@Will posted:But if you find an o gauge tinplate car for less than $100 or a set or engine for less than a few hundred on Ebay or at a train show, you can be pretty sure it's common and restoring it to it's further glory is fine,
Heh Heh ... not always !
Case in point I had a Danish seller advertise a "BillerBahn" train set on ebay a year or two ago ... now when I saw it I knew immediately it was not BillerBahn at all ... but I watched it anyway because it piqued my curiousity .. and the auction came and went without a bid .. it was originally listed @ 89 Euro start bid .. but when he relisted @ 39 I thought thats cheep enough not to worry if it is some weird repro of something ( which it kind of looked like) ... It was mine for no further bids ... on arrival here I saw it did indeed have a BB trademark on it ... but research and help here turned it out to be a Bing British set made in 1934 by Stephen Bing IN THE UK when he fled from Nazi persecution of Jewish businessmen and he and Henry Katz took up residence with Bassett-Lowke, he saw the writing on the wall early .. with the only known example before this to be the set photographed for Michael Fosters reference book !
So this is set #2 ... until someone makes me aware of another one ( there is another fellow with some LNER green carriages out there but no loco ) ...
So not always a cheep ebay is a cheap ebay LOL
Now imagine if this was a bit rusty and ragged ... and on a whim I decided to "restore " it with a new coat of glassy paint ... That litho'd BB trademark would be lost to the world forever!
Sometimes the rarest things are not always the most impressive or complicated 
But for 99.99% of what you find on ebay your statement stands firm Will ! 
