I have built over 400 Intermountain and Red Caboose kits for my layout. I can no longer see well enough to build the last 70 kits that I have. I got a table at a good train show, took the cars and other surplus items and sold all the surplus engines but not one kit. I was asking $10 each which is about 30% of the cost of the same brands RTR cars. I guess no one builds kits any more.
I still build kits. Mostly Accurail. But I’m at the point where it is getting harder and my glasses keep getting thicker. Plus, I really don’t need anymore rolling stock.
seems that most of the modelers that build kits now days are in the same boat as you , i have about the same number of proto 2000 kits and not the time savers , have 24 new kits that i got in bulk buys , that i will never use took them to the regonal NMRA meet sold 4 in three meets. the only kits that i have sold out were a bunch of old athren bb’s.
Sigh…here we go again
I predict 3 pages then it gets locked, as someone will say " purchasing rtf products means you’re not a real modeler.
lets just ignore Accurail, Tichey, and the new company, Scaletrains kits.
Put them on eBay. There is still plenty of kit buying activity on that venue.
CG
Join the Yahoo group HOSwap. Post your kits there. Costs nothing to join. This is not an auction site. The price is the price. If you have them priced right you’ll probably be able to sell them.
False. Just cause you didnt sell kits at a show doesnt mean people don’t build kits any more. I build kits. I’m working on a Proto 2000 WP gondola kit atm.
I just sold several kits on the yahoo groups HOSwap so I know kits do sell.
It is true hobby time is limited so RTR is popular and as you and many others found out over time, we often bought more kits than we had time to build. Isnt that why you are selling that pile you have? Nuff said.
UPFEF, I think apart of the problem was your price. Train show people are looking for cheap cheap not 30% off. Depending on the kit, some are just to much of a pain in the caboose to bulid for the end results. I have bulit several 150 + pice cars and really do not look much better than the old Athearn Blue Boxes I did.
Now, if by chances you have some B&O or Bessemer rolling stock maybe we can work out something! [:-^] I live in Maryville ILL about 2 miles from K-10 Model Trains. I know you know where K-10 is!
Drop my the Jeffery’s Dinner and let me know if you have anything I might like.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/259794.aspx
I will buy you a [B] and tell you about Might Mopars!
Cuda Ken
UPFEF - You just didn’t get the right folks walking by your table. $10 for a railcar kit in HO scale is not bad at all. Had I been the, I might have bought a couple.
Yes, I still build railcar kits, and I’m still a youngin’ in some folks opinion. (30)
Don’t give up on selling the kits, as somewhere, someone, will want them.
I can buy RTR for less than $20 on e-bay, sometimes as low as $12 and we are talking Atlas master or Intermountain factory RTR, I stopped building kits for that reason.
$10 may be too much. I see a lot of Athearn and MDC kits for $5-$8, sometimes less. Last train show I picked up an MDC Old Timer and a Proto 2000 kit for $1 each.
Currently in rolling stock, I have about 100 kits in S scale, 40 in O scale, and 50 in HO. This is way more than I need, so I am picky about buying more. It has to be unusual or a good price - usually both - before I’ll buy. I also collect MDC Old Timer kits and All Nation kits in a casual way, so I buy these if the price isn’t too high.
I think one of the things the RTR offerings has exposed is that most model railroaders aren’t that interested in building kits. They are more interested in running trains. And if you’re building a large layout (and I am), you use as much RTR as you can get. So those who used to build only because they had to turned out to be in the majority.
Paul
I still build kits, but I want undecorated kits that I can paint and decal. Many of these are hard to come by, especially Athearn Genesis cars.
I also don’t go to train shows so unless they are on E-bay there is no chance I will try to pick them up.
Rick Jesionowski
At a train show, unless it is ** EXACTLY ** what I need, I don’t even think about anything that is more than about half of retail. Between Ebay and online shopping I can get almost everything I need for about half off. For instance, Model Train Stuff just closed out some Intermountain F units for 99 bucks, WITH DCC and ESU sound. You just need to be very, very patient.
Not to mention I still have a couple hundred kits to build.
There is only ONE reason something doesn’t sell; the price is too high for the market.
