Ending this brief series of recent finds posts, this Graceline reefer recently came to me with some other items.

Besides it being a relatively rare item, with the hand painted sides, the thing that really caught my eye was it was never completed. Almost completed, but it has clearly been in this same state for years and years.

The trucks are Lionel. One was broken when it got here, I replaced the bolster with an orphan original part. See how nicely they were painted? The roof has a bit of paint loss from storage. And then see that number written in pencil on the car side?

The number keys to numbers on the back of each of the sides which, if you look closely, are not quite the same as they were hand painted. Side one goes on the other side of the car.

The builder seems to have just stopped at this point. Hopefully there was no sad story right then in their life, but here it is today. The car needs ladders, it has never had couplers so it needs those, and of course the sides should be glued on. I really should do the job and finish the car neatly, it is a fine vintage item, but for right now at least I will leave this car as it is.