Enlighten me - what is the significance of these Lionel cars?

My memory is a little hazy here but I believe that these were produced around the time that the 1990 700E Hudson was released. They are copies of the 4 pre-war 'Scale' freight cars and included a black single dome tank car as well as a NYC off-set caboose. As the description states, they are heavy phenolic construction to mimic the then-used Bakelite.

These same 4 (plus a few others) were also made in 00 scale and came with the 4 variations of the beautiful 00 scale No 5344 Hudson then.

Williams also produced a set of these in brass 3 Rail O  that is highly desirable.

And they were supposedly cast in phenolic resin; very much akin to the original Bakelite.

 

Jon

I bought this set some years back, when they came out, I guess. I thought that they were
overpriced, but there was not nearly the number of gorgeous rolling stock pieces
available as compared with what we've had for years now. And the "historical"
connection was appealing, though that means very little to me now. I - and O gauge -
have evolved.

But I'm glad to see that I'm rich, and as soon as I sell my boxed, never-opened set I'll
be moving to somewhere fantastic and sexy, which will make me fantastic and sexy.
Oh, yeahhhh.

BTW, I believe that only the boxcar was/is cast from phenolic resin. The caboose was zinc,
as was the hopper, and I think, the tanker. I'm open to correction. They're beautiful cars,
but so was the (mostly?) brass "copy" set offered by Williams back in their Good Brass days.

In addition to reproducing the four original Lionel cars (boxcar, tank car, hopper and caboose), LTI made three extra cars.

They were #51301 Lackawanna Semi-scale reefer,  #51402 C&O Semi-scale stock car and #51702 Pennsylvania N-8 caboose 

The four reproductions were:

51300 Shell Semi-scale tank

51401 Pennsylvania Semi-scale boxcar

51501 B&O Semi-scale hopper

51701 Pennsylvania Semi-scale caboose.

 

Generally, the most expensive of the cars is the 51702 N-8 caboose, followed by the 51301 reefer and 51402 stock. Then come the remakes of the original cars:

51300 tank, 51701 caboose, 51401 boxcar, and finally the 51501 hopper.

 

IMHO, the Ebay listings linked above are "hopeful" in their pricing.

Yep, the photo above is my Lionel set - but if the eBay prices are "hopeful", does that
mean that my "fantastic and sexy" lifestyle upgrade is in danger? Shock and awe.

Nah, not as long as there is hope!

And the seller will consider offers.

I happen to have several dealer price lists from 1991. Mike's Train House (the store) was taking orders on the four car set for $495. Individually, the hopper, tank, and boxcar were $125 each. The caboose was $145.

These price sheets do not give retail or list prices.

My Kramer reproductions from about 30 years ago are made of die cast Zamak®.  They have scale wheels and couplers, just like the original Lionel ones. The ones in the Ebay auction seem to have tinplate wheels and couplers.

 

The original Kramer dies were for sale about twelve years ago in the Yellow Hall. The price was pretty high, considering that they were old and starting to wear out, and you'd need a lot of other industrial stuff to make the actual cars, with all the applied detail parts. They were huge chunks of heavy metal.

 

Kramer Reproduction cars had a very crude "R" cast into the metal base, to distinguish them from the original Lionel cars. The dies were obviously created by copying the Lionel cars, because flaws in the Lionel castings were present in the castings of the Kramer cars.

Since we all agree these cars are worth a lot less than when they were new I am in the market for a cheap set, if they are run that is fine. A cheap 1990 Hudson would be nice too. E-mail in profile.

 

MTH also made very similar cars in diecast metal, their first railking caboose looks almost the same as the Lionel.

Just like the guys on E Bay who advertise their engines as lightly run and when they show a pic of the bottom it looks like they had the crap run outta them.
He's hoping to find someone who wants them and is willing to part with their money to buy them.
It's the E-Bay way.

David

I have the 6 cars-4 as pictured plus the Lackawanna Reefer and the C & O Stock car.  None have ever been out of the box.  BTW 51701 is an NYC caboose.  51702 was the Pennsy caboose which I do not have.  I saw the same 6 cars sell  at York a couple of years ago for $1300 and they had been run, but of course that was then as opposed to now.  Mine are for sale as a set.

I have the 4 car set shown above as well. I remember my Dad purchasing it when I came back from college. He also purchase the remake of the Lionel scale 0-6-0, which was about the same time these cars came out. They are great cars, but they are semi-scale, very heavy, and I notice the couplers cannot handle the weight, the hopper coupler opens up from time to time. So I used a black rubber band to keep it closed. My favorite is the tank car.

I have seen these go around the holidays for about 80 to 100 a piece.