Hello;
Anyone know what a reasonable sales commission percentage would be for brass engines, custom built structures, and rolling stock?
Thanks in advance
I used to pay 20% but now pay 25% but going rate is closer to 40%.
I think my last response to % was 20%, but I also found they would not accept my brass because it did not have original box, although the locomotive is in mint condition, it’s all up to the buyer.
If a consignor asks 40%, call me and I’ll teach you some nice four letter words you may use. A few decades back, the consignment norm was 15% for traveling dealers and stores were 20% for brass and quality scratchbuilt and kit built items. Today few train stores handle brass and seemingly anything to do with scratchbuilt or craftsman built-ups…even kits! Twenty five years back the standard for brass purchase price was 70% for excellent to mint steam models and 65% for diesels.
Today to consign brass or craftsman built-ups to a store would be foolish indeed.The market just is not there unless the store is known to specialize in quality items. Few do!
Today most brass dealers are offering 50-55% for purchase and consignment fees are in the 25% bracket…not great.
HZ
Best bet is to e-bay it.
They can asked for the moon and not get it. 40% is beyond the moon and stars but,I suspect they are some that would ask that under the guise of being a “expert” in liquidation…Expert being a self proclaim title they toss about at will for the gullible…
Larry,
A few interesting definitions of, “Expert.”
- A former squirt.
- Someone who learns more and more about less and less until (s)he knows everything there is to know about nothing.
- A fool from out of town with a briefcase.
On those rare occasions when I have to shed unwanted barnacles, I give them to my sister to E-bay. She was willing to do the job free, but I insist that she take 15%, the usual literary agent rate.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
At least one pretty good brass dealer out there still consigns for 20%. It is “Uncle Dave’s Brass”. He typically does also list on Ebay and does get some pretty good selling prices for the higher end models. Otherwise, he sells a lot of replacement boxes and foam for brass models.
I think brasstrains.com consigns at 25%?
John
When consigning it is best to work with a dealer who has an extremely strong market in what is being consigned in addition to a strong internet presense. 25% should be the maximum fee. A good European and Asian customer base is almost a must for brass sales today. Always state the least amount you will take after commission payment. If model has not sold within a presrcribed period, then pull it and look elsewhere. 6 months for me would be the maximum, but that is me.
I’m not a fan of eBay, but it does work and a sale is almost guaranteed and costs are quite similar to consignment costs assuming you put a value on your time. In this day, a hippopotamus is more likely to fly over your house before a buyer will walk into a brick and mortar train shop and purchase your model. 20 years back…a much different story.
I have a quite large or better put…serious mess of brass. At my “young” age of 78, I have considered may ways of liquidating including consignment which is by far the last solution and then some. I have come up with a personal live auction without reserve in a state where use tax is not charged for selling private items. Obviously it would have to be on- line in addition to live attendance. Many would pass on the live bit due to internet, but I must go with the numbers.
There are also auction houses that specialize in train sales, but these are mostly tin plate orientated and have a strong tin plate customer base. Then there are the fees…which add up.
HZ
I’ve dealt with many hobbyshops over the years, but sold on-consignment at only two of them. My procedure was to take the items for approval, along with a list of the prices which I expected. If the owner thought the items to be saleable and my prices reasonable, he could sell them at whatever price he thought the market would bear.
The items invariably sold quickly, I made money, and I’m guessing that the stores did well, too, as I did this more than once at both stores.
When I say that I “made money”, often two or three times what I might have payed for an item, it’s all relative, as most stuff was re-detailed, custom-painted and lettered, and in most cases, weathered, too.
Unfortunately, both stores are now gone…one run into the ground by the original owner’s son, and the other due to the owner’s passing.
I have sold some of my no-longer-needed stuff on-line with similar “gains”, and I think that the buyers have been satisfied with their purchases and with the prices which they payed.
Wayne
You are lucky. My words come from experience. I over the years and in several places tried consignment with shops. Once my model was sold, but owner kept funds as he claimed buyer’s check had not yet cleared. It was finally selttled out of court. Then another choo choo went south with the store. Due to severe bankruptcy, other creditors got paid first, and my loco and I were parted for ever.
Never again…if shops like Caboose Hobbies in Denver close down with little notice, then there is a strong message here.
HZ
While I have a good hobbyshop nearby, the owner, who does buy estate lots and other used stuff, was loath to take on some cars which I had bought from the not-yet-run-into-the-ground store mentioned previously, and he wasn’t even interested in looking at them. Those cars were old stock Accurail cars that had sat on the shelf for years. I had bought them and some C-D-S lettering at very good prices, then re-detailed the cars slightly, painted, lettered, and weathered them, and added Kadees. I then took them back to that same store, told them the prices which I wanted, and left them to decide what they wished to charge.
