Here's an interesting set. The boxes are typical of what I find after years of a set sitting in an Arizona garage or attic crawl space. Any movement or force on the box causes it to fall apart. (The two crayons i the photos were inside the 1679 Baby Ruth boxcar. You can see how they've melted due to the AZ heat.)
I like to look at the parts and try to guess when the set was made. The cars have black journals, there is not an E on the loco number plate, and the 1680 Shell tank car is orange. Those are 1939/40 features. The dull black tender means 1940.
There is no date on the setbox or the transformer box. The instruction sheet for the transformer and the lubricant advertisement are both dated 1940. A quick look at the catalogs reveal the 1940 set came with the 1041 transformer whereas the 1939 set had a 1040 transformer.
Here's pictures.
"Dull black" on tender box. This tender has a nickel plate. By late 1941 the plates were replaced with cheaper rubber stamped lettering.
Interesting lubrication advertisement sheet dated 1940:
The transformer and boxed UTC lockon. There should be a bunch of track clips with this. That looks like the original black connection wires wrapped around the binding posts. They would have been in two coils inside the box with the lockon and track clips.
And finally, everything fits nicely into the set box. The track would have been on top, and a small U shaped cardboard insert or a wad of white paper would have been in the open area to the left of the transformer.
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