Does anyone have any thoughts on how to determine a value of 4 boxes of HO scale trains, track etc. that are 20 years old. Owner has not gone through the boxes and has no information on make, models etc. How do you find purchasers for this kind of stuff other than garage sales?
You give them all to me for 20 bucks.
Only joking of course, unless you want to.
E-B-A-Y
I would just check ebay to see what similar items are going for.
Value depends a lot on the brand name, as well as the condition of the items. I attended a local yard sale last year where they were asking almost double the original purchase price for a really cheap Christmas train set for which I wouldn’t have offered even $5.
But if you can find someone who does’t know any different, you might be able to get a good price with Christmas fast approaching.
Take them to a train shop. You can find them in the yellow pages, or, post again and tell us where you live. Somebody might know a good shop near you. Try to find a “real” train shop. (We refer to these as LHS, or Local Hobby Shop, but they vary widely.)
The shop I go to, Maine Trains in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, occasionally has some good-quality used items for sale, but he’s not a consignment shop. A good shop, though, will at least spend some time looking over the collection and telling you what you’ve got.
Be prepared for disappointment, but don’t be too surprised if the box contains a gem or too. If the track is brass, then it will have little value. If the locomotives are brass, on the other hand, they could be worth a good deal.
If the track is nickle-silver, and the cars and engines are in good shape, why not try setting them up and getting them to run? I get a lot of satisfaction out of bringing old equipment back to life. You might just find a smile creeping on to your face as you see one of these old engines take up the slack on the couplers and start to pull a train for the first time in many years.
It realy depends on whats in the boxes, seen boxes of old junk go for alot on ebay because of one rare part. Once went after a central valley car that I hoped no one else would notice because the rest of the stuff was a waste of trash can space, someone else saw it too!!!
E bay is not always the correct answer…I seen Atlas RS11s go for $37.00,P2K GP9s for $24.00…Of course this is good for the buyer and bad for the seller.
Best do some research and see what these trains are…They could be Tyco,Model Power and other low value train set items worth very little or they could be high dollar items.
Obviously we do not learn from the past. The recent past. Today even!! The value really depends on if the guy had them as a child and has fond memories of them. It also helps if the seller doesn’t have time for chit-chat and only has one bad report on them. And has a split personnality so he bids against himself! Let’s see, and SD45 is $1500 (postage a bunch extra) so, and you did say several boxes, I’m guessing you should plan to part with, let’s see 5 carry the absurd, oh $8432.17…roughly.
But seriously, you do need to see the stuff, note the brand and type and get a feel for the condition, all before questioning your LHS or other modeler. They will need some information to make an intelligent estimate. And remember all long term storage equipment will need a through tune-up/cleaning BEFORE you attempt to run it.
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