Rare modern Lionel and mth cars

OK, I'll bite. Try and find a Lionel 29909 I Love Maryland boxcar for under $200. 

How about the scale Lionel Blue Comet StationSounds dining car, 6-15406?

I have seen them sell between $500-$1000. Rumor has it less than 100 were made.

MTH made a few coil cars that are quite difficult to find. It took me a few years to turn up one EJ and E coil car, and I have noticed that one for IHB is pretty rare too. There are a few others that escape me at the moment.

J White

I'm sure there are hundreds of cataloged Lionel pieces made over the past 45+ years that would qualify as desirable or "hard to find".  

Excluding yearly Christmas and limited run club cars most are not worth anywhere near the premium some folks ask.

However, there are a few real gems in the pile worth taking an extra look.

You'll need to do your homework to figure out which ones they are and to keep from getting ripped off.

Joe 

For whatever reason, the 16470 Naughty and Nice ore car 2 pack is another regular production item that has held its value quite well.  Originally MSRP was $59.99, typical prices today are about double of that.

quote:

Can anyone list and post pictures of some rare modern cars?  I'd like to look for some cars that have value but are new and not vintage. Cheers!

If you look at collecting in the early MPC era, you will see that most of the items that were considered rare and valuable shortly after their release are no longer trading at their peak prices.
Most experienced folks advise against buying trains as an investment.
Buy trains you'd like to have and enjoy them.

Should I place mine in the vault?  I had no idea it's rare, but do love the "scenes" it plays during a trip. 

There is a concept called "limited market". I first read about it in the Toy Collector by Louis Hertz.

There might have been ten people who would pay $1,000 for that blue comet car. Once they have theirs, the next guy might only pay $900. And the next guy after that might only pay $800. and so on.

So, what's the car worth?

That's true of all mass produced collectables, not just toy trains. Hertz used a cast metal car as his example.

Another thing some people tend to overlook is that "rare" doesn't always equate to "valuable" at least where valuable is equated to $$$.

I used to drive a 1967 Ford Falcon Futura Sports Coupe with a high-peformance 289 V-8 and 4-speed toploader "rock crusher" transmission.  This was the only year that had simulated side intake vents behind the front fenders and the final year that had round tail lights.  These are also nowhere near as common to see anywhere as 1963, 1964 and 1965 Sprint models, yet the latter are far more popular and have a higher dollar value.  But yet, because what I owned was not as common to see made it more interesting to me when mixed in with a sea of the more commonly-sighted cars when I used to show it at car shows & meets.

quote:

Another thing some people tend to overlook is that "rare" doesn't always equate to "valuable" at least where valuable is equated to $$$.

How come you never see things this way when we are "discussing" why collectors collect?

Exception doesn't drive the rule.

Like I said in one of our prior discussions about that, I sense you have a tendency to grossly under-emphasize the resale aspect of collecting.  Most pre- and postwar collectors I know are concerned about the dollar value of the rare and hard to find items they own on top of the sense of pride of searching and eventually owning them.  And some get in a tizzy if Lionel reproduces them, diminishing their worth as they tend to say.  Why should they worry if it's not about the money?

I remember having an interest a few years ago in the MTH Bonamo Turkish Taffy cars.

They were going in the hundreds of dollars on eBay about 8 years ago. I just checked and the cars currently listed seem to be in the $40 to $50 range these days. Glad I never bought any.

I believe the only MTH Turkish Taffy car of any value was the extremely rare Banana flavor car. This was only obtained by buying one of the other three flavor boxcars and finding a special coupon inside for the Banana car. Someone correct me but I believe there were less than 20 of those redeemed.

It is interesting to note this is the only time in recent history (to my knowledge) a supplier offered a car in this manner.

The other Taffy cars could always be found on the aftermarket for $20-40.

There are several MTH cars that are valuable in the collectors marketplace.

Paul

These are going around my tree right now, just ahead of my mth Steelers ore car!

Never ever pay above msrp for any train in the modern era. They are not collectable no matter what others say. Plus anybody who does pay MSRP is not paying attention. 

I remember a few years ago almost anything Montana Rail Link was selling for 50% over MSRP on the Bay. I was going to sell my MTH Hi-Cube boxcar but never got around to it. I don't know what they are going for now. Also the LCCA Milwaukee Road express reefers seem to go for a lot of money, at least judging by the Buy It Now prices being asked. I have no idea if anything ever changes hands at those prices, though.

I wrote the MTH guides and noted the items that were rare and tough to find.  As others have said, rarity doesn't always (yet) equate to valuable in terms of monetary cost.  There are several cars that were produced in some significant numbers, however they became very scarce on the secondary market due to their appeal to operators and collectors alike.  Many of the recent Premier High Cube boxcars fall into this category.  These cars are excellent models and are desirable for many operators and collectors alike.  Some, like the noted Montana Rail Link version, are very hard to locate now and anyone asking only MSRP for them is leaving a lot of money on the table.

