Monday, Sept. 30, 2013 — I have no good excuse for buying this Lionel J-36 beyond the fact it was very clean and appeared to be an easy one to refurbish. The base was in good shape and the top parts looked good. Heck, from the photo it hardly looked used!
The key arrived Saturday, and I was delighted to be greeted by this very nice J-36 when I opened the Priority Mail box. The seller did a superb job packing the key — he put a layer of non-expanding foam in the bottom followed by a layer of clear plastic wrap. The key was then covered with plastic and a “top” layer of foam was put in the box. It cradled the key beautifully … I kept the packing … I’m going to probably photograph it and blog about it sometime, hi hi.
The key isn’t as minty as I initially thought; by that I mean it has seen some use. But it still looks excellent. I did notice a few things I missed in the auction photos.
The terminal screws are not original … they look like those found on Speed-X bugs … maybe appropriated from a hand key, perhaps? They look nice, but they don’t really match. The key is missing the Signal Corps stamp that you often find on the bottom of these keys. It looks like the top pivot screw has been replaced with a later — chrome plated — one. I didn’t notice this either, but the lock nut on the top pivot is upside down.
I’m going to disassemble the key and clean the top parts and then try to clean the residue off the base where they celluloid label once lay. I have had pretty good luck removing the pins that held the label, and I have some repro labels that look really sharp to replace the missing celluloid.
I haven’t hooked the key to a rig, but the main spring on this one is particularly stiff … or I’m overlooking whatever is dampening the key lever’s action.
Overall, I’m still very pleased to add the key to my collection. Once I get ‘er cleaned up and the label affixed, I’ll shoot some new photos.
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