I am not going to buy one, but I see ads for specially painted train sets all the time in magazines or newspaper coupons. people like Franklin Mint, or Bradford Exchange, and similar market these. Might be a Budweiser train, or a NASCAR train, or a US military train. A wide variety show up. And of course the annual Xmas/Santa trains. Coca Cola, Star Wars.
Usually sold as a subscription “Every other month your new car will arrive…” I wonder if these are just plastic junk toys - they certainly are not realistic - or if they are familiar trains under the decorations, like Bachman or Athearn or whatever. As far as I can tell most of them are HO scale, though one Coke train was 0n30.
They are operable, they come with a circle of track and a basic power pack.
The “Snap-On Tools”, “Toy Story”, and “John Deere” were all complete junk.
The third one was a Hawthorne Village train that was given to my wife, I think it is called the Moonlight Express. This one has a Bachmann mechanism that runs very well.
My wife and mother-in-law got me into the hobby 20 years ago by giving me the Hawthorne Village Christmas Series set. I think it took close to two years to get the entire set, tracks, controller, twin crossing gates, a steamer, and maybe six different cars. It was outrageously priced, but it runs very well. And, it runs well on the 18" curves oval you can fashion out of the included EZ-Track. It’s an On30 set. Not really more than toys, but they sure impressed me and the grandsons for a few years. Fond memories. Now, 20 years later, it’s a more serious foray into the complex world of HO models.
At one of the train shows that my old club hosted a fellow walked in with an F series engine from one of the ‘Collectable’ sources. I think it had a Spiderman paint scheme IIRC. He had a bill of sale that showed that his FIL had paid several hundred dollars for it, and he was hoping to sell it at a profit. I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that his locomotive was likely worth less than 20% of what his FIL paid for it. I chickened out and suggested that he consult the dealers at the show who had used locomotives for sale.[:S]
Most of the so-called collector´s items are made for reaping huge profits from gullible, yet greedy people, hoping to retrieve a fortune a few years on.
Let´s see those things as what they are - toys, cheaply made, sold extremely expensive.
I was given (one piece at a time, Father’s Day, birthday, Christmas) the “Red Sox” train, don’t remember which outfit sold it. It has a very heavy Bachman F unit for power that ran fine when I ran it. Should be able to pull quite a train. My current layout is 18" radius so not great for the long passenger cars. Not sure what radius the curves are that came with it, probably 18", so the cars may be made for it. Hoping for a bigger layout soon so I can upgrade the cars and run them for fun.
My only complaint would be the couplers, but I think a lot of car brands get their couplers changed to Kadee.
A friend of mine has the “Campbell Soup” train. Not sure how she got it and I don’t remember seeing it run, but I know she has run it and she had no complaints. Again, I don’t know which of the sellers was behind it.
The track is EZ track and by the time I got all of the set there were a number of turnouts, not sure just how many there or how much track as I didn’t have a place to set it up. Thought I had made a list of all the pieces, but can’t find it at the moment.
The problem is that the first loop of track and power pack, loco and first cars, take quite a few months to accumulate. For a beginner, it would be best to buy well in advance of “giving it” so that they have something to run when thay get the initial “gift”.
I think that they, like much of that sort of prodct are overprices, but if you have someone that has a favorite team or product, you can’t get such paint schemes through regular channels.
I would be curious to know how expensive it is to develop these paint schemes. I suspect that the development costs are there. I do agree that the quality of the mechanical parts is variable. I also have an ON30 set, that runs quite nicely.
And who knows, these sets might be effective at getting some people in the hobby.
I have one I don’t remember the name of it. It’s a American theme I believe there’s a eagle. This was years back. I got the cars, locomotive, and Bachmann track.
I basically use the Bachmann track since I have my Thomas and Friends and play with them from time to time.
I liked some of these paint schemes but nothing I would buy and it was a gift from my mom.
The “piece at a time” sets seem to be very expensive. But then I think places like Franklin Mint, Bradford Exchange are pricey for all the stuff they sell. (After my mother-in-law died I looked up several of her collector plates on eBay - the ones that had bids were going for $5-$10 each, much less then she paid).
OTOH If you want them to display and you’re okay with the price, then why not. But I wouldn’t buy tham as an investment or something to run.
The ones where you buy the complete set as one purchase seem to be more reasonably priced and can often be had for a discount. They seem to be based on starter set quality train sets, some of which like Lionel aren’t too bad. Again if display is your primary objective, then go for it.
If you don’t need it new, you can sometimes find these used in antique shops. Prices (and condition) are all over the place. From 10 cents on the dollar to double (or more) what they cost originally. And broken, dirty, parts missing to new-in-box.
The problem with these “collector” sets is that unless you have the right one, and it is complete, they are usually not worth much.
Same goes for coins and stamps. Most collections out there are not worth much, as they are incomplete or don’t have the right type of items. A set of coins may be worth a lot, if the set is complete. Many are not, missing the one or two coins that make it worth something.
