Well that was three days I'd like to have back. After decades of collecting, well mostly just storing, old Lionel trains it has come time to let them go. I started collecting in the early 90's just around when Craigslist came to be and before eBay and Facebook Marketplace. It was a time when the find, or the get, was the best. You either had a great find locally at an estate or garage sale, found it at train shop, or attended one of the big train shows. One big difference between train and the fly fishing shows, at least way back when, it that it was a hobby that young kids, both boys and girls, were into.
While I could make this a long sappy post about fatherhood and my boys and the life I used to have, I'll spare you. Most of the pictures from when I was a tot and the kids were tots too are already packed away in one of the yellow and black Home Depot bins. But I did find one just to go with this post.
That's Christmas 1999 when Sean was one and Ryan was three. The year each of them were born I bought them one of the starter sets that Lionel put out each year. Inside the box cover I wrote them a little note about how they should hold onto it and pass it on to their kids. Let me tell you, kids today don't have the same attraction to things of their youth nor the youth of their father, grandfather, or great grandfather. Looking at old pictures for me is a double edged sword. There's always something that bums me out. In the above picture I'm sporting a "Northern State General Contractors" shirt, that was a company, a legit LLC, that I started with a once friend from the firehouse. We did home repairs, built decks, and did masonary work. It was a chapter in my life I had thankfully forgot about.
So like anything else I hold onto it was sad going through everything. Most of these trains have been through a journey since I started collecting in the 1990's. They've went from West Orange, to Red Bank, to Ocean Township, back to Red Bank, to Middletown, and have settled in their final resting place in Titusville. They've been in storage units, garages, attics, and flooded basements. Collecting trains went from finding a bin in an attic at an estate sale to finding "Mint in the original box" online. Needless to say some have lost they've lost their sparkle and shine when I cared for them like they were my kids.
So I went through the basement and every bin and did my best to clean them up to display them for any potential buyer. If you've sold on Facebook Marketplace then you know what a pain in the ass it can be. I have the entire lot listed for $7,000 which will go towards paying for Cape May this year. Truthfully, from a mental health perspective, it would have been healthier with time better well spent if I just ordered a dumpster and tossed everything, the actual trains and the pain that touching them again, has brought.
Like my Pyrex collection that is now sitting down in Maryland I had to pick a few pieces to hold onto. One of Ryan's favorites was a set of Sante Fe 2383 diesel Post-War engines. I can remember working a little extra in order to afford them and the shipping after finding them on some train selling forum way back when. So now they sit all alone waiting to be packed up with another resting place to be determined.
Some of these trains, well a lot of them, come from a period called Pre War, or before World War II. And most are what they called Standard Gauge, the biggest and heaviest you could find. One train, a coveted 440e, is 32 inches long and weighs 15 pounds. Hence, why I'm selling it
in person and not shipping it. That piece alone is worth at least $1,000 so whoever has 70 - $100 bills should be happy. But, these days, who's really into trains and who has 70 - $100 bills that can be used for a hobby.
Now that I've set them all up for viewing and have listed them I just want them to all go away. What was once will never be again and it's time to end the madness and the holding on to the past. "It's over Johnny", and it's time to realize that was then and isn't a part of my life today. I'll just have to hold onto the pictures and the few pieces I kept for myself. Of course I did my own pick before I took pictures otherwise the potential buyer may ask, "Hey, where's those engines?".
If you're interested or want to see the listing, it's
HERE.
