Merry Christmas!

Mike I (yes, you know him from the standard gauge groups) sent me this great pic of his all original 400e chugging around the tree. Happy holidays!!!

By the way, Mike is liquidating much of his complete and original Lionel Standard Gauge collection on eBay and the like. Mike, if there is any way around this (and you are a dang smart guy, so I know you've given this some thought), you should try to keep as much as humanly possible.

Every person that I know that has liquidated their collection, for every reason that can be conceived, has regretted it almost immediately after. I know one friend of mine that has liquified his collection at least 4 times and has parted with some one time only pieces (items you will never see again, they can't be replicated and they will never get resold). He regrets it over and over again to this day.

Whenever I sell something from my collection, I think of a quote I love from Raiders of The Lost Ark (the first one): "Indy, we are just passing through history. The Ark is history.". While I am in no way equating trains to the Ark of the Convenant, I like the sentiment. These are toys and they ARE history. Artifacts of a time and place that should not be forgotten.....

M