I have been selling of many items of my collection on ebay that does not match my narrowing focus of items suitable for the N&W 1950 to 1955. Most of these are items that are too new. The ready to run freight cars (Kadee, IM, P2K, and others) are bid up quite a bit, and have many more people watching the auction. The freight car kits (IM, Athearn, Accurail, and others) rarely have even one bidder.
My experience seems to support the wisdom of the manufacturers going to predominantly ready to run.
I prefer kits over RTR though, but the manufacturers seem to be heading towards RTR over kits.
If there’s a kit I want but there is a similar model in RTR, I would buy the kit first.
As for buying anything online, I’m still kinda leary doing so.
I will always build Kits. I have stacks of them around my workbench.
There is some ready to run, such as the pair of blue walthers’ bulkhead flats in one of my threads but it has a kit on it to both improve weight and provide function. (JAegers Aluminum load)
There are certain RTR cars I always keep an eye out for such as the older intermountain R-30-18’s Reefers… but as long as they provide kits I am happy.
I recall one ebay sale of a Athearn Mint unbuilt Open Tank Pickle car for Heinz… that one sold for $60+ after a raging last minute bid war.
Well, I’m generally more interested in the modelling aspect of model railroading than the other aspects, so I prefer kits. I’ve been kind of shying away from Athearn kits lately, because unless you decide to make a kitbash out of them you barely put any more time or effort into constructing them than an RTR car. The only times I’ve bought RTR were cases when I couldn’t get that type of car or that roadname in kit form anyway. But especially since I’m modelling the modern era it’s looking more and more like I’m going to be buying more RTR cars in the future, rather than less.
Of course, I don’t use eBay either, but who knows if that’s part of it.
I buy kits on Ebay–but only if the deal is very good (many sellers jack the price up with “shipping and handling”–it’s like watching an infoad on the TV). My LHS knows that I am always willing to buy kits from them–all too many, if you ask my family!
I also buy kits on e-bay, but I usually wait until 1 seller puts up multiple kits, or groups a few kits together, so I save on shipping. Far too many e-bay sellers expect to get full list price plus shipping.
Nigel, if you are interested, send me an e-mail of what you are trying to get rid of and asking price. I am usually looking for west of the Mississippi roads with cars appropriate to the late 60’s and newer. Maybe I can take some of your kits off your hands.
Tim
I’ve bought a bunch of kits over the past summer, after finally buying a house where I can realistically someday have a layout (not enough room in the old condo with wife & kid).
Frankly, I would prefer to only buy kits, even if they’re just the Athearn or MDC level, simply because now I’ve got a new bottleneck- time! I just LOVE reading reviews of models, where they say something like “a nice evening’s work.” I’m lucky if I get a fairly simple model built in a week of “15 minutes here, 15 minutes there”. I’m not going to make significant progress on a layout on that schedule, but I CAN see some progress on a car kit.
Nigel, that’s just the nature of the 'Bay. I’ve had MUCH better luck selling off my old inventory of kits and cars at local swapmeets. I’ve got six storage tubs of stuff to sell off, and I’m heading to two swaps in December instead of throwing them on Ebay. I’ve been doing this for over three years now, and my return is always better with live buyers.
One possible reason for your experience on e-bay has to do with shipping charges. I don’t know what items have been yours, but I do scan the HO and G scale areas of e-bay periodically. I have never purchased anything, neither kit nor ready-to-run, because of the shipping charges. Why bid on an item that is going for $4 or so, and the shipper wants $8 shipping charges? If I were interested in ordering perhaps 10 or more items from the same seller, the shipping charges wouldn’t put me off, but a single seller rarely has that many items that I might be interested in owning, so I just pass up the auction. If sellers would indicate that the seller pays only the actual shipping charges, and if I knew where the seller was without having to look all over e-bay to find out, I might give some of these items more careful consideration. I’m not saying you don’t do this with your listings, but too many sellers do.
I like kits. If fact, I’m hoping that a Walther’s diesel service facility will show up on ebay soon.
Guys, please consider this:
As I’ve stated on another thread, many of us over 25 today have far more grueling work and community schedules than our parents, aunts and uncles did back in 1970 or even 1980 (seems like yesterday).
Sadly, as a result many of us don’t have the same amount of “model railroading fun time” that our predecessors did. So many of us today are working two jobs, working lots of overtime, or combining work and school. Not to mention Church, civic and / or political activities.
Result: HUGE increase in the demand for RTR in the past decade. Believe me, I’ve had to eat humble pie as I was one of the “anti-RTR” modelers just a decade ago. My job and family activities changed my tune “verrrrrrrrrrrry quickly!”
I once looked at the Proto 2000 Cattle cars RTR by the factory at near 26 dollars each… I ended up getting 4 Accurail Cattle Cars for not much more than that in kit form.
I still build kits, mainly for cost reasons (and I enjoy building them). I’ve also noticed that single car kits don’t tend to find new owners on eBay - I’m assuming that people are unwilling to go to the hassle of bidding, posting cheques, etc for single low-cost items. Interestingly there are some sellers over here that “bundle” a batch of car kits (usually in the same roadname, or of the same type), and these seem to attract more bids.
I have to admit some of the R-T-R stuff, especially Atlas is excellent. The kits like Athearn are OK but pale in comparison. If we are talking real kits such as Juneco (wood, glue, blood sweat and tears) then that’s where I’m finding myself heading.
Nigel you wouldn’t happen to have any Athearn 34’ smooth sided offset hoppers for sale, would you? The M.E.S.S. is in aquisition mode at present.
For the time being I prefer RTR over kits…I have 8 Athearn kits that need to be built but,I have lost interest in building kits.Some day who knows my interest in kit building may return.[:D]
Purchasing any low value item (under $10) becomes uneconomical due to the shipping charges leveled. I buy most all of my Athearn blue boxes and Accurail kits at the LHS or train shows. Rarely if ever will a $5 kit be a better deal on eBay than in a store due to the cost of shipping. Most model RR’s that I know are looking for bargains and a kit off e-bay rarely is a bargain.
