More Lionel Trains Bargains From eBay! - 6 Postwar Cars Under $30 Total!

Another eBay bargain box on this episode of Toy Train Tips and Tricks. Hello again, this is Mike with another episode of Toy Train Tips and Tricks. And this is another bargain eBay purchase. And so we're going to open this up, take a look at what we've got inside. The first tip that I keep in mind when I'm looking for bargain items on eBay and other online sources is I look for assortments of items rather than specific items. Things where a bunch of cars are thrown together. These can be marked as assortments, they can say mixed lots, or sometimes they say for parts or repair. Look them over and just look for a bundle of items, and sometimes you can find bargains there. The second thing I try to do is when I'm putting up my bids, I try to think of this assortment on a per car basis. I think, what would be the maximum amount that I would pay per car? Is it $3, $4, $10, $15 for that particular assortment? In this case, I was looking to keep it under $5 per car. So let's open up and see what we've got in here. Pretty bell pattern. Lots and lots of paper. All right, so let's have Chris the Uphore app and see what we've got here. Well, let's start with this one. This is a number 3559 Duff Car. This is essentially the same design as the pre-war version from 1938, except that it has post-war trucks. I don't know if I'm going to run this on the layout or not. I'm not a particular fan of the design. Even by pre-war standards, it is really unrealistic. We'll see if it works, and if it does, I may keep it around. Otherwise, I can always salvage it for the trucks. 3559s were made from 1946 to 1948, but these are very common. You know, $5 to $10. All right, and next we have the Lionel 6457 Caboose. Now you look and you say, well, it's a common SP Caboose. But really, starting in 1949, this was the top of the line Lionel starter set Caboose. Not only do we have cupboards at both ends, we have the window inserts, we have the smoke jack, and it is lighted. And there is something rattling around inside. I'm going to have to see what that is. But you see the pickup here for the lighting. Looks like a little bit of oxidation there that somebody has cleaned up and then painted over. This is a nice one. It has all the details that were offered. These were from 49 to, I believe, 52. This is definitely worth more than $5 as is. Very nice Caboose. These are usually more like in the $20-$25 range in DC. Let's start. We've got a 6419 Macawana Work Caboose. This is a nice one. We've got the cupboards at both ends. All of our handrails are there. Our brake wheels are there. We've got the smoke jack. Could use a work Caboose for my work train to go along with my 6560 crane. Definitely, again, worth more than a $5 car. This would normally go more like $15-$20 in this condition, I would think. Okay, this one is my dud of the group. View that. First of all, I already have a 6B14 that is in much better condition than this is. We've got all kinds of staining. This is not original. The 6B14 would not have had the metal trucks. These metal trucks obviously have been exposed to water. We've got lots of oxidation here. I think I can clean that up though and make these salvageable for a different car. The shell is probably trash. I don't even know if I'll be able to clean that up. But I'll definitely be recycling the trucks, seeing if I can clean those up and get those on a different car that is in better shape. And that brings me to the third tip on finding these eBay bargains. And that is, remember that parts are valuable too. Even if you're bidding on cars that may not be in the best shape, sometimes you can find value in the pieces of the cars. Whether that be the trucks, or the coil covers, or things like that. Don't forget that there's added value there as well. All right, here we have a customized. This was originally a New York Central 6462 Common. Gone to look audibly black. This has been customized. It's not a great job. You can still read the NYC. Here's the logo. They added their own decals where you can see the outline of the decals. Not a really great paint job. But again, we've got a good set of post-war trucks and lightened coil covers. These alone are going to be worth more than the $5 I paid for the car. Plus the trucks. This is a salvage car. But again, between the trucks and the coil covers, worth more than the $5 I paid for. And last, but not least, we have the Lionel 6672 Santa Sane Mechanical Reefer Car. Root of the Chief. We got some nice graphics on here. These were built from 1954 to 1956. This was a totally new car design for Lionel at the time. So again, we've got the nice metal trucks in good condition. We just had this single metal bar as the main underframe. Everything else is plastic except for right over here. And this is cool. This is our control panel for the refrigeration unit. So instead of having to ice these down, these would have a little generator. But that's really cool graphics for Carrier right there. And the little control panel. I had never noticed that before. I'd seen these at shows, but I'd never seen that up close and personal. That's really cool. Okay, so again, six cars. Definitely worth more than the $30 that I paid. Let's clean these up and see what happens to them on the layout. The last tip that I keep in mind when I'm placing my bids for these items is do not forget to calculate the shipping and tax as part of your overall cost. Sometimes those shipping prices can surprise you. So in the case of this assortment, I was aiming for under $5 a car, including shipping and tax. And in this case, it came out to $29 and some change. So I made that goal. And as you see, the dump car works perfectly fine. So I'm going to leave it alone. I mean, you don't always find cars that are 75 years old that are in this nice condition and still working as well as they were designed. I hope I still work as well when I'm 75 as this thing does. So it's been saved from the scrapper. We're going to keep it. Move on to the next. So if you're looking at the 6014 car, this shell is in bad shape. Not only with the discoloration, I also noticed this little melt spot. So this was going to definitely be a salvage car. So all you have to do, you remove the one screw on the end. You could pop the shell off of the frame. And then it's just a matter of removing these horseshoe clips to get the trucks off. And we're going to salvage these trucks. And as it turns out, there is some pretty good corrosion on these trucks. So I'm going to soak these in some white vinegar overnight and see what I can do about the corrosion. All right, now let's take a look at this 6457 caboose. It looks OK, but there's something rattling around in there. So let's open this thing up and see what's going