Factory Error Blue Comet From The MPC Era?

I am not certain what year Lionel added prefixes to their parts numbers. According to the Modern Era service manual page on passenger cars with six wheel operating trucks, dated 5-77, the part number of a 9537 Halley passenger car body would be 9537-3. The roof was 9537-17.

The car may not have come from the factory.
It may have been assembled from parts afterwards.
I know a few people who like to put things together from parts.

It could be a rare factory pre-production sample and it's probably worth millions of dollars.    

"Incomplete" engines and rolling stock did leave MPC factories....My new 18301 Southern Trainmaster arrived minus hand rails on one complete side and end....

Fortunately, they did have parts to apply under warranty.

The part number 00-9537-004 is correct for what you have -- a fully painted but not decorated Blue Comet combination car body. In the production process, there was an interim part number assigned after each process was complete, in this case paint. These part numbers weren't typically published, but were used to keep track of parts as they were moved (and sometimes stored) inside the plant.

There are three part numbers like this for the Blue Comet set:
00-9536-004 Blue Comet Baggage Car body for the 6-9536
00-9537-004 Blue Comet Combination Car body for the 6-9537
00-9538-004 Blue Comet Passenger Car body for the 6-9538 and 6-9539 Coaches as well as the 6-9540 Observation Car because they all use the same painted part prior to decoration and assembly

Since someone wrote the part number inside, your shell was likely used as a reference or quality control sample, but as you noticed, it shouldn't differ from regular production.

Having said all the above, a few dozen uncompleted Blue Comet shells popped-up in the marketplace in the early 1980's. I never really figured out if they were rejects, or just unneeded work-in-process parts although I've heard they were "dumpster rescues." it's possible your car was one from that batch. Either way, I'm fairly certain it was assembled outside the factory.

I hope this helps.

TRW

Very cool information, TRW!

Thanks TRW! This is so much more info than I would've imagined.

While on the subject of oddities, here's another marked item I have. Its an MPC 9152 Shell single dome tank car shell, but with a tag printed in red "Approved", then approved by 22, date Dec 5, 1974, and Lionel/MPC 00-9152-003. What's odd is that the built date on the car is 2-73, and the car has black plastic ends with postwar circle L logo and 6315 number molded in. Why would this shell be "approved" some year and ten months after it was built? The only other MPC tank car I have to compare is a 9324 Tootsie Roll car from 1979, and the postwar markings are not on the ends. The molding of the tank and ends even looks different,  in that there's a white dimple on the top of the tank on the Tootsie car, but not on Shell. I can't get a clear picture to show up of the black ends though.

Here's another try at the ends.

Sam Jumper posted:

About two years ago I bought a used and box-less Lionel Blue Comet locomotive and eight cars from the MPC era........

Since that set didn't come with eight cars, someone upstream of you picked up some additional ones, obviously. No lettering, no gold striping - looks like a production sample, or something like that, as others have said. Along with the Shell tank car with the tag you have, it looks like you bought from someone who decided to unload some samples he had, maybe having figured out that they weren't worth as much as he'd dreamed. They probably would have been worth more 20 years ago, but now, not too much.

Having said all the above, a few dozen uncompleted Blue Comet shells popped-up in the marketplace in the early 1980's. I never really figured out if they were rejects, or just unneeded work-in-process parts although I've heard they were "dumpster rescues." it's possible your car was one from that batch. Either way, I'm fairly certain it was assembled outside the factory.

As far as I am concerned, PaperTRW is an authority.

To clarify my earlier statement, whether it was assembled in the factory, or afterwards, I think it is still an interesting item to own. I've picked up a few undecorated or partially decorated items over the years. Some are Postwar Lionel, others are from the Modern era (1970 and beyond). I don't think I paid a premium for any of them.
There are people who actively collect these oddities.

A well known Postwar Lionel partially decorated item is the 2041 Rock Island ALCO shell. They have their red band painted, but are unlettered. Many years ago Carl Shaw told me the shells were taken from their storage facilities.

Another relatively common shell is the 645 Union Pacific switcher shell. They are found without any lettering, or with lettering only on one side.

TRW worked there so his answer is the one I'd go with.

Lot's of Lionel rejects were taken from their dumpsters and assembled then sold. Lionel started smashing rejects but a lot of stuff was still found and reused.

Jim

Sam Jumper posted:

While on the subject of oddities, here's another marked item I have. Its an MPC 9152 Shell single dome tank car shell, but with a tag printed in red "Approved", then approved by 22, date Dec 5, 1974, and Lionel/MPC 00-9152-003. What's odd is that the built date on the car is 2-73, and the car has black plastic ends with postwar circle L logo and 6315 number molded in. Why would this shell be "approved" some year and ten months after it was built? The only other MPC tank car I have to compare is a 9324 Tootsie Roll car from 1979, and the postwar markings are not on the ends. The molding of the tank and ends even looks different,  in that there's a white dimple on the top of the tank on the Tootsie car, but not on Shell. I can't get a clear picture to show up of the black ends though

1. That's the standard sample approval tag used from the early 1970's through the mid-1980's.

2. What you've identified as being approved by "22" is actually "FF" for Fred Freeland, the engineer doing a lot of decoration approvals in those days.

