| Four-car Ivory-windowed Lionel State Set from the North Woods |
| The first two
photographs are from the seller. Learning that an Ivory windowed 414
Illinois car was included, I immediately committed. Especially after
seeing the rivet detail on the car ends. It turned out that the 381E
locomotive has never been apart and amazingly the pantographs and
headlamps are in fine original condition. New collectors should know
that it is nearly impossible to take the body off the sub-frame and then
reassemble without tabs breaking. Because of the internal light bar, one
cannot change a 381E's pantographs or headlights without doing this
disassembly.
The 414 has riveted ends, brass journals, but light ventilators. The other three cars have dark ventilators. So this was a lucky kid with a late 409E set whose parents bought a "separate sale" 414 to make a four-car set. The set cleaned up well. |
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| Two of the four cars had their roof repainted by some miscreant many years ago, so I swapped roofs from a similar set. The bodies were very nice. Here are the results -- first the 412 California car. |
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| Next is the 413 Colorado car. |
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| Here is the ultra-rare 414 Illinois car with Ivory widows. This is only the third one that I've ever heard of -- and I've been collecting for nearly 40 years. It's roof ventilators are the same color as the car sides. The other three cars have ventilators the same color as their roofs. |
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| Green state sets with Ivory windows are rare to begin with. The sets came with a 381E loco and three cars 412-413-416. Often the 416 observation car did not have rivet detail on its vestibule end. This one has rivet detail. And all four of these cars have brass journals. Often these sets have one or two cars with the earlier cast journals. |
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| Rarer yet are original boxes for these Ivory-windowed cars. They are rubber stamped like regular state car boxes -- "412 SPEC. GREEN" stands for Special Green. Then a second rubber stamp was used to put the word "IVORY" on the box to denote the Ivory window inserts. The tape on these boxes is the type that Lionel used in 1933. |
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| The 381E loco has never been apart and the pantographs and headlamps are in fine original condition. I added the original Green acetate flags. This loco originally came with White metal flags (one was still with it). See another with White Flags. |
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| Here is an original 381E box and its cardboard insert that gives extra protection to the locomotive. |
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