In addition to the regular production cars that were produced in very low quantities, there are several custom run, private commissioned cars that MTH produced that are very hard, to nearly impossible to find.

Here's some photos for some tough, collectable cars:

Steve:

Thanks for posting.  I figured the Kennywood Arrow box car would be included on an MTH rare list.  Was going to post a photo of mine but you beat me to it.  

How about this MTH car, only 128 were made?

Bill

Looking at Steve's pictures, I see a surprising number of cars I have. Not sure why that is, just random luck of the draw I suppose. I think the Westinghouse boxcar shown is much easier to find, and less expensive when you do find it, than the Westinghouse caboose. I have the boxcar and Schnabel car and I searched for ages to find a caboose for some kind of reasonable price. I finally stumbled across a K-Line one and bought it. Didn't even know K-Line had made a Westinghouse caboose. 

As has been noted by others, what is "rare" and desirable is a function as much of demand as supply. There are a couple of MTH Premier Milwaukee Road cars - the orange covered hopper and the boxcar with the fantasy Hiawatha paint scheme - that production was way under the initial demand and prices skyrocketed. Now interest has waned and you can buy either one for normal used prices. 

Interesting view SW Hiawatha.  Perhaps regional availability has you coming across the Westinghouse Boxcar a bit more often, but in the 11+ years that I tracked, compiled and maintained information on MTH production, both in preparation for the MTH Product Reference Books that I wrote, and the maintenance and updating of them through their released, updated versions, my opinion is that the Westinghouse Caboose shows up and goes for a bit less cost wise, whereas the Westinghouse Boxcar maintains a very high collector/operator interest level and any time one is up on the online auction sites, they sell very well and sometimes for very high prices.

One thing I pointed out in the books I wrote about MTH was to address the concept of "collecting" and how a distinction must be drawn between "rare", "collectable" and "scarcity".  The word "collectable" really doesn't connote anything, especially in terms of monetary value, other than to suggest that an item produced by some entity has been made and catalogued in a manner that would allow anyone buying an item by that company or private person to know when it was made and whether it was part of a broader product line.  In this sense, anyone who bought an item from such an entity would therefore become a "collector", if they so chose to be and to be called as such, since whatever items they bought and owned, could be identified and placed amongst the broad assortment of the "collection" made.

In the direct respect to being an "MTH Collector" or "Lionel Collector" or "(fill in the blank) Collector, whether we choose to call ourselves that or not, company catalogues are the first sense anyone gets to learning about what was available.  As we learn more, we then learn of manufacturer specific guides that attempt(ed) to define the entirety of a company's offerings.  For Postwar Lionel fans, such as my father and I, the TM Guides were that defining guide to our collector driven interest.  Later on, the Greenburg Guides provided further help.  In respect to MTH, again, the early versions for the TM Guides served the same purpose for MTH products, as they had for Lionel.  My guides came along later, after a very limited Greenburg effort on MTH, and after an extensive period of time where no compilation was attempted by anyone to identify and define the broadness of just how much product MTH had made.  But my guides were written not to define "collectable" status of the product lines, as it might be construed in the monetary sense, but rather as a reference guide approach, whereby items were identified and availability of products were attempted to be defined.

It's in the definition of "availability" that my guides on MTH were written and hopefully served their purpose for other hobbyist's who had interest in the MTH product lineup.  Within this purpose, a distinction is also made to make clear that "rarity" and "scarcity" are not the same when describing certain, select items that MTH made.

An item can be "rare", while not being too terribly "scarce" in the hobby.  For instance, some of the rarest cars that MTH made were the annual "OGR Tour" boxcars, produced from 2006 to 2011.  While only about 50 of these cars were produced for their annual purpose, and they are thus "rare" cars, because they were fantasy-scheme railroad cars, and only basically served the purpose of advertising/promotion for MTH and OGR Magazine, the cars are not especially desirable to the broader hobby and thus some versions can be found without a great deal of effort to search for them.  On the other hand, the Westinghouse boxcar we talk about, is a car that was produced in some numbers, thus isn't a "rare" care in total numbers, but it has become a very desirable car to own by the broader hobby and thus can be relative hard to find now.  But a caveat must be made here:  As others have noted in their replies to this thread, sometimes a thing can become very desirable at first (re:  RK Taffy-series cars), but later lose their interest and can see a quick sell-off, and then the numbers produced soon become evident, as the offerings for sale quickly overtake the number of buyers interested in them.  This is evident with every company in our hobby, not just MTH, and anyone who purposefully "collects" can identify many items that fall under this premise.  The vast majority of items by MTH, Lionel or whomever, are made in numbers that satisfy the buying interest of the hobby it serves.  The items that are made in far lower quantities than the broad hobby interest level is, are the items that we see get noted in the general sense as "rare" or "collectable", but really they are the truly "scarce" items.