3. The date printed on MPC-era rolling stock was used to indicate the first time a piece was made, in this case 1973. Contrary to what is generally known and has been printed in virtually every book available, the "2" does NOT signify a date. Items were typically cataloged over several years in the 1970's (1973-1976 in this case), and sometimes that meant multiple production runs. The 9152 was produced at least twice, and it's possible you have the decoration sample for that second (or maybe third?) run. When additional production runs were needed in later years, typically the printed date was not changed. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but it holds true 98% of the time. This explains why the car says 1973 but your sample was approved in late 1974.

4. Similar to the "-004" level of your Blue Comet car above, the -003 part number signifies a fully "stamped" (decorated) item without trim. Technically, the two black ends shouldn't be there for a true -003, (those were added at the -002 level) but I'd leave them on.

5. That's the same tooling used to produce your 9152 and 9324 Tootsie Roll tank cars, but as you've noticed, modifications had been made over the five years or so between the two. The molded-in lettering on the ends disappeared sometime in 1974 or early 1975. What's interesting is that the MPC people made it a point to remove all traces of things like the Circle-L in the early 1970's (for example, the 6822 searchlight hood), but they missed it on these ends for several years. If I remember correctly, the 9152 can be found with and without the lettering on the ends.

6. I'm guessing the two items circled above were what you were referencing when you mentioned a "dimple" on the top of the tank not found on the 9152. These were locating/indexing points added to the tooling when the 9278 Lifesavers tank car was produced in 1978. That car was decorated with self-adhesive decals, which had notches cut into them to correspond with those points on the car. This was to be sure the decals were properly centered when hand-wrapped around the body. Even though those features were only needed for that car, they were never removed from the tooling.

7. Just curious... where'd you find the sample?

TRW

PaperTRW posted:

Sam Jumper posted:

While on the subject of oddities, here's another marked item I have. Its an MPC 9152 Shell single dome tank car shell, but with a tag printed in red "Approved", then approved by 22, date Dec 5, 1974, and Lionel/MPC 00-9152-003. What's odd is that the built date on the car is 2-73, and the car has black plastic ends with postwar circle L logo and 6315 number molded in. Why would this shell be "approved" some year and ten months after it was built? The only other MPC tank car I have to compare is a 9324 Tootsie Roll car from 1979, and the postwar markings are not on the ends. The molding of the tank and ends even looks different,  in that there's a white dimple on the top of the tank on the Tootsie car, but not on Shell. I can't get a clear picture to show up of the black ends though

1. That's the standard sample approval tag used from the early 1970's through the mid-1980's.

2. What you've identified as being approved by "22" is actually "FF" for Fred Freeland, the engineer doing a lot of decoration approvals in those days.

3. The date printed on MPC-era rolling stock was used to indicate the first time a piece was made, in this case 1973. Contrary to what is generally known and has been printed in virtually every book available, the "2" does NOT signify a date. Items were typically cataloged over several years in the 1970's (1973-1976 in this case), and sometimes that meant multiple production runs. The 9152 was produced at least twice, and it's possible you have the decoration sample for that second (or maybe third?) run. When additional production runs were needed in later years, typically the printed date was not changed. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but it holds true 98% of the time. This explains why the car says 1973 but your sample was approved in late 1974.

4. Similar to the "-004" level of your Blue Comet car above, the -003 part number signifies a fully "stamped" (decorated) item without trim. Technically, the two black ends shouldn't be there for a true -003, (those were added at the -002 level) but I'd leave them on.

5. That's the same tooling used to produce your 9152 and 9324 Tootsie Roll tank cars, but as you've noticed, modifications had been made over the five years or so between the two. The molded-in lettering on the ends disappeared sometime in 1974 or early 1975. What's interesting is that the MPC people made it a point to remove all traces of things like the Circle-L in the early 1970's (for example, the 6822 searchlight hood), but they missed it on these ends for several years. If I remember correctly, the 9152 can be found with and without the lettering on the ends.

6. I'm guessing the two items circled above were what you were referencing when you mentioned a "dimple" on the top of the tank not found on the 9152. These were locating/indexing points added to the tooling when the 9278 Lifesavers tank car was produced in 1978. That car was decorated with self-adhesive decals, which had notches cut into them to correspond with those points on the car. This was to be sure the decals were properly centered when hand-wrapped around the body. Even though those features were only needed for that car, they were never removed from the tooling.

7. Just curious... where'd you find the sample?

TRW

Hello TRW.........

My lionel # 9331 Union "76" tanker has those dimples you're talking about and I wondered what they were for until just now what you explained make a lot of sense !!! Thank you

Tiffany