Another contributing factor might be that most kits are for prototypes from the 60’s or earlier (yes, I know there are exceptions). Folks that model the modern era have few choices but to get RTR because that’s the only option available for their era.
From a very old dinosaur…
Sure, I build kits, and this is one of my most favored aspects of the hobby…but old wood kits such as Ambroid, Quality Craft, Labelle, etc. I’m presently converting my entire layout roster to assembled wood kits or scratch-built wood cars. I have assembled several plastic kits, and they looked OK, but when finished I could not tell them from an RTR plastic car…so they all went south.
In all fairness, even though I consider myself a passable modeler, my best constructed wood kit does not look better than a current RTR top of the line plastic car, but I greatly enjoy the pride of accomplishment and to me…there is something about a well built wood car that imbibes the old world spirit of this hobby.
My layout now has over 800 wood cars. I have over 1500 unbuilt kits in stock. somehow I think that they procreate behind my back as I have no idea how I wound up with this number. I do plan on building these when I become totally decrepit and cannot get into the basement. I’m just “crepit” now.
Last Timonium show I brought a few cartons of these wood kits to see If there was any interest. I priced them quite reasonalby. Out of 100 offerings, one sold and out of the probably 1500 folks who passed my tables…one looker and he was the one who purchased the Quality Craft wood hopper. Two decades ago, they would have been gone by noon.
I do like and enjoy building flat resin kits such as F&C, Sunshine, Westerfield, and my all time favorite…Westwood (wood and plastic) passenger cars. But stiil that hard to describe wonderful look of a wood kit is hard to beat.
I have found scale model railroading to have three basic genres…armchair, building trains, and building layouts…and of course the fourth, which is buiding everything including locos. Todays “Plug and Play” (RTR) attitude seems to be king now, and that is fine…just not my thing. I will comment on the excellent quality of today&#
Ken,
You misread the UPFEF’s post. He was selling the kits NOT for 30% off but for “30% of the cost of the same brands RTR cars”. $10 for a kit is a good price for Proto 2000, Intermountain, and Red Caboose offerings and a decent price for Accurail.
UPFEF,
I LOVE kits and still enjoy building them. Unfortunately, the only ones still available anymore are older ones (like those mentioned above) and Accurail; one of the last holdouts still producing rolling stock kits. While RTR is nice, putting a kit together is more rewarding, educational, and entertaining for me.
Accurail actually tried the RTR market for a spell then abandoned it and went back to their staple - i.e. affordable and good-looking kits that are fairly easy to put together. I’m really looking forward to the release of their 36’ Double-sheath wood boxcars in the near future. I don’t really need anymore boxcars but…some of those older, hard-to-find road names would look very cool in my roster - particularly AC&Y.
Tom
I agree I picked up three of Atlas Precision Design 50’ for $12.99 each the same price as the Accurail kits and some older BB kits.As you know those Precision Design boxcars are great looking cars so,for me it was a no brainer.
So here is a different take on the question, I still build lots of kits, but I don’t attend many train shows…
As others have suggested, the OP would do better selling them on Ebay…
Sheldon
I love to build kits, but I don’t buy many these days because I’m fussy about what I will spend my money on, and I have enough unbuilt kits to keep me going for a long time. When I say fussy, I mean that I only want certain railroads, mostly Canadian Pacific in the 50s. Who made the kit is of lesser importance. For now I’m perfectly happy with spruced up BB although I would rather buy the better detailed makes. I just bought two Labelle passenger car kits and I have a few resin kits to be built too.
Where I guess I differ from lots of people these days is that I buy relatively little RTR. When I first got into the hobby I bought a lot of Athearn RTR 34’ coal hoppers, and I picked up Canadian road names when I could get them at a decent prices, but with shipping costs to Canada what they are today I have really cut back on RTR. Heck, I’m rarely buying kits either.
Dave
Hi!
Add me to the MRs that greatly prefer kits - and have a store of unbuilts!
For what its worth, I think its a shame that younger generations have shunned kit building (be it railcars, autos, ships, planes, or structures) - for they are missing out on honing skills and the wonderful sense of satisfaction of “I built it”.