A historic example of items produced to satisfy hobby level demand, with a notable exception or two, were the MPC-era Disney items.  At the time, they came out and were sold, but because they didn't get re-made through the years, and the interest in Disney-themed items grew, these MPC-era Disney items remain popular and in demand.  I don't think that it's dumb to suggest that the recent discussion and great photos seen in regards to the MTH "Rudolph" Christmas Set would establish that particular item in the same "collectable" realm as the MPC-era Disney items.  It seems to me that they both touch a similar happy and longer-term sentimental nerve.  I wouldn't suggest to anyone owning that set, especially a complete set, to sell them off too cheaply.

I'm being very long-winded here, so excuse my indulgence, but since I've stopped updated and offering my MTH Reference Guides, I have been mulling over the thought of writing like this for a "MTH Collectors Guide" idea.

Unlike some, who simply don't understand or choose to cast off anything produced recently as being of no value or no interest, there are many within our hobby, and probably still to come into the hobby (if history is any guide), that do have interest in collecting MTH, would value knowing what really is "rare" and what really is "scarce".  Knowing the distinctions and what items fall into what category, or catagories as the case may be for some things, can help place all of what has been made into some context and broader MTH product understanding and awareness.  The same that could be said for postwar-Lionel holds true going forward for all the brands we've seen come and go, and remain beloved today.

Hi Bill,

Yes, that Southern Division TCA car is a tough item to locate.  It's unique too, with the car graphics and stands alone as an item in the MTH line up.

Cars like that are the cars that might be destined for collector interest down the road.  I'm not a rivet-counter type, and make the following statement with some level of ignorance, but because I believe that car is not a "fantasy scheme" car, but rather something that is prototypical or close enough to prototypical to be construed as being something actually run on the Southern Railroad, that makes the car more desirable to operators and thus potentially more sought after by both operators and collectors alike.

Some of the most sought after cars now are the nice 50' Hi-cube Boxcars, as collectors, operators and those who only want prototypically correct cars in their collections have been buying up all that were made.  If you were to search the popular online auction site, you'd see that the large majority of these Hi-cube Boxcars available are the fantasy-scheme versions offered as part of the NS Heritage offerings for each engine design.  Their appeal seems to be hit or miss, however the cars that are prototypical designs, like the TTX/Railbox version especially, are going for 2x or even 3x MSRP.

Thanks for sharing that photo.  I too have the car and thought about showing it, but I figured I put up enough photos initially.  I know I could put up another 20, 30 or 40 other car photos of some desirable and thus "scarce" cars that now make up the core of what is collected today. 

Simply not true.  Not to you perhaps, but to others, what has been true for other eras and other brands, is still true today for MTH or K-Line or whatever brand you name.

The Kennywood Arrow Car was hard to come by because a semi-local shop sent a posse' into the park, where they were exclusively sold, and bought most of them up.  Needless to say they then tripled the price of the car in their store.  So if you weren't lucky enough to get to the park first thing, you were SOL.

While I love capitalism, some folks just give it a bad name.

True enough, but the fact that this car, and a few others similar to it, had its normal distribution method outside of the hobby, plus the very low production of only 392 pieces, make this one tougher still.  The 3rd car in the series, the Phantom's Revenge boxcar, was also distributed the same way, but was made in a greater numbers.

Unlike the Kennywood 100th Anniversary version, which could be ordered by hobby shops from MTH and their normal order and distribution network, this "arrow" car was exclusively sold initially at the amusement park.  Some were able to call and have the cars mailed to them, but the cars were pretty much gobbled up in the first week or two.

This one is a rare car, and though not a prototypical railroad car decoration, its low number production appears to not satisfy the regional demand and hobby demand coupled onto it.

OK, time for some very hard to find modern Lionel items.

Off the top of my head, a few boxcars:

29206, 29229 and 26228 Vapor Records employee boxcars.

The 29206 and 29229 differ from the common versions (29218 and 26208).

26284 New York Toy Preview, made for a show that was to be held in NYC.

Forget if the show was canceled or Lionel didn't attend, but a very limited

number of boxcars were available on the Lionel website. Reportedly just

57 cars were made.

9764 GT boxcar with the 9-90 built date.  Special run of cars made in 1990 for the GT Railroad board of directors.

Really? I believe I have one of these sitting in the box stashed away on shelf somewhere.

Who knew?

OK, time for some very hard to find modern Lionel items.

Off the top of my head, a few boxcars:

 

29206, 29229 and 26228 Vapor Records employee boxcars.

The 29206 and 29229 differ from the common versions (29218 and 26208).

