Seven trains enclosed, all were still boxed from Lee Yeager Custom Model Services in Sacramento (now deceased). Boxes labeled as Southern Pacific 'Black Widow' SD-9's. How do I identify these further and get an idea of value?
As background information, the term "black widow" is the nick-name of that paint scheme by the Southern Pacific railroad. It is black, and has the spider web silver and orange stripes on the nose, so black widow.
That list of parts are things that have been added to the models before they were custom painted and decaled. Since it looks like a good paint and decal job that will increase the value of the units over their original base price. So you can advertise them as such, "custom detailed, painted, and lettered".
Finding the base value is still the difficult part. Since the units look like they have scale width hoods they are not Athearn Blue Box. This is a good thing. In recent years SD9s have been manufactured in
plastic by LifeLike Proto-2000, Walther's Proto, and Broadway Limited. In that case street market base price would vary from $50 to $240 respectively. I believe the former would have something like "lifelike" stamped on the bottom of the wheels.
Do you have any idea how long ago these were sent off to be painted? That would help narrow the field.
Normal Broadway Limited units are equipped with sound. There are three variations Paragon, Paragon II, and Paragon 3 which are current production, but unfortunately they made a non-sound unit called a "BlueLine" in both 2008 and 2011.
If they are made of brass all that is out the window.
Their value will also depend on how "used" they are. I'm guessing not much at all. That will help retain their value. One way to tell this is to look at the wheels and see if there is any rail wear on them. That is, does the whole wheel appear to be the same color, or is there a stripe against the inside wheel flange. Same color across the whole surface = no wear.