Thoughts on Restoration

Based on what I see there I would just repair them and run them. They are your, you can do what you like.

Rob

I agree, too good for repaint.

Steve

Since you asked: IMHO they are not in bad enough condition to repaint.

Of course they are yours to do with as you please.

As all have said, they aren't that bad really...but let me add this much to help sway you. Lets say you really want to repaint them and you use the correct colors, or any colors you like or want...what are you going to do with the observation cars railing?...replate? With fresh paint that will stick out pretty well, unless you have a new piece for that or plans on replating it. I'd hate to see you go thru all the motions painting it up only to have that fall short for you when you or anyone looks at it.

My 2 cents would be to leave the "character" it has attained over the years and run it as is till you can take care of that railing and then the paint if you really want the new look aspect.

Your train - your call...nice cars btw. 

Way too nice to restore. Leave them as they are.

Gandy

I wouldn't repaint them either. Just look at how nice they look and how well they have held up for their age.  

I agree don't repaint ...preserve .Best not to do anything that can not be undone. It is not just about value. But preserving our history and aesthetics.  If you want to do something gently clean them.  Flake ivory bar soap into some water and make a solution clean with a soft paint brush and then clean water, Dry, A little plain paste wax to shine.  Don't use modern cleaners they will damage the pre-war paint.

I would agree also: basically, don't repaint unless you have to in order to enjoy them.

If they look like these orange cars, a repaint is in order:

In this case, I vote for preservation over restoration... "They are only original once."  For my tastes, they are still in too good of shape for a repaint.  However, your trains, your choice.  I would like to see pictures of the results, no matter which path you choose! 

Repaint them. You bought the paint. Why waste it? 

i'm in a pretty cynical mood this evening, so i'll offer this advice...  go ahead, make my day.  i only have one 629/630 set, but every one that gets restored, is one less original my set has to compete with for value.  in this case, i'd certainly prefer to preserve than to repaint (i will usually reserve the term "restore" to those models which would deteriorate to nothing or generally be discarded given no intervention...  eg, remember the horrid, orange Marx CV, James?), but as it's been pointed out, it's solely up to you.

if you want pristine trains to play with, though, why not go with reproductions?

hasn't someone repro'd this set yet?

Remember it?  I love that locomotive!  It tends to get a lot of track time on my layout.  It is on the mainline right now, with a train of prewar 6" tin in tow...

This is the little gem that Gary is referring to, an early Marx reversing CV that he sent me:

Note the bend in the nose - it looked like it had been shot by a musket.  Honestly, I don't know what it crashed in to, or how fast it was going when it happened...

This is how it looks now:

The nameplate and key are reproductions and I had to machine a new weight for the governor, but everything else is original to the locomotive.  I hammered out the dent in the nose; no Bondo was used.  I even dip painted it in enamel in an attempt to replicate the original Marx process and finish.  Someday I want to learn the art of nickel plating, so I can re-plate the shiny parts...

Sorry for the detour, but I thought you guys might like to see the "horrid, orange Marx CV" - a very appropriate description!

I would leave it as it is. To repaint correctly if you go down the road of restoration, you have to ask yourself, where does "the to -do" list end? That means to me, a sort of mismatch if it's half restored. The cars are not that bad. If they were roached coaches then you would have no options as others have said. 

Bruce

Well, I would not repaint these cars. They are in nice original condition, and I am sure that if you wanted a fresh and shiny set, that you could find a much worse set fairly cheap.

It takes some time and some seasoning in the hobby, but eventually, you gain an appreciation for a piece that has survived 80+ years and still looks decent. It's a shame to restore those pieces, because, like previously mentioned, you can never replace the originality of the piece once it is gone.

Your set is not a particularly rare or odd set, so there are many examples out there that are in far worse shape, and those sets deserve restored. A restored set looks really nice, but originality is the heart and soul of a piece like yours.