on. And the end. It's the light bulb. So funny thing, after checking through my junk box for a bulb that would fit, I thought, well, why don't I just try the original bulbs? I put the original bulb in and it works fine. So so nothing wrong with the caboose. We are ready to roll. But before we put it back on the layout, I'm going to go ahead and give it a good dusting cleaning. My preferred method for just light cleaning of this stuff is these wet wipes and, of course, some cotton swabs. These wet wipes, I find, have just enough moisture and a little bit, just a little bit of soap in it to help clean up any gunk. But the cloth also has some scrubbing ability if you run into something that's particularly tough on there. By the way, for those who are for those who are interested in variations, this is the plastic brown smokestack version as opposed to the metal. And then I'll come back with the cotton swabs and get in here at the little nooks and crannies. And I'm also going to wipe down the dust off the glass while I'm at it. OK, and we're ready for reassembly. And there it is, one clean and fully functional 6457 Deluxe 027 caboose. Now moving on to the 6672. Like the caboose, there appears to be nothing wrong with it. So I'm just going to give it a quick cleaning and we'll be ready to put it on the layout. This Velcro of some sort there, I'm going to have to take it right off. Right off. All right, and there it is ready for the layout. The 6419, likewise, no mechanical issues here. I'm just going to give it a good cleaning. The only physical issues, we are missing one step. And yeah, it looks like it took a fall because there's a little chip missing here from the toolbox, the step, you know, and some paint mix, some clay wear. But otherwise, this is in good shape. I love these with this die cast flat car on it because these are really nice and heavy. All our railings are there. I'm going to give it a good cleaning and put it on the layout. All right, and this one's ready with one more thing. One thing I forgot to mention with these post war trucks. I do give them a little bit of a hit with this light oil to help out these axles. Inside and outside, inside and outside. And it's ready for the layout. All right, and as I said, I'm going to take this car. I'm going to salvage it for the trucks in order to get to the trucks on these guns. You have to first there are four metal tabs, one, two, three, four. These two I've already done. You have to gently peel these metal tabs up and out of these plastic tabs. And that's what holds the steel frame to the plastic shell. So I'm just taking with some pliers and using the holes there. To help me out up and away. And now they separate. And so now I can get to the horseshoe clips to remove the trucks. OK, and the trucks are removed. These are in good shape. I don't need to do anything with these corrosion wise. These are ready to put on the other car. And the coil covers are free to be used on any gun I like. So now I'm going to take the trucks that I salvaged from this 6462 and take these trucks and I'm going to put them in this MPC gun. And longtime viewers will recognize this from my last bargain batch of eBay cars. So there's a couple of problems with going straight from the post-war trucks to an MPC car. So with the post-war trucks, you put these in and there was a hole and there was a horseshoe clip that holds it on. Well, the MPC, first of all, the hole is smaller than the little stud there on the truck. So that's the first problem. The second problem is once you get it in the hole, you see how this is countersunk. And so you can't get the horseshoe clip on there. And even if you could, the plastic is thicker than the sheet metal frame and it won't fit. So we have to come up with an alternate method of mounting the truck. So the first step is simply to drill out the hole to accept the larger post-war stuff. And I'm going to slowly and carefully drill out this hole. Ah, just enough charge to get through. It will go through, but you can't get the horseshoe clip in there to hold it on. So what are we going to use to hold the truck in place? Well, from our frames over at Harbor Freight, love these tool assortments because you never know what you're going to find, what you're going to need. And the very smallest O-ring in this assortment, it is a one-eighth inch diameter. That is this puppy right here that you can barely see. And we're carefully going to put it on. We're going to have to take a couple of screwdrivers to stretch it out and wrap it around. That's kind of like putting a traction tire on. Ta-da! Okay, so the O-ring is now on here. But the problem is, of course, if I pull hard enough, it's going to pop off. So I need something to encourage it to stay in place. And for that, I'm just going to use a little dab of super glue just to hold the O-ring on the stud. We're going to let that dry. And as soon as it does, we have a new gondola car where before we had scrap. Then we're going to take the trucks that we salvaged from this poor 6014. And we're going to put them on this Algoma Central gon the same way. Now remember those trucks that were all corroded and I stuck them in the vinegar. It's been about eight hours now and look clean as a whistle. Now we've got good as new trucks. So step one is we're going to drill it out. Okay, so I've drilled out my holes. Let's make sure that the truck studs fit. Beautiful. All right, then once again, let's go ahead and put those on there. All right, that one went on much easier. And wow, that one went super easy. I must be getting better at this. All right, now it's important when I glue this on. I'm just going to glue the O-ring to the stud. Make sure that none of it gets on the car itself because you want the truck to be able to rotate freely. So just a little bit. Well, hey, there we go. Right around that seam. Same thing on this side and that ought to hold it in place. And so to recap, four cars were perfectly fine, just as they were with just a little bit of cleaning and lubing. They were ready to go. Two other cars were substandard, but they were able to donate their trucks for cars that were in the junk box. And so now we have a total of six perfectly good cars for under $30 total. As always, I hope you enjoyed watching this video as much as I enjoyed making it. And if so, please tell your friends and your neighbors and especially that almighty YouTube algorithm by giving us a like, a share, a subscribe. Give us a comment about great finds that you found on eBay. Also, don't forget to check the video description for items that we mentioned in this video and some of the parts that I used. So go out and find some bargains, make some repairs and get those trains running and keep them running until we catch you next time on Toy Train Tips and Tricks!