Do you run RARE, "hard to find" cars?

quote:

I wouldn't buy a $5,000 boxcar.  And if I had one before it became a $5,000 boxcar, it would have been run.

 

What would you do with the car if you learned that one of the boxcars in your fleet was worth $5,000?

Sell it!!

 

 

What strikes me as goofy are self imposed rules that are all over the place. Some folks weather their equipment, some who collect value the patina of age, some look for pristine examples, for some, a scratch is unforgivable due to running, and yet at the same time, they are concerned with being prototypical with three rails..All this is made up as we go along so despite the lack of consensus, everyone is pretty well satisfied with their own rules so the question in of itself as terms of an answer that fits all occasions or appropriate from one person to another..even value is all smoke and mirrors. Objectivity need not apply. 

 Only trains that I don't run ,are those my Dad didn't run while he was alive.Don't know why it fills taboo to me...   but I just don' run them .

Oh, I don't know.

 

Maybe drive over it with my car...

 

Rusty

I'm not even sure I have any cars that are considered rare.

 

I run evrything including my most rare.  (I scratch built the body and shortened the frame.)

 

Well, that would certainly help make the remaining ones just a little more rare.

Seems wasteful though....

!. What boxcar is "worth" $5.000.00?  As I noted previously, some things once

thought to be "rare" (not now for sale in Wally World?), ain't!  And as someone

noted above, if I had such a critter, I'd sell it, IF the market wasn't already

flooded with reproductions......

 

The original question wasn't mine, and I couldn't name a $5,000 Lionel boxcar. Here are couple of completed EBay lots for 6464 boxcars in the $1,000 range:

 

Sentinel

 

6464-100

 

 

Everything I buy is to run.

If I own it, I've run it. Even applies to a few expensive brass pieces I've picked up over the past couple of years.

If I own it I run it and if I don't run it I sell it to make way for something I will run.

I remember back at least twenty years ago, a TM Video highlighting Stan

Roy's incredible Lionel Layout.  Mr. Roy said something I will never forget.

"These trains are made too run, not too put in a box and hope the value

increases.  If I want to collect art and put it on the wall fine. but toy trains

are made too enjoy on the track."  

 

This is not verbatim, I am only paraphrasing what Mr. Roy said. However,

if that is what makes a person happy, that is just collecting, great. But for

me and it seems many on the forum, feel the same way,  lets run em.

 

It does not matter to me if it is a Lionel 1937 Hudson that the Great

Yankee Clipper, Joe D was playing with on the cover of Life Magazine

back in 1937.  I would hug it, give it a kiss, a little oil, and on the

track.  This is a great hobby, have fun with it.

 

Old Josh would approve.  Great Topic.

 

Many thanks,

 

Billy C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it has wheels and a coupler it gets run, no prima's on my  layout.

Ever see most Post War Collectors layout? It is ends of boxes in their closet

Seriously, why by it if you can't run it?

 

I don't have anything rare. If I did, I'd sell it to fund other purchases. If I liked it too much to sell, I'd run it instead.
A $5,000 boxcar?  I wouldn't like it that much!  For sale!