Do people collect MPC?

Thanks for adding another item to my wish list!

Jerru

quote:

Folks could collect/accumulate MPC till the cows come home but they'd be doing it for personal satisfaction only.

Bingo! There is no other reason to collect!

Well, there's been a lot of back and forth (and then some more!), but bottom line is this thread shows something I've suspected for a while now. To wit: Every time there's an MPC-related thread here, they go on for pages with lots of passion and excitement. There were a couple of MPC threads that got up to 8-9 pages last year.

So --Do people collect MPC?

Yes, they do! 

There was a time back in the late 80's and early 90's when the collectible craze was at its height across many avenues that my friend, Jim Berilla, at The Trading Post Train Shop in Cleveland started calling his merchandise "Lionel Investments." We got a kick out of that; fun while it lasted!

Well Lionel corp Lionel can never be reproduced.  The products can but they would not be exact.  The entity producing it could never be replicated.  So to me that makes the PW stuff unique.  But the new stuff using the same tooling is fun in a different way.

BTE what was the Lionel 100th Ann boxcar and where can it be found?

The O-27 2400 series streamlined passenger cars will never be made again in postwar fashion with aluminum frames and open vestibules since their final production in ~ 1976.

I picked up the 5712 orange box car a coupe of years ago for $39.00, new in the box. I remember back in the 80's they were going for $350-400+ And guys were buying them, don't know why. 

Waiting has its rewards.

I've heard that if you have two item's you've become a collector.

I acquired a MPC Blue Streak Freight set (1971?) that started me back in O scale trains.  I haven't found another MPC set that fit's my acquisition criteria, so I can't say I'm a MPC era "collector".

Dave

The reality is that all recently produced Lionel items are worth little. The true collector pieces are few and I predict that even they will experience a market decline as the train enthusiast market thins.

You now have the Kuhn era scale 5340 scale Hudson's (a good engine in my opinion) selling on eBay for $250.00. There are few takers. Try selling a used Legacy engine and see what it brings? That's reality.

Point is to accept that trains are toys and we buy them because we like them. 

The #5712 boxcar has always been a hard car to find with no overriding significance or additional value. 

Call it just another car Lionel can reproduce at will.  

Nice to hear you found one at a reasonable price.

Joe

>>>true collector pieces are few and I predict that even they will experience a market decline as the train enthusiast market thins.<<

If one exists I have no idea. But I'd sure like to know which pieces folks believe out of the thousands Lionel produced over the past 40 years are true collector items?  Two more candidates come to mind

Last American built steam..

Gold Hudson..

Both pieces can easily be reproduced by Lionel but their significant overriding attribute beyond scarcity cannot be duplicated. 

Joe

quote:

Last American built steam..

Gold Hudson..

Both pieces have significant collector attributes that cannot be duplicated

All a matter of perspective, and personal interest, which is as it should be.

I have no interest in either.

In another thread I mentioned that I accidentally picked up an F3 that turned out to be the last model to have a mechanical e-unit.
I think it would be interesting to collect other engines that were the last of their type to have a mechanical e-unit.  For example, the last GG-1.

Could they bring back the e-unit?   Certainly!

But the engines would still mark the end of the original mechanical e-unit period.

Are there other people that share this interest? Maybe, maybe not.
I collect for personal satisfaction only (borrowed JC642's term, it's a good one).

>>Are there other people that share this interest? Maybe, maybe not.
I collect for personal satisfaction only<<

Exactly as it should be but you're missing the point.

Only a few pieces out of thousands produced over the years could have real historic collectable value.

I suppose for some the last engine with a E unit is nice to have but IMO, it doesn't make the cut overall as a true Lionel modern era collectable.

Joe

quote:

Exactly as it should be but you're missing the point.

Not really.

Why is the historic interest in the last engine with a mechanical e-unit less than the historic interest in the last engine made in the USA?

Neither of us is likely to change the other's opinion

For me the last steam does.  

But, I"m sure neither piece draws widespread interest.

Aside from uncataloged or club items, my guess is somewhere after 45 years worth of production in the modern era lies at least ten unidentified cataloged pieces with overriding attributes to be a true collectable.

If they do exist, I'd like to know which ones other folks think they are.

Joe

Two aspects of the decline in the "collectible" market (whatever form that takes) that I don't think anyone has mentioned is the negative effect of widespread production that has occurred in more recent times, as well as the effect that electronic innovations have had on valuations of older items.

