Early 1980s plastic Trains – Gumball Machine – Massive collection of 235 Cars!

Description

Up for sale is a set of
235
plastic trains from USA Gumball Machines from the early 1980s. They are made in Hong Kong. This set is kind of expensive, but do you know why? Because it’s the only set (more than likely) IN THE WORLD! How did I obtain these? I’m embarrassed to say it, but I collected these myself. I was a salesperson at the time, and I frequently saw a client who operated a business that had gumball machines in the entryway. One day I noticed the cute train cars, and when I walked up to the machine, the ad placard on the front of the machine only had train cars which had painted things on them, such as “Santa Fe”. Once I saw the painted cars, and looked into the machine, I figured you would not always get a painted car, so that was the ‘hook’. Each car was 25 cents and would come out of the machine in the typical little plastic container, so I think I put in 4 quarters, and got some cars. None of them were painted. So since I was in there a lot, I kept buying more and more, trying to get the better engines and cars, and I was obviously hooked - this was in 1983. Eventually, I did get all of the really good painted cars and by then had so many
(235!)
, I quit buying them and moved on. I then proceeded to STORE THEM AWAY for the next 38 years!! But I am moving, and going through a lot of things, and I am going to let these go. Perhaps someone who has a child who loves trains could get them. Here’s breakdown of what you get:
Locomotive Engines: 17
Steam Engines: 10
Coal Cars: 23
Dining Cars: 32
Passenger Cars: 32
Tanker Cars: 38
Box Cars: 51
Cabooses: 32
TOTAL IS 235 Cars and Engines. The number of “Painted” cars is 55.
So, with a total of 27 Engines, your child can make 27 different trains, and he/she could make trains of certain color cars, trains only with painted cars, freight trains, passenger trains, etc… They would have so many different trains that they would need to make a little train-yard.
You could even (parents) take an Exacto knife, sacrifice a couple of maybe box cars, and cut off the front coupler, and using airplane glue, glue it to the front of a few engines. That way you could have multiple engines pulling trains. Anyway, here they are world – probably the only set in existence! Shipping charge shown is only for the continental USA, the lower 48 U.S. states.