Question: 1978 Seasons Greetings 7814

You may very well have the right box.  A lot of those boxes had gummed labels

that have dried up and fallen off over time.

I have a boxed 1973 M&StL Seasons greetings and a Boxed 1976 Seasons Greetings car in the original shipping carton and both cars the original boxes have no printing on the white printing panel, just blank. So yours is correct with no printing.

An interesting note about the 1976 Seasons Greeting car (#7708) is that it is the first car that spawnd all the Christmas trains and catalogs that come out every year. The 7708 was the first car to have a all Christmas graphics on the car. Previously they just took an overstocked boxcar that they had in inventory and overstamped "Merry Christmas" on the side.

Thank you Grampstrains & Chuck Sartor I appreciate your help.

 

I'll mark my inventory that this car has the Original box.

 

I love these Christmas cars and that is an interesting note about the 76 Christmas car, thank you for sharing it with me. Did Lionel stamp Merry Christmas on the cars before that or did the dealers do it?

 

Did Lionel make any Christmas boxcars from 1979-1984

 

Thank you again for taking the time to help me

1972/73/74/75 were overstamped Merry Christmas. I pretty sure Lionel did Christmas cars for those years you asked about.

The history of Lionel's Season's Greetings cars:

 

1. 1973-74: Overstamped "Season's Greetings" regular production cars given to dealers and VIPs. There wasn't a 1972 car.

2. 1975-78: Unique "Season's Greetings" boxcars given to dealers, service stations, employees and VIPs

3. 1979-84: No production

4. 1985: A unique car for employees only (very tough to find and pricey)

5. 1986-present: Unique boxcars available for purchase through dealers

6. 1991: An overstamped regular boxcar for Lionel employees

7. 1992-present: Unique boxcars given to employees and VIPs

 

TRW

Great answer, thank you!

You sure about 1972 Todd? I thought it was an overstamped State of Maine boxcar.

The 1977 holiday car the 7813 is the only Lionel car to have Star Wars featured on it. It was the year that Star Wars came out and R2D2 was printed on the car.

Chuck, I'm sure. I think you might be thinking about the 9708 US Mail Boxcar overstamp, but that's for the 1973 Toy Fair. (The 1974 TF overstamp was the 9723 Western Pacific boxcar.)

 

Both the Toy Fair and Seasons Greetings "series" started in 1973. To my knowledge, there weren't any 9709 State of Maine boxcars overstamped.

 

TRW