least the last time a revision was made in the kit parts.
There were changes over the years, few and far between, but in general things moved pretty slow back in the day. [|)]
Which kit are you looking at? If you go to the HOSeeker website ( http://www.hoseeker.org/athearn.htm ) and look at the Athearn freight car listings you’ll see that they are grouped into various years. Within those year groups you’ll see that some of the cars have different instructions, so maybe you can match up your instructions for one of those years.