With respect to huge increases in volume of trains, back in the MPC and early LTI days, catalogs were small, and offerings were relatively few, and Lionel was the only game in town, for the most part. That meant that what items there were were fewer in number, and due to small numbers, each item had more desirability among collectors.

Then production moved to the Far East, and MTH came along with their enormous mega-catalogs, followed by Lionel with Far East production and larger and larger catalogs, and pretty soon the market became flooded with many more trains in more diverse varieties. With this vast increase in numbers, no individual piece was going to be worth as much with an ever-expanding volume of trains. 

In addition, the steady march of improvements in technology and additional features meant that the value of older pieces almost always suffered, as something new with more whiz-bangs came along. That wasn't true in the MPC era, when electronics remained relatively unchanged for extended periods. Now, the demand for older pieces (particularly engines, of course), with older technology, and thus their values, drops significantly whenever new innovations come along. 

Mike W. -- the official 100th anniversary car was a medium blue 6464-style boxcar with gold lettering and the picture of J. Lionel Cowen in gold also. They were a drug on the market for years but I guess a bit more difficult to find now.

Never saw that one. Just this one (apparently the "unofficial" 100th anniversary car?) 

Why would the Erie-Lackawanna ACF Center Flow 3-bay covered hopper be collectable?

The E-L did not have ACF Center Flow 3560 CU FT covered hoppers. 

The data graphics are not very accurate 

Andrew

Back in the 80's I looked forward to purchasing all he 5700 series wood side reefers with the sprung trucks. It was the hunt that lured me as some of the bunk ad tool cars and the reefers with the 5700 series mark were sold in set only. So you had to look for someone breaking up a set. The 5720 Northwestern wood side reefer was another car that was hard to get. I ended up with two at a great price back then. All I can say is that I completed my hunt for all of the 5700 series cars with some duplicates and it was fun. The dollar value that I spent seems to be what they are selling now as some cost more than what I spent when they came out  and others are less. I also did that with Christmas box cars but stopped in 2012 when the cars started to come out a year later (took the wind out of my sales). Now I just focus on old prewar stuff, small electrics (150 & 250 series) and 4 wheel passenger and freight cars. Staying away from new and modern items and just working with items that were made to last.

quote:

Back in the 80's I looked forward to purchasing all he 5700 series wood side reefers with the sprung trucks.

I have those cars, having purchased them all on closeout. I don't know whether Lionel over produced them, or if they just didn't sell well.

IMHO, they could be an interesting collectable.

1 - There are only 8 cars so there is a finite, achievable goal.

2 - They were the first factory weathered cars sold by Lionel

3 - The cars were made from a new mold.

There is a bit more cars then 8 to the 5700 series.

There is a total of 34 cars in this series. there are 24 reefers and the rest are bunk and tool cars. This is from the Greanber's Price guide.

The reefers do look good with the weathering and I did not know that this was made from a new mold. Thanks CW for the information, enjoy the cars.

Don't know if collecting is the right term for what I am doing. Lately I have been buying the gold box cars. I think they called them the collectors series. They have nice diecast sprung trucks and are usually decorated a bit better or in more desirable road names.

And in the last five or so years, there has been more MPC set boxes showing up here, including one of the set that started it all for me. It's only missing a few pieces of the cardboard station that it came with and a few other small pieces.

J White

quote:

There is a bit more cars then 8 to the 5700 series.

There is a total of 34 cars in this series. there are 24 reefers and the rest are bunk and tool cars. This is from the Greanber's Price guide.

The reefers do look good with the weathering and I did not know that this was made from a new mold. Thanks CW for the information, enjoy the cars.

The first eight were weathered and had die cast sprung trucks.

The next few  had neither. Did they return to using die cast sprung trucks and weathering in any of those other 26 cars?

quote:

Don't know if collecting is the right term for what I am doing. Lately I have been buying the gold box cars. I think they called them the collectors series. They have nice diecast sprung trucks and are usually decorated a bit better or in more desirable road names.

I'd call it collecting. What's wrong with that?

I have a friend who collected items in MPC banner boxes.

I like the early MPC cars with plastic Timken trucks, but I do not actively seek them. I pick them up when I find mint examples at reasonable prices.

Nothing is wrong with collecting. When I think of collecting, I think of it as actively seeking the items. With the exception of one car, the gold box cars I've got have been found by chance. As an example I consider myself a collector of 6464 boxcars (though I think I am out of ones to seek that I can afford)

The one car I did hunt for is the Pennsylvania Power and Light hopper. It's a really nice looking car and may have been the car that got me to notice this series.

J White

The 9772 Great Northern box car was always one of my favorites.