Why I Oughta...

Day three of showing off the various treasures from the Elkhart Antique Flea Market up in Wisconsin that we scooped up during our visit in May.  First there was the chandelier that Nat scored from these two sweet gentlemen .  Then there was the Schlitz beer glass pitcher .  And then yesterday was the vintage Santa and Mrs. Claus salt and pepper shaker sitting on a cute bench .  The last of the treasures is this Lionel Gateman accessory - item number 45N.  It is destined as a Father's Day gift for my Dad who is the original model train guy in our family.  He runs his early 1940's train set from his childhood and has a handful of vintage accessories. This one was cheap - the guy took my $5 offer - and because it doesn't come with the box is probably priced close to right.  The reason?  There just aren't that many guys who want to buy vintage trains these days, right?  They either have them or they're gone.  I think that is driving the prices down a bit on vin

Earlier this week, I posted some photos of the new Elf the Movie Lionel O-Gauge Boxcar that we pre-ordered for this past Christmas, but just arrived in February.  Welp, here's the other one:  A National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation "Merry Clarkmas" boxcar. Both of these Lionel cars are made in the USA and have that special American flag box.  I was going to give this to one of my nephews who really loves this movie last year, but I swapped in something else because this didn't arrive.  I'll pack this one up too, and take it off to our storage unit for a few months.  There's light at the end of the tunnel, though.  Just four more months until we'll be in our place.  At least that's what I'm hoping for right now. The boxcar features the Griswold's house and station wagon with the huge tree strapped to the top, Cousin Eddie's RV, the tree out in the wild and a bit more. Including Clark, the squirrel and the flying Santa and Re

Recently a box arrived from TrainWorld that included a few little surprises.  Why were they surprises?  Because I had pre-ordered a few things from the 2016 Lionel Catalog that had late fall delivery before Christmas last year.  Unfortunately, Lionel didn't make their deadlines, so these despite these boxcars having Christmas themes (I'll post the other one on a different day), came in February. (in other news, the 2017 catalog is up at Trainworld and they're accepting pre-orders .  There are a bunch of stuff that I'm keen to buy...but I wonder if I should wait for the new house??) This first one is from Elf the Movie.  It features Buddy the Elf and a few phrases like "Son of a nutcracker".  I don't love boxcars, but I do love a good Christmas train and love Elf, so this one was hard to pass up. Here's the side panel of the box showing the boxcar description.  These will go over to my Dad's house until we get moved into our place.  Once t