While moving some boxes of train cars to storage containers I got a kick out of these. 
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The auto loader is one of my all-time favorite train cars. It was the top of my list when I got back in the hobby and I lucked out and got the Route 66 version with the '59 Dodges - it doesn't get much better than that!
Love those prices!
Peter
Here's one of my favorites - notice the mark down
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$2.98!!! Marked down an entire $. That's cool. Peter, yeah, the prices caught me by surprise. It's been so many years that i forgot how much we paid then. But, dropping $16 on two cars was a lot of money back then. What was the average pay back in the 60's...$400/mo.
I got this 5 Star General Set from my neighbor. His father bought it for him for Christmas 1960..
Had the original receipt from Two Guys department store... $32.88 !
The additional $8.39 was for some extra Super-O track which he also still had.
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Dem wuz the days...but that would include any not in the last two years, as far as l am concerned.
In the early 60s my dad would get alot of stuff for the layout after the new years at Korvettes,they had deep discounts
The day after Christmas in the 50's and 60's, I would hit the local hardware stores and my mother would go to Two Guys - very dangerous for small kids and women when the grown men were in a feeding frenzy!
Remembering that Lionel Trains were essentially dead-in-the-water back in the 60's, my mother bought a 6445 Fort Knox Gold Bullion car, along with a base level Porter Spear Plastics set at May Company in North Hollywood CA for 88 cents each.
@TomSuperO posted:$2.98!!! Marked down an entire $. That's cool. Peter, yeah, the prices caught me by surprise. It's been so many years that i forgot how much we paid then. But, dropping $16 on two cars was a lot of money back then. What was the average pay back in the 60's...$400/mo.
In 1960 the minimum wage was $1.00 per hour. In the later 60's $1.40 - 1.50 per hr. This is what a kid could make working at a drug store, grocery store etc. In 1960 to drop 8 bucks on a new freight car was 8 plus hours work once you figure that taxes were deducted from the paycheck. I think my father as a master carpenter made in the neighborhood of $100.00 for a 40 hour week in 1960. Trains were still deemed expensive back then when we think proportionately to then and now.
@Putnam Division posted:Love those prices!
Peter
Adjusted for inflation that $7.95 is equivalent to a little over $75 in current money. I guess today's train prices are just like the good old days 😉.
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Lou shhhhhhh .....Lionel is listening. 