Take a look around on eBay, and it is not hard to see restored pieces. They sell for about as much as their original counterpart in C-6 condition, and often are advertised as being a rare variation. For example, someone will be selling a restored 636 City of Denver in two tone green, and market it as "rare". It's not, really, because although an original green City of Denver ranks as one of the toughest O gauge prewar trains to find, a repainted one is really no different than someone painting it yellow and brown, or pink and purple, etc. You cannot create the rarity or originality of a real green one with a can of spray paint. It doesn't work that way.

Restoring pieces has merit though, because it does save a piece that otherwise may end up as trash. And, there are some exceptions to the rule on restoration, but that is mostly with pieces that are rare in their own right and don't rely on a specific, odd or unusual paint scheme. But even those, when restored, do not really have any more value than their original counterparts in the shape of your train.

In the end, you have to decide how you want to handle it. You could do a full restoration, or you could just fix the minor issues and enjoy it. I prefer a minimalist approach, and only fix what's broken, be it some die cast, wiring, or missing couplers, etc. No matter how nice or rare, I think these things should be capable or running and enjoyed.

way too nice for repaint.

"I have the correct Orange 248 from Hennings..." Sorry, but nobody makes a "correct" orange that matches the lead based prewar orange. With that in mind I'd leave the original paint and maybe rub it out with polishing compound.

Bert

Speaking for myself, my idea of what should be "restored" has changed through the years. I have some pieces I bought for repaint years ago, and now I would not consider it. Luckily they are still in the roundtuit cabinet so they are now pending clean, polish and replace only he missing items.

Steve

Nice looking cars. As others have opined, I would only do minimal repairs.

One other thought. Some guys clear coat cars or sets without repainting. This really diminishes the value for me.

I had to return a shiny clear coated Marx M-10000 coach to a dealer because it didn't come close to matching the other coaches in my set. I could still smell the paint!

Of course this is only my opinion and it is your set.

I have a rare # 10E in olive with its 3 passenger cars,  I only replaced what was missing or wore out.  Bushings , loco wheels, one headlight , wiring , one coupler and celloustry in the cars.  Just cleaned in the soap solution mentioned above then gave a coat of paste wax.  Everyone loves the set , lots of lego men have been transported in the coaches to various stops on the Christmas layout.  My son has found that Standard Gauge is the perfect scale for his lego army. 

I would clean and replace only what is broken or wore out.  Someone took good care of those cars to still be in that shape 80 plus years later.

Glenn

I agree, run them as is. The only train I ever restored was my 384 and that needed a new frame, new rims, new boiler front, etc. After replacing half of the loco it needed at least a paint job so it got a full restoration instead.

I agree. I would run them the way they are. Fix the couplers if needed. But with that said if you dont like the way they appear now and you are going to repaint them. I would do the whole car. If you just do the roofs it may stand out. So my vote goes for either a full restoration or just leave them original.

OK, the consensus is keep them as they are.  If it were just those 2 cars I would as they are the nicest of the lot.  But those cars will be attached to another 629 which is much worse and a 248 that is a mess.  As it stands I do not have pics of the other pullman or the loco.  The loco hasn't arrived yet and the other 629 has been stripped and prepped for painting.  I have decided to restore the entire set to original colors and finishes.

A few thoughts:

A few took me to task for contemplating restoring such nice original cars but offered that cars in worse condition were ok for restoration.  Who decides the line?  Restoration is restoration whether the original is a roach or a nice straight piece.  If restoration is good for the goose it has to be alright for the gander too.

I specifically chose these cars/set as they are plentiful and quite cheap in original condition.  Mine were by no means spectacular original examples or rare.  To me collector value is not what I was after here.  I'm glad to have removed some original examples from the collector pool if that makes anyone feel better.

I am quite new to the hobby and do not have a permanent layout.  For me part of the appeal lies in the work to clean/fix/restore these old toys.  The cars pictured already got the clean, buff, and wax treatment.  To be honest they looked much better in the pics than in person.  Preservation is not lost on me as I have several cars and locos that cleaned up really nice and will not get restoration.  Maybe I will come to regret my decision but I can't wait to see this set looking like new running around our Christmas tree this year.

Thanks for all the input

Scott

It is your train set so do what you want with it.

