I started collecting Lionel Christmas cars. What was the first year did Lionel came out with the very first Christmas car?
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Dan:
There are three ways to answer your question:
Lionel Dealer Christmas Cars: 1973
Lionel Employee Christmas Cars: 1985
Lionel Consumer Christmas Cars: 1986
I hope this helps.
Todd
I got my hat! For any of you that might have ordered your 2012 O-Gauge Christmas Boxcar a little late, it might be a bit longer to recieve them. I recieved a New Lionel Baseball Cap in the mail Friday with a note saying the production of the cars is being shipped overseas and will be a few months before shipments resume.
P.S. I have recieved a couple of writable modules Friday, so those are now becoming available.
Originally Posted by Train Dan:
I started collecting Lionel Christmas cars. What was the first year did Lionel came out with the very first Christmas car?
I have collected all the regular production Christmas cars since 1986, plus a few extra dealer and employee cars. Unfortunately, these do not seem to hold much collector value as seen from sales on the internet, which is good if you are trying to fill in dates. I just like to purchase them to run around the tree each year, then put them in storage.
BTW, my LHS did receive 3 of the Made in USA Christmas cars, so I got mine in time for Christmas.
Actually, the consumer Christmas cars began before 1986. It could be said that the regular production cars began in 1975.
Lionel began making these cars in 1973 and 1974 with two regular issue 9700-series boxcars which were overstamped with holiday messages. Only a few hundred of these were made. It is suspected that Lionel subcontracted these out because the overstampings were not of high quality. From 1975 through 1978, Lionel itself made dedicated Seasons Greetings boxcars (i.e., decorated, and not overstamped regular issue cars), although these were made in limited quantities. These cars are quite hard to find.
There was no production of Seasons Greetings cars from 1979 to 1984. Lionel made a few hundred special 9490 holiday cars which they handed out to employees in 1985. Starting in 1986, Lionel again made Seasons Greetings cars for general sale, and they have been made every year since then.
The regular production 1975-1978 Seasons Greetings cars are as follows:
No. 9778 (1975)
No. 7813 (1977)
No. 9814 (1978)
The 9778 is very scarce, and the other two aren't easy to find, either. I had the 1977 and 1978 cars in my collection at one point years ago, but never came across the 1975 car.
(Most of the foregoing information comes from the Greenberg's Guide to Lionel Trains 1970-1991 by Roland LaVoie.)