 

 

The 29206 is on the "Holy Grail" list for me, but I don't expect to ever see one for sale. (and if I did, I'm not sure I could justify to myself paying the price that would likely be asked, not that I am complaining)  Every time I look at a box end and the seller asks me if I am interested, they 99% of the time suggest to me that the 29218 is the "only" grey and purple Vapor boxcar ever made, which is of course not true.  I'm pretty sure I have the other 2 you refer to (2nd version of standard Christmas car with the Vapor Wolf, and the Blue Snowman car)

I just reviewed the article Todd Wagner wrote for the 1999 Tom McComas Price Guide, and the story for the first one seems a little more complicated, in that the label on the box (or maybe it's shipper, but text just said "box") actually says 29606 instead of 29206.  It reads as though there are no differences in the external graphics, either, just some differences you can see on internal markings.

The Vapor Snowman car seems to show up somewhat regularly now on train show tables, though I have not been tracking prices diligently.  I believe asking prices are far less than when the car first came out.

-Dave

Thank you Ed and Dave on the info on these cool Lionel Vapor Records cars.  Though my attention and direction went towards MTH over twenty years ago, my father and I enjoyed a large collection of postwar-Lionel and MPC-era Lionel at an earlier stage of my hobby enjoyment, and seeing these cars and reading about their backstory is an enjoyable read.  I knew little of these cars, and I think attempts to document their stories, as well as those of MTH, K-Line, Atlas and others is important.

If you can't tell, I'm enjoying this thread.  Not just because I can contribute something, but I hope others might chime in and talk about what is known on some of the K-Line stuff or perhaps the Atlas items as well.

Dave 45681 - For the longest time I would check boxes on the grey Vapor car, but never found a 29206 (box labeled 29606) by accident.  There is an article by Jim Bunte, who worked at Lionel when the Vapor cars were made, in Toy Collector Magazine:

http://toycollectormagazine.co...atures&Itemid=62

Two more hard to find Lionel boxcars:

52054 Carail - not made available to general public, looks similar to the 52053 TTOS but has the Lionel circle L logo where as the 52053 doesn't.

25912 Lionel custom 2013 holiday boxcar. Available only from lionel.com in 2013 with the purchase of a North Pole Express.  Purchasers of the car were able to customize the graphics printed on the side of the car.  I've yet to see one of these cars for sale.

From what I have been told I have 3 freight cars from the MPC era that fall in super rare category. I know I have been offered a nice chunk of change for them.

I believe the rarest of the rare for a modern era Lionel set has to be the

Mervyns set.

If I recall, six sets made and all were given away in a Christmas store raffle.

Joe

I would like to think the Lionel Vision Ethanol Tank Cars should be ranked up there, tough set to find.

I think the number on the Mervyns set was 200 or 250. Over the years, I've seen a few of them for sale.

In 2011 there was an "artist enhanced" Lionel Coca set offered, initially 5 were created as prizes but I believe later an additional 125 were made.

Steve,

Do you know if the CWI boxcar above (20-93155) was issued with 2 numbers as most Premier cars were?  I was lucky enough to get the one shown (#001) within the last year or so, and I think the High Cube set started at #003, so I suspect #002 was available on the 93155. 

I don't see 93155 for sale too often, but this is one I've been on the lookout for to "complete" my CWI collection. (or at least "complete" it in terms of items Tony had enough of made that he offered them to others in some fashion - I'm assuming he probably had a few things done over the years that were mostly just for him and very close friends/family)

-Dave

Bill T - Quite some time ago the Nabisco cars were featured in the OGRR Collectors Gallery.  The person responsible for these cars worked for Nabisco at the time and still is active in the hobby, still does some of the larger NJ area shows as well as York PA.

Dave,

Yes.  The 40' CWI Boxcar was the first car Tony Lash commissioned MTH to make.  It came in two car numbers, #0001 and 0002.  The subsequent 6-car 50' Hi-cube set continued the car number sequence, as did two of the 60' Flatcars, but the 3-bay Hoppers and second set of 60' Flatcars didn't have the sequential numbering on the cars, though the trash containers themselves did have numbering that suggests adherence to the numbering up from the beginning.

Tony produced the cars and offered most of them for sale directly.  It's my understanding that a much lower percentage of the production run for first car, the 40' Boxcar, were made available to the public.  The 6-car set was made and distributed through a Mason, OH dealer, Dixie Union Station.  The other remaining car sets were offered and sold at the York Show, as well as through personal contact with Tony, I believe.  No more than 256 cars were produced, of any style/offering.

Steve, greatly enjoying your input to this thread.

Can you share a little light on the Blue C&O Chessie System Traditional Sized Boxcar in your photos?

You and I met at York many moons ago in one of the parking lots. You had a book of very cool pictures and articles that you took the time to share. I forget who introduced us.

I'd be interested if anyone has input on K-Line items...

Once again, I am enjoying this thread very much.

all the best,

Paul