Lionel Polar Express Set- An attempt to save

So recently we have been a little short on money around here, and my mom has begun to consider selling her polar express train set, complete with all the extra pieces, such as the hand cart and extra coaches. She wants me to get it out and photograph it for Ebay or something along those lines. I keep putting it off as I wish to keep the train, it runs great, no problems with it whatsoever.

So, I know sooner or later she is gonna try to part the set out on her own and I probably wont be there to stop her, so, here is my question. What should I do to try and save this set?

I have thought about trying to buy it off her, but I just don't have the money right now to do so.

I can't just keep telling her that ill get to it soon, that just isn't gonna work for to long. Personally, the only time I will ever use the set is during the christmas season, as I don't have the space for a permanent Lionel layout and I mainly model in HO.

This is a picture of the set from google (as I don't have the time to get it all out and take a picture of it)

Steven Spielberg and Neil Young have pulled out all the stops on that beauty. Got to get back to modeling really but the size (or lack of ) in UK homes is sort of a prob. Main reason I bought trainz in the first place, didn't I hear of a scale smaller than Z, now that would be handy.



Andy

I see 1 used set for $170 and about 50 new for $300-250 and only the used one had bids.

Extra money? You have be running into a ditch with nothing to personally separate me with a set of trains. Be it my old metal Thomas trains to my Southern set with all extra cars from MTH.

Tell her the truth, she won't get more than just over a hundred for it. It's not worth selling as it hasn't aged long enough to be worth more than that and not many people are looking to buy a train tied with a 2-3 year old movie.

Now if it was Harry Potter I'd say too bad because with the recent movie I could see some competition and high bids there.

If she still wants to sell it after the low resell value all I can is suggest searching the house for something that might be worth more.

I told her that she would only get around 100 for it, she said she still might want to part it out and sell it, so I simply replied "To bad, it's mine now!"

I remember trying to find a store that had those in stock the year the movie came out, but to no avail. (in fact about 15 min before the end of the movie I was certain Lionel was already well on their way with a set like this). Considering the weight the Lionel brand name carries (which doesn't also take in to account the fact this is the Polar Express we're talking about), you may want to make the argument that, a couple decades from now, I'm sure there will be a very good collector's market for a fully complemented Polar Express set in good working condition that would make any amount of money she would get with it on eBay today look like pocket lint.

As an example, ever heard of the Traveling Aquarium Car Lionel made around the 50's-60's? Those were a fairly standard affair price-wise when they were being produced from what I've read, but now they're worth crazy-stupid amounts of money.