All right, I’m posting this on behalf of my wife. I’ve currently got three locomotives. One Athearn Blue Box GP40-2 painted as B&O 4123 (which survived the CSX merger and was painted as CSX 6023), one Walthers/Life Like GP-38 painted in Chessie Colors, labeled as B&O 4810 (can’t find any up-to-date pictures of her, so I don’t know if it went CSX or not), and finally a Tyco GP7, or GP9 painted as Santa Fe 5826. All three locomotives run just fine the way that they are, I would like to paint the GP40-2 in its current CSX colors, paint the GP38 as Yadkin Valley 3615 or 3616 (part of the Gulf & Ohio-owned short line here in Troy), and paint the GP7or9 in a slightly modified ATSF yellow and dark blue (possibly black) paint scheme as the local switcher at the feed/grain mill just south of Troy, in Pronto, AL. The wife wants to know about any possible monetary value in the engines the way they are, I’d say none, but she wants to know.
I would say no based off of what I know about those manufacturers. Tyco and Life-Like are usually seen as the lower end models and probably don’t carry much of a value unless they are extremely old. As for the Athearn 40-2 I have several of those and have never paid more than $30 for one. I buy them to detail and then custom paint.
Believe it or not, some people actually collect old Tyco’s!! The key word is old - 20+ years. The LL is a toy train set “quality” loco, so it & the Tyco are practically worthless. The Atthearn is a good reliable runner, but as previously stated, worth $30 or so. My [2c]
Depending on how good of a job you do, they may be worth more.
Cuda Ken
Part of me was thinking the same thing, and the Tyco is at least 20 years old, it was part of train set that my dad had for as long as I can remember (I’m 25 and we had it set up since at least the time I was 3 or 4 at the oldest because I remember sitting up on top of the benchwork in the middle of the set and watching dad run it around), but the other two I got in my preteen and teenage years.
Well now that I’ve got the questions of paint out of the way, i was wondering if anyone could help me with the issue of possibly doing some extra detail work on all three of the engines before I start slapping paint and new decals on. I’m faily certain that I can get a TON of super-detail kits for the Athearn, but what about the other two? Anyone know?