After a couple of weeks, I went back and couldn’t find even the cardboard display case which I had made for the cars, so I assumed that the owner had had them removed from public view, as he wasn’t the one with whom I had made the deal. I asked an employee if he knew where my freight cars were, so that I could take them home. “Oh, you mean those Accurail cars? They were all snapped up within the first one or two days!”
While I again “made money” (getting about double what I had payed for the cars and materials), I was probably earning less than $1.00/hour for the work. [:P]
Wayne
I stop figuring what my labor was worth after painting and decaling several boxcars and gondolas and later selling them at a few bucks profit.
My investment return was in the relaxation of doing the project and from the hours of actual use.
OTOH I’ve known modelers over the years that supported their hobby by doing custom painting and weathering.One even built craftsman kits and advanced car kits like Branch Line and was kept pretty busy.
If selling on Ebay you had better have excellent camera skills, as some older digital cameras (like I have) are no longer good enough for the clear closeup images required. As a result, buyers are not as aggressive with anything I list for sale as they once were.
Howard also will recommend not taking images with the train out of context ie specifically do not photograph a Soo Line steamer on a southwestern scenic’d layout. Something as simple as that is off-putting for some Ebay buyers, and they won’t (in my case, did not) bid.
And if listing on Ebay know your product inside and out so that you can answer any and every possible question and then some.
Also, the temptation for some consignment dealers is to not pay the selling owner after the item has sold. One individual seemed to suggest that happened recently, but as it was not his item, I don’t know what actually happened, so for the time being I must give that dealer the benefit of the doubt, though I am concerned that a previously “reputable” dealer might have fallen victim to the same temptation as many others before him. I too was once a good customer of Canadian Model Trains…and I happened to stop dealing with them years before they allegedly ripped off some customers, but if they can do it anyone can do it.
I trust Dan Glasure, and I trust Howard.
Respectfully suggested–
John Mock
John,In my case a good clear photo is all I require to make a decision on the other hand a locomotive still in its box or a dark photo is a turn off-what is the seller hiding?
NOS for a gold box P2K locomotive is as laughable as a NOS Athearn missing the handrails or parts packet.
Rare! Out of production or Discontinued in the header along with a ridiculous price does nothing for me and as they say move along nothing to see here.
At shows the private sellers gets my attention faster then a regular dealer.
To date I haven’t had any issues buying or selling on e-Bay.The last BB GP40-2 locomotive I sold as a BIN with a fair price didn’t last three hours.
My photos was average but,clear.
I totally agree with you, Larry. I enjoy doing the work, so it’s like getting payed twice.
I also used to paint for a nearby hobbyshop. I sorta stumbled into it when I painted a couple of modified Athearn geeps for myself and, being a bit pleased with the results, took them to the store just to show them. The owner asked if I would mind leaving them on display for a week or two, as they were painted for a local road with a rather enthusiastic fan following.
When I returned to collect them, the owner reached beneath the counter and plunked down a dozen boxes of unpainted Blue Box geeps, and asked if I was interested in doing them.
Not being too bright, I guess, I agreed, even though I wasn’t going to detail them to the level I had done on my own. Still, all of them needed the dynamic brake detail to be removed and some the steam generator stuff, and the latter also required roof-mounted air tanks.
Beyond that, there was no commercially-available lettering that was at all correct, so all had to be done, with a brush, in a multi-step paint, letter, paint, letter process using dry transfer alphabet sets. The heralds on the cabs’ sides were hand-painted, as no lettering at all was available for it.I eventually submitted the process to MR’s Paint Shop - not so much for the money paid for the article, but simply to encourage modellers to paint their own stuff, giving me a break.
When I returned with the 12 painted units, another two dozen were presented in return, and I eventually painted almost 70 of them, including some in brass and N scale.
I kept jacking-up the price - not for more money, but simply to discourage the buyers. I learned, ye
“Im not a fan of eBay, but it does work and a sale is almost guaranteed and costs are quite similar to consignment costs…”
Howard…I agree about feebay. I’d like to know the secret to “almost guaranteed” sales there! My exerience with feebay has been around 5-10% of the listings selling. Doesn’t matter if it’s brass, plastic, structures or books sales aren’t that common. I do much better on the yahoo groups. As long as you’ve been doing this you must know a secret that has evaded me. I agree that by the time you pay their many fees along with their sleeping partner, PayPal the total runs about the same as most other consignment charges.
Roger Huber
Roger,
Good photos, desireable items, sometimes free shipping, well written listing, and yes…the most important, but a gamble…no reserve!
HZ