GUEST: It was a Christmas gift from my parents somewhere in the mid-'50s, and I've had it ever since.
APPRAISER: And you've had it ever since. Here you've lived in Manhattan, you've had this in an apartment in New York.
GUEST: Queens, actually.
APPRAISER: Oh, Queens. Right. I mean, I'm always amazed when somebody keeps a toy from that period of time that long and in such great condition.
GUEST: It's a prized possession.
APPRAISER: It really is. Well, these were very expensive in their day. Most kids were told by their parents, "Take care of it," so we do have these show up once in a while in this condition, because it is... but it's super. What's interesting, as we say, it's from the 1950s, it's Lionel. Of course, Lionel was the top train for anybody to have in those days. They made some of the best. '50s was sort of the late era for Lionel. But certain sets really have a sort of magic from that era. And this happens to be one of them. It is plastic, plastic locomotive. What I like about this, this is the Jersey Central line. They would make a lot of different railroad lines, but the Jersey Central in this configuration is really nice. And of course, this was before Amtrak. Now they're all Amtrak. But there were all these separate lines running. This is a very modern set with the aluminum cars with the observation thing, which... more like you saw out West. You didn't see them too much in Jersey. What I love about this set, it has that wonderful bullet nose rear end, which is... of course, that's where the club car was, where you'd go back for your martinis as you're cruising through North Jersey. I love that you have the boxes. We love those. Always the boxes. They're really, really crisp. A set like this, in this condition, could bring around $4,000 to $6,000 at auction.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: You did mention this all came in a big set box-- do you remember that?
GUEST: No memory of that whatsoever. I just presume that it came in a set box.
APPRAISER: Oh, yeah, it came in a set box, and it had some labels.
GUEST: No memory.
APPRAISER: The set box for this set, $1,000.
GUEST: Wow.
