Recently, there have been a number of auctions on eBay for vintage toy train calendars, usually purportedly from Lionel.  These calendars always start with Saturday, January 1st and are claimed to have been found at an estate auction or similar venue.  Beware!  These are all fake.  There was a write up in the October 2006, issue of Classic Toy Trains about these calendars.  The people who are creating these fakes are taking a standard background, usually one of three choices:  "Three new Lionel models", "Boy sleeping", or simply "Lionel", and stapling a stock calendar to it from a very limited number of years.  These calendars always have years that place Janurary 1st on the first week's Saturday.  The reasons that these calendars are known to be fake are as follows: 

1. The calendars will display Lionel products that hadn't been invented yet.  For example, a 1927 calendar will show items that Lionel didn't sell until the 1950's.

2. The calendars are always described as being "a little dirty and worn", but a careful examination of the photos from different auctions of different calendars reveals that all the calendars have the same dirt and wear patterns on the back.  A little too coincidental, no?

3. The calendars only have the year printed on the first month (January) of the calendar.  Unfortunately, you won't discover this until you actually have the calendar in your hand.  I suppose that the fakers didn't feel like printing the rest of the months out for each fake calendar.

So, if you like to collect Lionel memorbilia, beware of these fake calendars.  Ask the seller questions about the calender's history, look for the tell-tale signs of it being faked, and avoid sellers who hide their feedback.