I get frequent pop-up ads for model railroading items being sold on ebay and I click on some of them out of curiosity. One thing I have noticed recently are 4X8 layouts being offered with asking prices in the $4000-5500 range. In each case, the layouts were simple ovals of track with a few spurs and a few structures. I’m not griping because I have no interest in purchasing such a layout and people have the right to set any asking price they want for what they are selling but it does make me wonder what makes these people think these layouts are worth such a high price. I suspect they might be estate sales and the executor is someone who is not familiar with the hobby and has no idea what the value of such an item is. I just saw a layout this morning which was a bowl of spaghetti with a reasonable asking price of $350. That seems to be reasonable compensation for the materials and labor required to build such a layout.
That’s going to happen regardless if it’s trains or art. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are many people that don’t want to build a layout, just go out and buy a layout, plug it in and run trains…
I think you’re right – those layouts are probably being sold by families of deceased modelers. They may know how much time and effort the railroader spent building the layout, and they believe it would be worth that much. They’ll find out no one is willing to pay more than a few pennies on the dollar for used layouts.
Remember, what something is worth is measured by what someone is willing to pay.
Regards, Chris
I remember being at the transfer station which is a huge building where you dump your stuff out on the ground and it all gets pushed into a massive pit for crushing and transport. Across the pit on the other side I saw a huge MRR getting tossed into the pit. It consisted of many large sections of benchwork and most looked reasonably finished. My heart sank a bit and I thought that will be mine one day.
I have been an Executor for people and there is a cost to disposing of ones belongings. The last Estate I handled was a house and out buildings on 15 acres. I offered up the contents to the six beneficiaries and there were no takers, I then opened it up to anyone else in the deceased large social circle, no takers. House full of contents, out buildings full of tools and other things were left in place and I sold the place with contents included so I did not have to deal with them.
I told my kids to offer up all my stuff to some local clubs and they can sell it at train shows and use the proceeds for the club. Time is money, my kids are both highly paid professionals and what they would make selling my train stuff would be a waste of their valuable time. I figure I have spent about $45,000.00 over the last twenty years on the hobby, disposing of it $10.00 at a time is a colossal waste of time.
It was designed to come apart easily and is free standing, who knows what will become of it.
Oh, eBay… you never cease to amuse me with people asking for ridiculous prices with the caption “I know what I have.” 
I recently complete my work as the executor of my sister’s estate. She passed 3 years ago. I had to do the work remotely because my sister lived about 6 hours away. Fortunately, her best friend is also a real estate agent whom I hired to sell the house and she was more than anxious to help dispose of the personal property to expedite the sale of the house. So in addition to her real estate commission, I paid her a portion of my executor’s fee.
Most of the personal property was sold at auction. Most items sold below fair market value and the auction house took a 40% cut of the sale price which is pretty standard. Needless to say we didn’t get a lot for the stuff, but it was better than paying to dispose of it. There was a lot of stuff that did get disposed of and I was surprised how much that ended up costing.
I live alone now and I have left instructions for how to sell off my collection of locos, rolling stock
structures, and accessories. My LHS and another nearby it both buy and sell used MR items. The layout itself, track and scenery, will end up being scrapped. I remember reading how Allen McClelland had tried to include his V&O with his house when he decided to move into a smaller home. It didn’t work out for him. There such a small percentage of people who are interested in model railroading that it would greatly reduce the number of prospective buyers. I know how much work went into building my layout but it won’t have much value after I’m gone.
There’s a saying that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. The corollary is also true. One man’s treasure is another man’s junk. I’ve accepted the fact that my treasure is going to end up being junk.
It can cost a lot, I could not even get an action house to come and take it for free as it was too far away. Selling the house with contents included was the best way forward financially for the Estate and it did not effect the selling price at all.
Out of our store, we used to sell a complete circle of used tru steel or brass track for $2, the same number of straights for the same, NS slightly more. cheap switches under 10, good switches more, tyco-class cars for generally 2.50-4.50. I can go onto FBM now and see track for a buck a piece (and indeed much retail is that or more for new), cars for $15-20 - including the tyco ‘baby ruth’ box or the UP yellow hopper every set had.
Once the idea that this is proper sets in, it becomes a mind virus.
At the same time, you cannot goto ANY hobby store online and get a modern, robot built fine cast loco with <1 hour of labor in it, and a parts picker built dcc decoder, for UNDER $250. This is the future. This stuff is supposed to be faster and cheaper to build by the gizmos. And most hobby shop owners lament HO - once the staple of model railroading when lionel was in its ‘malaise’ years - as dead. Sure, when junior has to fork over a summer of yardwork wages to 1 item I can see it.
Mind you, I grew up mantua, tyco, ahm (with those GREAT advertising panels on the boxes!) lifelike and bachman. IT was an eye opener to find athearn, tmi, roundhouse etc at the hobby store but I STILL scanned the pittsburgh press every sunday in the leadup to christmas to find who was offering non-set cars for 99 cents and the few days after christmas, 79 cents. we were happier then.
