Peculiar Orbs

e*Train Issue: Apr 2003 | Posted in: 1970-now Modern Era, Collecting

By Shannon Sikora

As another York comes and goes, I always wonder what I might find staring me in the face as I wander through the halls on Friday and Saturday. I keep my eyes focused for something unusual and strange as I have been collecting factory errors and oddball cars for over 15 years. I don’t know what it is but I love having the out of the ordinary items in my collection. I have found many factory errors and production samples in my time of collecting but the car I most enjoy is the LTI “Farm Fresh Milk” on one side and the other side “Bossys’ Bio-Degradable By-Products LTD”.

I first found this unusual car on one of my many trips to York. How did this car leave the Lionel’s factory in the first place? Was it really a proto-type for two different cars intended for the Lionel product line? While we have stated what the question is, it is also anyone’s guess what the answers may be.

First we will talk about what I would consider to be “Side A”, which is “Farm Fresh Milk”. On the bottom right side is small print that reads “Door to Door Dirty Dairy Delivery Co.” The lettering is black, painted on a white painted shell. There are two off-center yellow doors that open and a lady milking a cow on a brown platform.

“Side B” is Bossys’ Bio-Degradable By Products LTD. Consistently, this side also has black lettering painted onto a white painted shell and another set of off-center yellow doors. As the doors open we see a guy with a well barrel with what should supposedly be bio-degradable products. The car has a green and yellow speckled roof and die-cast sprung trucks.

When I first looked over the car at York, I wondered if it was real or a fake. The seller gave me a great deal of information on the car, so I came to the conclusion that it was in fact authentic.

My next decision was to decide if it was worthy to be added to my collection. It is sometimes difficult to come to this type of conclusion. There are times that you just need to go with your gut feeling, and this fell into the “must have” category, so I decided to buy this gem whether it was real or not.

I think that this is why most of us head out to York twice a year looking to add to our collections that we all have been working on for so many years.

I hope you all enjoy the pictures of this fine car and any question I would be more then happy to answer them for you.
Thanks
Shannon
[email protected]

Shop Amazon and Help TCA

TCA members who shop at Amazon.com can have each of their normal purchases generate a modest payment to TCA! And it won’t cost you anything!

The Train Collectors Association is now a participant with AmazonSmile, which is a special website operated by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.

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The process is simple. Just search for and select Train Collectors Association when you sign up and shop at smile.amazon.com.

You use your regular Amazon.com username and password, but when you log in to smile.amazon.com, you’ll see that you are supporting TCA with your purchases:

Note that if you just log in to the regular amazon.com, this benefit does not operate.

There are no costs to either you or TCA, but TCA benefits!

This is a great way for TCA to earn extra cash to offset costs, so sign up today to help support TCA.

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If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can pre-designate a percentage of your sales to be donated automatically in your name to TCA as long as the purchaser pays with their PayPal account.

In both cases, you will receive a donation receipt from the PayPal Giving Fund, and enjoy applicable tax advantages.

How to do it:

Click on the image above, or use this link. This will take you to ebay, where you will see the following page (log in to ebay if you are not already):

This offers TCA as an option. Click on the “Add to My Charities” button where indicated with the red arrow. Thereafter, when you make a purchase, at checkout you will be offered the option to make a donation to TCA in any amount of your choosing. Small amounts add up, larger ones are great! It’s always up to you!

The option will appear at the lower part of your checkout page, something like this:

If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can allocate a portion of your sales proceeds to be donated to TCA. Look at the green arrow marked “Optional” above to see how to do it. Details on how ebay calculates the donation may be read here. This is a wonderful way to share the financial benefits of your hobby with the organization that promotes it!

An added benefit to TCA is that these donations are not subject to normal processing fees, so that makes your donation work harder!

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Peculiar Orbs

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