It’s that time of year again! Everybody is cleaning out their basements and attics and selling their stuff on garage sales. I myself am a garage sale fanatic! I go to all the ones I can and buy lots of stuff. I’m something of an antique collector and am always on the lookout for any old stuff, which I pick up in liberal helpings. Naturally, I’m always hoping to find trains.
So, has anyone found any trains at garage sales? Do you ever pick up any useful things for your layout at them? Share your stories.
I was inspired to start this topic when my dad came home after a day in Yorkton yesterday. He went to some garage sales and brought home three Marx 4-wheel plastic cars (two orange PRR gondola cars and a green LV hopper car). Price: 25 cents! Certainly nothing rare or anything, but exciting nonetheless! Also included with them were a small engine and gondola car from a modern little kid’s train set.
Another time, I found two small 1970’s Haji (Japan) battery operated train sets. These sets have plastic track, engines and tenders, but the cars are lithographed tinplate. They were in mint condition and there was a box for one of them. I got it all for only $2.00!
Other than that, the only trains I’ve found are a couple of HO sets. I’ve also gotten many useful items for my layout, such as vehicles, fences, buildings, etc. You just never know what you might find!
Last year I picked up a LGB Rigi tramway set at a garage sale. - the set with two ski gondolas that run on a string. It was basically brand new in the box. Paid $25 for it, took it home and put it on e-bay. It sold for $75. Not bad for a garage sale find. Good luck to all the garage sale addicts out there.
My second hobby is making dioramas for model cars and my neighbor knowing I enjoy doing this told me that his neighbor two houses down had some little buildings and other small knick knacks that he thought I could use, so I went down there to investigate. When I got to the house I discovered that they weren’t suitable for my models , but very suitable for my layout. He had a bunch of old plasticville buildings and accssories complete with boxes. The owner told me that they were his fathers. I took as many as I could carry.
Garage sales around here with other than old clothes, furniture, and baby stuff are few and far between. Even estate sales are unlikely to have trains. With this area having been mostly an ag economy there weren’t a whole lot of folks interested in, nor able to afford, toy trains. When you go to the flea markets you had better speak Spanish, they’ve become the Mexican malls down here.
I guess as the replants, like me, get older and die off there’ll start being some trains showing up at estate sales. No I don’t have any plans for may stuff being available yet.
A very timely thread, considering only yesterday (Friday) my wife discovered this box of trains at a Garage Sale in NJ. Asking price was $75. She asked the sellers if they could do better and she took it home for $60.
Today we spent all morning at a very large town wide Garage Sale and struck out on trains, but we did buy some other great stuff at bargain prices. Sometimes you do get lucky. You just have to be persistant.
Few years back I found a #8 Erector set at a garage sale. It was complete and in nice shape. Even had the containers for the hardware. $5.00, I didn’t bother dickering with that price. Never had much luck finding train related items. Once in a while I came across train items but they were always over priced because someone told them they were worth a lot. Oh well.
Paul
Best I’ve ever done is a box of Bachmann HO for $2, which I bought just for the heck of it.
Bill,
Sure can’t beat $60 for an EP-5 and a 6464. Even $75 would have been a steal
Paul,
When you say a #8, do you mean a wooden box with the three drum hoist? If so, you are a very, very lucky man indeed for that price. Even any other #8(or 8 1/2, for that matter) is an excellent buy at $5. With an inventory and proper cardboard inserts, I don’t know of one that will fetch any less than $300.
The Doctor is in!!! I got restarted in the hobby by a yard sale buy. And just 2 or 3 years ago, I found some MTH Realtrax sections(straights & two bumper sections) and a older lionel trestle bridge and trestle set(which had been bought from my old train dealer). So yes, one can get lucky ! By the way, The bridge & trestle set are for sale if anyone is interested. Email for details.
Till My Next Missive, I Remain The Humble, Yet Strangly Evil Doctor !!![}:)]
Paul,
When you say a #8, do you mean a wooden box with the three drum hoist? If so, you are a very, very lucky man indeed for that price. Even any other #8(or 8 1/2, for that matter) is an excellent buy at $5. With an inventory and proper cardboard inserts, I don’t know of one that will fetch any less than $300.
Ben
Ben,
It was an 8 1/2 in a metal box. Saw the $5.00 price tag, looked inside, gave the girl the money and put it in the car out of site. I also got two brass ceiling lights with the globes for $4.00 each. Old house in Troy, NY. I think they were new owners and cleaning the place out. They were glad to get rid of the stuff. I pretty much gave up on garage sales lately. Mostly plastic toys and clothes.
Paul
A few weeks ago, I was coming home and saw a garage sale with a bunch of long, skinny boxes, and thought they might be trains. Did a U-turn, and went back, and they were trains. Lots of them, but they were all HO [:(] I did end up buying a Christmas car though, as I have a coworker that runs HO, and collects Christmas cars for his under the tree layout.
While I was BSing with the guy, his wife said, “Why don’t you just show him your trains instead of trying to describe them to him?” So a few minutes later we’re in his basement admiring a nice 5 x 20 ish HO layout, with two trains running aroud the mainlines. Spent nearly 2 hours chatting and looking at one nice layout. Very pleasant way to kill a dreary Sunday afternoon.
One neat idea he had (might have been done to death before, but I’ve never seen it), is that he had a junkyard on his layout. By the junkyard he had a flatbed semi loaded with crushed cars. He said he bought some matchbox cars, weathered them, and put them in a vise and smashed them. Had one on the forks of a forklift being loaded onto the trailer. It was a really neat scene, one that may get duplicated on my layout someday.
I’ve had great luck over the past several years. Best find was a Lionel stock car set…complete with car, cattle and corral…$3.00. It was really dirty and the corral was missing a lot of paint. I did a complete redo on the corral, and it looks brand new. I believe the that guy running the garage sale gave me a bunch of track…apparently, he felt that I was being ripped off by paying $3.00 for an item that looked so bad!!!
Best deal I ever came across wasn’t at a garage or yard sale but in a LHS, box of misc H.O equipment including two brass steamers,one a older PFM G.N 2-8-2 the other a junker. a brass G.N caboose plus several brass structures.and a few odds’n’ends
Sign on the box which was sitting on the counter said MAKE OFFER so asked the fellow (Val) knew him for several years what the highest bid he’d gotten was,said $30, I gave 'em a bid of $75 …long story short he called the next day and said come and get it…eventually sold the steamer for $200 and got another $75 for the rest,did keep the caboose… just repainted it a few months back and still enjoy telling the story while watching it trail my G.N freight.
I usually don’t attend yard sales any more since they seem to be 90%“baby / toddler” stuff. However, last weekend I found a roll of black & white check contact paper for a “kitchen floor”(interior detail). It’s perfect scale, and had been searching for 2 months for a pattern this small. I’m sure this will qualify as “The most ho-hum find”, but I was happy. Joe
Way back in the mid 1960s at a local shopping center swap meet I found a Lionel set with a Santa Fe FA,rocket launching car,exploding boxcar,helicopter launching car,fireman’s platform car,and ATSF caboose for $10.[:)]