I’m going to leave instructions for my executor suggesting to him/her what to do with some of the bulkier items. Of course the major appliances will convey with the sale of the house. I will leave it up to the discretion of the executor whether to convey or sell other large items such as the various outdoor grills and smokers I have (too many) and large power tools such as my table and miter saws and my log splitter. It’s not going to matter at all to me but I’d like to see that my heirs get as good an outcome as possible.
I can’t speak for any of the ads the OP has seen, but I can tell you that a 4X8 layout will have, if properly constructed, nearly $350 worth of lumber, hardware, paint, and other building supplies in it at today’s prices, let alone any MRR material.
I do not worry what will happen to my stuff after I go: my sons want it. heck, they have directed some of the purchases with that eventuality in mind
Ah, yes. Those TYCO UP yellow hoppers. I didn’t get one in a trainset. I bought a dozen of them before I understood what the word prototypical meant. I bought them at Children’s Palace which obviously dates me. I thought they were way cool when I filled them with coal loads.
As for my track, I don’t think it is salvageable except for what is in my hidden staging yards. Everything else is ballasted and glued down. It seems to me it would be more trouble than it would be worth to try to rescue it.
The tricky part is going to be removing the craftsman wood structure kits from the layout without destroying them but they should have good resale value. I have already glued some in place and others are awaiting installation but I’m not using regular white glue. I’m using WS Scenic Cement which should make removal much easier. It’s just a question of whether the executor is going to make the effort to carefully remove them. Having been an executor three times now, I would never put that on a friend or family member. I tried to resist when my sister asked me to do that but when she became terminally ill, it was hard to say no. My bank has an executor service and I have no idea how much effort they will make to maximize what is available to the heirs. I’m not going to spend much time worrying about it.
Years ago, when I was running my shop; one of my teenage N scale customers died. After a time, his mother contacted me and wanted me to buy his train layout. I agreed to go look at it. His layout was a very simple 2 x 4 sheet of plywood, with an oval of track and a couple of spurs. He had three or four engines (Model Power & Bachmann) and a larger number of Atlas, Bachman, Life Like and Model Power cars. She asked what I would pay for the lot; I countered with what are your expectations. She pulled out a folder, with an inventory list and lots of receipts, including my shop’s. She wanted full retail price for everything, plus something for the 2 x 4 sheet of plywood.
I respectfully refused to make an offer. She got visibly upset at me, saying, you sold this to my son, now you can buy it back. I politely refused; then quickly left; I have no idea what became of her or the stuff.
The best way for beneficiaries to get the most value out of personal possessions is for the beneficiary(s) to sell them themselves after dispersal. There is a lot of expense involved with an Executor selling things. An auction house may come in and empty a place if it is worth it to them, however, don’t expect to get much if anything for the items. Usually it is a trade off at best for getting the house emptied.
I inherited some pieces of artwork and they were appraised at an average of about $10,000.00 per piece. I decided to get a gallery to sell them and after the expenses associated with the resale came in I was going to get 25 cents on the dollar. So they are all hanging on my walls and I am enjoying them.
My recommendation would be magnets. Those are relatively cheap, can lift up comparatively easily, and can be made self-locating.
My nephew, who I turned into a trainaholic, will inherit my trains. It’s in the will and he knows it. Knowing him, he’ll keep all the passenger cars and engines to go with them, and every engine with sound. He’s 25 now, been hooked by me since he was 8.
All the stuff in my house is well-used. Don’t have any idea what my son plans to do with it.
No one mentioned checking the e-Bay exorbitant layout offers for “completed sales” values. I would bet my lunch that completed sales are infrequent and far below the asking prices.
In October I voluntarily demolished a layout in a widow’s garage-turned-layout-room. She couldn’t fathom, much less understand how any new occupants wouldn’t, couldn’t completely immerse themselves this fantastic work of fine art.
I did my best to tell her that layouts, including my own, are like ice cream cones. Delicious to original owner, nobody wants 2nd hand.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was very crudely built, yes, a few nice creative touches, but it was pretty bad. HO layout, all but 3 of the vehicles were cheap hot wheel sized toys. Scenery? Ugh! A full slot car track was running thru it too! An overgrown trainset.
Any detail added to locomotives ruined the shells. Rolling stock was Athearn BB at best, all weights had been removed. A few decent pieces but mostly old obsolete stuff, no longer made.
“That makes it worth more” …
Benchwork was constucted like a sherman tank from used plywood. You could literally put a car on it and it would’ve held. It took splitting mauls, long prybars, chain saw, sawzalls, a grinder and brute force to remove it. All out through a man door, btw.
I got to keep anything I wanted, and there were enough tortoises to fill out my layout, and a few other interesting things. She got the better end of the stick financially, and finally began to at least realize it after several days of house shaking demolition.
Make sure your family clearly knows what we all know. Dan
It’s amazing how many people don’t understand that for-profit companies are in business to make money, something they can’t do if they pay as much for an item as the expect to sell it for. In the case of the woman who wanted full retail price reimbursement for the cost of the N-scale layout, she also doesn’t seem to understand the principle of depreciation. Almost nothing you buy is going to be worth what you paid for it initially, unless it develops some sort of collector value which most items won’t.