I have to say, I was very dissapointed. Train shows are supposed to be a bunch of vendors trying to get rid of thier products, trying to have the lowest price, right? Well this was anything but that. There was a booth that was selling 40’ boxcars for $23.00!!!
Well, I found a guy selling all atlas products and he had some pretty good prices. I bought 10 switches(4 #4 Left; 6 #4 Rights; 2 Wyes) for about $110! I saved about $30-40. I also got a HUGE amout of used, EXELLENT condition Code 83 Flextrack; which was composed of mostly shinohara(some atlas) for $5. I’m not kidding, I probally got about 50’ of track. Not all of it was in 3’ sections, but there were none less than 15"! Very awesome…
I also went to my clubs open house and got some nice pictures which I’ll post up here soon.
That is the American way of business. If people want to spend $23.00 they should have that right. As you pointed out, if you want to look for good deals, you have that right, though they are not obligatred to have any. I love to just look around, and occassionally find things I want at prices I want to pay. The fact is I may have more now than I will ever get to use. I am glad you had a good time.
Spitfire - Not any more! In general, you missed the era of bargin train shows by about 15 years! Back then, you indeed went to shows purposely to get bargins…and they were plentiful! But as eBay and such arose, as the prices being charged for show tables climbed, as the cross section of sellers changed from average joes to professional dealers, and the dealers seemed to get steadily more greedy, train show bargins became largely a memory (at least here in the East).
Occasionally, you may hit a show where someone just happens to be unloading what you happen to be looking for and you’ll get a real buy. But, in my experience, the chances of that seem to grow less each year now, what with limited runs and increasingly more high-end products. I stopped frequenting train shows in my area a few years back when I consistantly observed asking prices that exceeded the MSRPs!
train shows in the west are pretty dead, but you can get good bargins on e-bay and sometimes at local hobbyshop, but if you need it now forget getting a bargin.