Dave
That set sold originally at a tad under £4.00,quite expensive back in the early 60’s,but strange to say,they never sold Hornby Dublo in our Woolies here in England.They sold a line of HO trains called Playcraft made by Joueff of France-they were no good to us OO boys.
I still have the engine and coaches from that set and at a guess if you had a boxed unused set it would fetch around the $400.00 mark nowadays-you missed a real gold mine there!
Steve
Steve – thanks so much for the background information. Actually the set is used – I set it up and ran it a number of times and the box is worn – so I am sure it has lost much of its collector resale value. But yes, I could have rather cheaply acquired dozens of such sets and kept them in mint condition just knowing someday they’d have value. But then that is true of alot of things.
I remember overhearing someone remark on looking at an old photo of a traffic jam in the 1930s “I know it was the Depression back then but people must have had some money. Everybody is driving antique cars!”
Perhaps they were joking …
Dave Nelson
P.S. do you happen to know if that old style of coupler for the locomotive is still available? One is fragile and has been repaired – should probably be replaced if the locomotive was to be actually used.
BTW, folks, Woolworth is still around. They only closed all their department stores when Wal-mart spread across the land (Woolie’s was still making money when they closed…they just decided not to compete). The company itself still has another branch in the retail business. It’s called, “Foot Locker” and “Lady Foot Locker”.
Paul A. Cutler III
Similar to the “Loudon/Rocket Express” store monorails?
I recall buying cheap LifeLike HO hopper cars at Woolworths in the early 1980s for a buck, but also recall buying my first diesel (a GP in Soo livery, maybe it was AHM as I swear “Made in Solvenia” was stamped in the underframe (NOT made in “Yugoslavia”, which it probably should have as this was the late 1970s, well before the Yugo civil war) at Mays Department store in Inwood (NY)
Woolco. Oh man that name brings back fond memories. It was 1/2/75 that I got my 15 year old motorcycle license on the streets of San Antonio. The first place I went was Dicks Hobby on Austin Highway and the huge Woolco on that side of town. I remember two aisles of large pyles of HO and N scale sets at close out prices. I must have rode over their ten times in the next four weeks to check out the stuff. I came mighty close several times to buying a couple of N scale sets. I often wonder where I would be today if I had taken that plunge instead of my HO foray 12 years later where I still am.
Also does anyone from SA or Austin remember the Joskes Santa Land display. They took a whole floor and turned it into a Xmas wonderland complete with a kiddie train to ride through.
Steve B
Dave
Even with a worn or tatty box it will be worth a good few pounds over here.
Now that engine coupling you’re on about,tell me(PM off line if you want) is it metal or plastic?
If it’s plastic ,I can help you out.
Steve
It’s plastic, the one on the rear of the locomotive
Dave
Dave
Give me a couple of days,got the usual family stuff to attend to,I’ll dig around in the Dublo box upstairs then I’ll tell you what I’ve got.
Steve
This sure brings back many happy memories! Circa 1970, there were Woolworth’s stores at the Southgate Shopping Plaza in West Seneca, NY and another in the Eastern Hills Mall in the town of Clarence, NY which carried some trains, mainly AHM/Rivarossi, although not in the depth and breadth of otrher stores described in some of the posts here. I didn’t have much to spend in those days, but did pick up some Athearn PAs in NYC and EL at the Eastern Hills Mall Woolworth’s about 1972.