I know a lot of collectors don't share this opinion but I agree with the points you've listed... It is not a rare or valuable set and not in C7 condition, so no real harm is done to its "collectibility value" and there are plenty of untouched originals still out there.

I do not believe that every antique toy train has some special history behind it that must be preserved in "played with" condition. Once you are out of the rarefied air of the $10+ collector condition examples they're just toys. Play with them.

As for "original colors and finishes", that is another subject. Having the set all the same color, looking and running good is one thing, but restoring to "original" as it came out of the box is different. As I mentioned before, the Hennings orange does not actually match the original Lionel orange paint, but I'm sure once all the cars are painted the set will look fine.

Good luck and have fun with the project.

Bert

Restored Lionel N0. 153 with a set of repainted cars. This cobbled together tinplate set runs good, and someday the 153 Locomotive will get a can motor and an MTH PS 3 conversion.

The cars were originally Peacock Green, but I like orange with maroon trim. These cars were disassembled, cleaned and painted with rattle cans. The incandescent bulbs in the cars are being replaced with LEDs.

In my opinion, do with your trains what gives you enjoyment.

Your "where do you call the line" comment is a good one.

We've all been where you are. When I was new to the hobby, I thought restoration was a way to have nice tinplate without being able to afford the nice original pieces. You know, put time and effort into a restoration. I had experience in car restoration, so this is relatively easy. So, early on, I "restored" pieces pieces, some roaches, as you call them, but some were C-6 examples, which I would call your two cars. I was happy for a while, but then I realized a couple things.

Part of the aura of prewar is it's past. It had a life before you, probably several lives. When you restore a piece, even a roach, you destroy that, and you take away something collectors really learn to appreciate. After a while, you view a C-6 piece through the eyes of the kid that put all those nicks and scratches in it.

So when restoring things, I kinda put C-6 as my low end for originality, no matter what car, engine, etc, that it is. Now, there are some pieces that I would not restore, no matter what condition. Certain pieces like the Girard green City of Denver, China Blue cars, Ives stuff in general, I would not restore, in any condition. That's because a green Denver car is an oddity, and tough to find. Repainting an original destroys what makes it unique, the fact that it was originally green. Anyone can take a common Flying Yankee car and paint it green, but it's not a green Denver car, if that makes any sense at all.

Your pictured stuff falls in the category of "too nice to restore" for me. As for the 248 and separate car, well, if they are rough, no harm, no foul. Restoring a really bad piece saves an example of the past.

I just wanted to share my experience, because, looking back after 15 plus years, I realize that some of my "restorations" actually ended up destroying a piece's past, when, in reality, in my now "aged" opinion, they were nice items.

I restored some C-6 pieces, that now, I would now view as beautiful in their own rite. As a result, I now perform "conservation" of a piece, which is just minimal things to enhance looks and operation, like motor rebuilds, or replacing a broken or missing coupler/trim item, while refraining from doing a complete dismantle/repaint.

It's ultimately the decision of the train's owner to determine it's fate. Some collectors buy high end items, some have trains that don't run, and would not think about replacing even a decayed driver wheel because it takes originality away from the piece, while others choose to perform restorations, or own and operate modern tinplate. You just need to find out where your interests fall, and you can only do that by experiencing different facets of the hobby.

I just wanted to update this thread with the finished results.  I have ordered the motled celluloid for the upper half of the windows but it hasn't arrived yet.  I did not repaint the Peacock window/door inserts.

Scott

Scott

They turned out very nice. You did well.

Steve

Scott, they look good..nice job.

{like the CB750 & fairing too if that's yours!}

Nice work.

Thanks for the kind words.  The CB750 is mine.  My first hobby is vintage motorcycles.

Scott 

Nicely done Scott.  Good for another 100 years.  They will be very enjoyable to see running.

Nice! Trains, Tonkas, old cycles, old cars...it's all good!

I prefer my Kawi H-2 750s now though{except for the no down 5 up} 

Scott, nice job, they look great.  Thanks for the pictures!

Scott,

 They look beautiful! I have the red set and hope to find this set some time down the road.

 You did a great job!