friend gave me some old ho cars and engines,i am looking to switch couplers to kedee,I found what i needed for tyco,backman on there converion list but noting on lionel.
DON’T TOUCH THE LIONEL!!
As nutty as it may sound, the old Lionel are worth more than you think to collectors - just check out the E thing! I’ve got 2 old Lionel flats with $.99 discount store price tags I could sell for $45!! I’ve got a bunch of better looking & running flats I probably couldn’t get $5 for!![?] Go figure!![:P]
What are these people smoking??? I wouldn’t have beleived it if I hadn’t seen it.[:O] What is with that flat car??? 3 bidders have one up to $117! Plymouth style switcher-$165???
I used to throw that stuff out it was so crappy.[%-)]
Are you certain it was the Lionel? I had lots of Tyco, Bachmann, and other companies that were in that category. I only had a few pieces of Lionel in my pre-jr high days, but as I recall they ran much better than the other equipment I had at the time. One piece I wish I still had was a Rock Island caboose. It seems like when it was on the end of the train there were much fewer derailments? My imagination - maybe. But the point here isn’t the quality of the equipment but the rarity of it. If someone wants to collect every piece of equipment Lionel ever manufactured they have to have samples of these cars.
And P.S. I agree don’t convert them to Kadee couplers.
I had a Lionel HO train set when I was a kid. It had a GP9 and the “roadname” was “American Flyer” (!) I remember it had a matching caboose, a teal-colored Sears boxcar, a dark blue C&O boxcar, a white colored flatcar and I forgot what else. Anyway, I didn’t take good care of it as a kid and it turned into broken junk. The GP9 didn’t even have its wheels intact anymore. I stuck em all plus my broken Tyco/AHM/Bachmann junk in a box and sold it all at a swap meet iin January for $7.
It’s called rarity. The harder something is to find or obtain, the more people want it. Quite a bit off topic but car collectors will pay through the nose for an AMC Pacer in good running condition. The same with these Lionel pieces. I wish I had kept the Lionel Double Diesel set I got for Xmas in 64. Those sets are worth a lot now.
First off, its gonna depend on the era they were made. If they are from the 1960’s the locos were made by Rivarossi and the cars are mostly Athearn/Rivarossi. This was for a time the only RTR Athearn made. The only difference is in the boxes. Lionel had their name stamped on the bottom and they were put into orange boxes.
If they are from Lionels second foray into HO, they are Bachmann. There was one loco made during this time that actually had a decent mech in them, and that was the first run of the GP-7/9. They had good weight, 8 wheel drive, and were made here in the USA. This lasted less than 6 months. I think they stopped that version because they couldn’t get the motors? (GE shaver motors) At that point Bachmann took over production totally.
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This oughta make the faithful ill. but I still enjoy my 2, 0566 Texas Special FA1’s . True, the only way to really enjoy them was to ditch the rubber band drives, replace the trucks with Athearn parts, hand made bolsters in the frame with can motors and flywheels. They run better than my memory can allow!!
I had 3 Lionel HO four truck log cars, behind a Mantua Weyerhauser 2-6-6-2 that used to set on a section of flex on my mantle…until I got married and wife & daughters cats found them. I ran across the box of what’s left of them last week. Oh the horrrors!
As P. T. Barnum once said, “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”!
Dick
Texas Chief
I’ve got several Lionel cars That I run. Been happy with them so far. Plan on picking up some more when I find them at the right price.
This is just one more example of why you shouldn’t change those couplers. Granted, it’s a complete set with all of the boxes, but I still can’t believe the final bid. Those who owned sets like these may want to get the Kleenex ready. [:(]
I have some Lionel HO stuff that I got in trade from a co-worker in exchange for my old AFX equipment. It includes their Pacific, for which I had to search high and low to locate replacement drivers because of the cracked axle gear. It finally runs again, and I guess I’ll be holding on to it for a while.
SteamFreak-The funny thing is if he didn’t have all the boxes, he probably would have only got $200-$300 for all of it.
So the boxes are worth at least twice the trains they contain? A while back I saw a guy selling the box for a rare American Flyer set that included their 4-8-4, and the bidding stopped at over $400, but it still didn’t meet his reserve price. It’s enough to make someone consider starting a box counterfeiting racket.
I’ve changed the couplers on all my Lionel HO, but I’ve saved all the couplers so I can put them back. The real problem with Lionel HO cars is that the wheels are 0.03" narrow in gauge. I’ve had to pull the wheels off the axle and insert Kadee 0.015 washers to get the wheels in gauge.