Did you ever pick anything good at a flea market/garage sale? I did and need help identifying two items.

To answer your question, not lately.    Gave up on garage/yard sales eons ago  (mostly modern stuff and not worth the gas)....and it has been a while, years ago, since I found anything at a flea market, either....(since eBay took off)  I did in the past, and sold there, too. 

I would have loved to stumble on the tender for a project I've been working on.

Garage sales in my area are 90% used clothing.

Steve

there's a large flea market once a week here, Roger's Sale. I found a 1664 shell for $5, and another time i picked up a Marx C&O hopper and tank car for $8 for the pair.

that's some great looking stuff you found.

The tender appears to be a 384T tender, which can be found with four locos; 384E, 385E, 392E, & 1835E.  You apparently know that you have the 157 Hand Truck, 161 Baggage Cart, and 58 Lamp post, but the RR Xing signs are a mystery as to who make them. 

I would say that the 3 rr x-ing signs are Lionel from their yard sign set...

Marty

The Railroad Crossing signs are from the 308 RR Xing Set, date from 1940-1942.  The Prewar versions were made of die cast, compared to Postwar later versions.  The type I had green painted bases, the type II were white painted bases.

Forgot to add that they are Lionel manufactured.  Couldn't edit the above post.

Thank you Teledoc, another question on the tender a lot of the tender you mentioned has colored stripes on the lower part of the tender, this one does not. Also the journals are copper and not nickle, all of the pictures from my books show nickle and not copper. Just curious. I will probably put the tender up for swap as I do not have a loco for it and do not have any prewar standard just prewar "O".

The only one that I found that has all black finish with copper journals is the 385E/384T Type I (referenced from Doyle's "Standard Catalog of Lionel Trains 1900-1942, 2nd edition).  The photo shows the copper journals, and NO stripe on the tender.

The available reference material, in regard to Prewar Tenders is very minimal, and hard to find.  It requires looking through multiple books, and even the pictures displayed may be wrong.  You have to consider that if you use 1942 as the end of Prewar, it is now 73 years after the fact of original paperwork.  How much paperwork from that era has actually survived, and how much can be accessed for research, is slim to none.  I do not own the TM book for Prewar (expensive in today's market), to compare the two, and see if they show differences. 

The 385E loco is listed in the $400 range for Very Good condition, and higher for better condition.  The Tender or any tender was never priced individually, to know what a value would be.  The rarity of a particular tender, as to what it mates to would be a contributing factor; Example would be Blue Comet loco and tender, where the tender is just as rare by itself.

Thank you Teledoc. I too have the Doyal book (printed 2007) as it is a great reference to Lionel Prewar.

On page 58 of this book there is a picture of the 385e with tender. This picture is with the nickle journals and no railing on the top of the tender. This could of been a tender missing the top rails and someone changed the journals and with Lionel anything could be possible. Not sure yet what I want to do with the tender, always loved standard gauge but the prices always a bit more than I can afford, I will try some train show to see if I could find a 385E at a low cost if not I will put it up to trade.. Plus I always like finding parts and making things come alive again

I've found a few interesting items at flea markets - an ancient Ives transformer for $5 coms to mind.

But like Steve says, yard sales are a bust for trains.