Hey Folks,
Just thought I'd mention, that if you ever drive through or near the town of Culpeper, VA, you may find it interesting to stop in at the Minuteman MiniMall,, on Rt. 522, about 1 mile southeast of Culpeper town limits. This is the old road that connects Culpeper to Fredericksburg. (It is also called the Fredericksburg Rd, and then a little further on it is called Germanna Highway.
The mall is just a typical small town flea market mall (in one brick building), except that one small corner inside the building has been walled off to create a separate train shop. The shop has lots of O gauge stuff, including engines, rolling stock, track and old transformers, including some old ZWs. The engines and rolling stock are almost all used, but lots of them are in their original boxes. (Look immediately to your left when you walk in.) Lost of HO stuff as well.
The condition of the train stuff runs anywhere from Good to VG+. I don't think they have very much NIB. The price of everything is marked on it.
Now what makes this flea market shop different is that the man who runs the train shop is extremely meticulous and knows everything there is to know about model trains. Because of this, everything is neatly organized onto different shelves and bins, and he keeps it that way.
The prices are negotiable, and the store is always open when the mall is open, but that man who runs it is generally only there from about 2pm to 7pm on Friday afternoons.
But here's a little secret: If you buy for cash any one particular item that costs more than $10.00, you get a 10% discount, just for asking. All purchases are rung up at the front desk of the mall, not in the train shop.
The man who runs it acquires the train items by buying up complete old layouts, and then taking everything off of it and selling it separately. (Even some trees and assembled buildings.) There is a small amount of tintype, but mostly Marx cars and steam locos, although he had an old Blue Comet in their for a while. He seems to price everything by going straight to the latest used price guide, and I think he has them all.
If you aren't too picky about what you buy, you can almost certainly find something to interest you. And, you never know what you might find.
(I found a 1927 Lionel Lines series 800 tintype red caboose, with all original paint, in VG+ condition, marked at $15! I snatched it up, and that car got me interested in tintype.)
And, I often find worn out cars that I buy just for the parts, such as rollers and couplers.
Definitely worth 30 to 45 minutes of your time to root around in the store a bit. (Unless you are only interested in high end command control stuff.)
Hope this is useful info to some.
Mannyrock
