Disclosure: This site may receive compensation from some link clicks and purchases.
This Lone Star powerboat was lasted registered in DL in 1979. The boat, according to the owner, has been in this barn for at least 30 years. It’s listed here on ebay, in a barn in Lewisburg, WV with a high bid of $650 at the time of writing.
The non-running 95hp Mercury is included with this boat. If it was last run in 1979 chances are it is locked up.
The Plexiglas windshield is broken.
There is no trailer with this sale. The boat supposedly has a clear title, but it cannot be located. So, this boat and motor will be sold with a Bill of Sale. The owner is not sure of the year model, it may be a ’69 though. When and if he finds out he will update the ad with the year model. Let’s get this one back on the… water!
Motor-on,
Robert
you might be under water on this one at any price.
I like the trailer.
I have made a good portion of my livelihood taking old boats and ships away to my crusher or reselling them if they are interesting. Old fiberglass boats are getting more interesting but…….there are way too many common boats like this around to have any value. I would charge the owner to pick it up. Strip any interesting pieces and the motor off and send it through the crusher. If it was on a decent trailer, I might take it away for free but just the cost of labor to deal with it would take the value of the trailer. Even old Mahogany outboards are very soft on the market. Inboards are doing alright but off course the huge costs of restoration are enormous. We do have a few fiberglass outboards that I have saved for someone that is interested in the future but they are uneque and unusual. Even many old aluminum boats are worth less than scrap value on the market. The bids on this boat are most likely by the guys buddies and family………..too much of that on eBay today.
I saw this in one of my last issues of This Old House and thought it was super cool. This fiberglass one wouldn’t look as cool but someone creative could make a cool decoration out of it.
We cut out many parts of the larger boats like galleys and helms to reuse and they are very cool. The interiors frequently are pristine while the hulls fall apart around them. We have standing buyers for nice pieces.
If this were running with a useable trailer $500 would be a stretch…
I agree with Dave, older fiberglass boats are nothing special ( if only it were wood) Truth is, they’re almost impossible to get rid of. ( unless cut up into little pieces and put in special bags) The motor, however, is a different story. Apparently, Mercury only made the 95hp 6 cylinder in ’66 and ’67. It looks a little big for this boat, as my old man had a “Silverline” boat, similar to this, and a late ’50’s mark78a, 6cyl. Merc ( with 3 carbs and no neutral) and took 3 guys to get it on or off the boat. Needless to say, it was a beast, way too big for the boat. Sorry, limited appeal here. (thanks for the variety, though. http://collectorboats.com/s/cc_images/cache_2921982804.jpg?t=1332041092
Outboard motors…….while I don’t like them……are very cool. They had cutting edge engineering and were actually very powerful for there displacement. In my old Lotus 11 racing days in Spokane, my mechanic built a special road race car using a Mercury outboard engine. It was specifically designed for a sports racing class….I don’t remember which one, maby 1000CC? But he claimed something like 160 HP with minimal weight. He ran cooling through the tube frame. I never saw it finished as I went off killing comunists about that time. For a commercial marine operator like me, outboards can be very frustrating. Proprietary over priced parts, few qualified mechanics, poor fuel economy, needle bearings……..but for a toy they can be great.
Hi Dave, I agree. Outboards were high hp. motors, but had all the inherent flaws of 2 cycles.( it was not unusual to go through 2-6 gallon tanks of gas in a day, not to mention, when mixing gas, how much went in the lake) Those liquid cooled behemoths showed up in all kinds of projects.
Side note on Mercury’s. Being from Wis., Mercury outboards were ( and still are) king. One of the biggest employers in the state. Karl Kiekhaefer was a character. He treated his employee’s great. Bonuses, promotions for employee’s, and my favorite, he would organize company picnic’s where they would have “Evinrude meltdowns” ( his arch rival, who I believe, he worked at Evinrude for a while, but couldn’t get along with Ole) He demonstrated, his “all metal” motors, were far superior to the plastic ones of OMC, and would burn the Evinrudes until they melted. I remember hearing he bought a truck driver lunch, that was making a delivery to the plant. Not to mention his Chrysler NASCAR exploits. He was quite a guy.
Boats being more my thing than cars I’ll leave my opinions here as well. We are finishing up a 24 foot sea ray as of now, it’s been a 3 year, down to the fiberglass shell project. New transom, stringers, deck, interior, engine, all of it. It will be done in the spring and I am going to lose my butt on it!! Boats, even more so than old cars are labors of love, literally. I’m into it for about 12k, and I’ll probably see around 8500 out of it, after I enjoy it for a few years. I’m not going to say this little boat isn’t worth taking on, but it is a project for someone who wants to accomplish something, not make money. That old Mercury “Tower of Power” is awesome though.
I’ve always heard the two happiest days of your life are the day you buy a boat and the day you sell it.
Amen to that.
Please say the trailer comes with it! Wouldn’t that look hip if you showed at the boat launch like that?
I say the only people that really should own boats are people with a lake house, extremely easy access to a ramp, or the bank to keep it in the water at a marina. I had a friend borrow my lake house and boat, he went out and immediately bought the Taj Mahal of boats (against my stringent advice). As I told him it would, it is now a “yard decoration” that is worth ¢’s on the $’s he paid for it. I told him when his Wife gets tired of looking at it, I’ll be down with my penny bottle to buy it. Soon, very very soon!
Ha!
Since the readers this site has started on the subject of boats why not start a new site called “Boat Finds” ? How does that “float?”