Or as Jay Leno explained: “You buy the car for $600, spend 50k restoring it, and then sell it for $12,500.”
Back in the early/mid 90’s I showed my landlord, who was a devout nascar fan, and an even more devoted #3 Dale Earnhardt fan, an add in my MR for a Dale Earnhardt #3 train set. He ordered one straight off. Not to run it, but just because it was #3. I imagine he still has it in the box. There were a few things that Franklin Mint put out back in the day that I had thought about ordering, but never did and glad I didn’t. Kev
The On30 train sets from the Bradford Exchange are Bachmann underneath, and run pretty well, for DC. I agree with many that the actual Bradford Exchange subscription program is not really worth it, as many never become collectibles worth more than their original price. However, many of the cars are very similar to the Bachmann Spectrum line. For example, I bought a Bachmann Spectrum caboose for about the price of one of the Bradford Exchange cars, and it is just the same as the caboose in the collectible sets. The nice thing about the Bradford Exchange issues is that the paintings on the cars can be very nice and detailed, if you are going for Holiday train sets, for example (like the Hawthorne Village Moonlight Express or Thomas Kinkade Christmas sets others have mentioned).
That said, unless you are into the collectible “buy it, never open it, then hopefully sell it someday for a better price” thing, skip the subscription and buy carefully from eBay, if you are going to run a holiday set anyway. I’ve built some nice Christmas and Halloween sets at much cheaper prices than the subscription costs. If you’d like to see what I’ve put together as an example, see my web page at
There is also a link on that page to an article about my experiences in building up such collectible train sets, converted to DCC with some, building the holiday layout, on-board video running through the layout, etc. I used standard model railroad layout techniques to create these holiday layouts, adding to my modeling experience.
BTW, some of the collectibles do go up in value. Some of the Universal Studios
The maxim I’ve always known is that if it is sold as collectable, it isn’t worth collecting.
My advice to people is buy what you want to buy and don’t worry about “is it worth something” because there’s no way of knowing. Now, there is the matter of “is this too much” but that’s just a matter of knowledge. My wife and I like to go antiquing (which feels weird to say because we’re both in our mid 30s and that sounds like an old people’s pursuit). We have our different things we like to keep an eye out for and we’ll buy things that we like. She drifts towards small furniture, servingwear, and anything she can use for entertaining. I like railroad and transportation related things, particular paper goods. Furniture can get expensive, but it is rare that we buy anything that’s more than $50.
One of my favorite things I have is a brochure for the C&O George Washington. I think I paid a quarter for it. I have it framed and waiting to go up in my train room after renovations are done. Why did I get it? Because one of the pages is the incredibly detailed explanation of how a credit card works. To my modern eyes, this is hilarious. "Just phone in your reservations, give your credit card number, and you’re
IIRC Bachmann began making their On30 trains 10-15 years ago, hoping to cash in on the popularity of the “Christmas Village” buildings being sold as the ‘old timey’ trains would fit in with the older style buildings. It turned out to become popular beyond that, getting a lot of people interested in narrow gauge - or model trains in general - who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten involved.
BTW Interesting that the whole “Christmas Village” thing came back in the late 20th - early 21st century. That had been a popular thing back in the early decades of the 20th century but (I think) kinda died out. (MR in it’s early days would have cartoons where someone - usually a lady - was complimenting a guy on his ‘Christmas Village’ and the guy (usually dressed like an engineer) yelling back “IT’S A MODEL RAILROAD, NOT A &$%+%&*! CHRISTMAS VILLAGE!”.)
As has been said, Hawethorne village sets generally represent whatever Bachman’s base-level trains were. In the past that would have been a 4wd pancake motored loco. These days that’s an 8wd (possibly with flywheels) loco that’s generally the same quality level as the Plus or Spectrum models of decades past. This means that if you see one for a good deal used, it could be a good purchase.
As others have said, they aren’t collectible and are near-certain to lose value if purchased new, but they are a way to acquire a themed train in installments, albeit at 3x the cost of comparable trains.
I inherited all my mothers artwork and a few pieces were valued at over $10,000. I really liked it but it bothered me to have this valuable stuff hanging on the walls of our very utilitarian home. It was likely to get damaged at some point. After I found out what I would end up with after the gallery reframed it all and took a commission for selling it or what they would pay me outright for it, we kept it all. I would say on average what she bought went up around 1000% in the decades she had it. Getting rid of it would suck too many $ out of it to consider it a good investment. In the end the enjoyment we get out of it, is more than what monetary value it has for us.
We have four pieces properly boxed up and stored that we just don’t have room for. Beautiful West Coast art that will hang on the walls of our kids first homes as they love the works.
All the collector plates went to charity as did most of the figurines.
I stick to stocks and realestate for investments, good returns and easy to sell.
