After kind of perusing through the threads on the collector taking over the market, I started wondering. I have a site on my layout where there are going to be a number of ‘collectable’ engines, passenger cars and various other pieces as what may ‘fall out of the sky’ around here. The proprietor, we shall call ‘Fred Barklet’, has been getting kinda antsy in that we need to , as he so put it–“Get off our behinds and indulge in this”. What we are going to do is to indulge the “Inner Collector”----
Here are a couple of 'em that I would like to throw into ‘Fred’s’ train museum—
A 2-6-6-2T from a RR called UINTAH
Anyone to come out with a set of GMD1’s with A1A trucks
Any Quadruplex or even a Quintuplex-------heeheehee[:-,][:P]
Can’t. I had my “inner mob enforcer” break his legs.
Then I had my “inner shrieking harridan of a wife” call his manhood into question.
After which I had my “inner investment advisor” tell him he was a clueless fool.
And finally I had my “inner YKW” blame him for ruining the hobby, driving prices up to stratospheric levels and, while I was at it, the extinction of the dinosaurs, The War Of Jenkins’ Ear and fathering Rudolf Diesel.
My ‘inner collector’ goes on a Mad Rampage every time I website up the Brass Consignment section at Caboose Hobbies and go to HO scale Denver and Rio Grande Western steam.
However, my ‘inner tinkerer’, ‘inner painter’ and ‘inner decaller’ click in at the very same time. Unfortunately, my “Inner Visa Account” goes into full, nagging yell and scream about two minutes later. So my ‘inner collector’ right now is at a rather grudging standstill.
HOWEVER----!!! First check when I go back to teaching in August-- [:-^]
Oddly enough I had a wresting match with that fellow just a couple of weeks ago. He lost.
As a child I started out with American Flyer, I switched to N-scale as a teenager. Since then I will confess that I sometimes get a twinge of creeping nostalgia for the trains of my youth. So I was at a local train show a few weeks back and there were several vendors selling vintage trains. One vendor was selling old Erector sets for astronomical prices, but under his table was a box which was simply marked “American Flyer Train Set”. I asked him if said box really meant what it said, and he assured me it did. He offered to sell me the whole set for a little over $200. He was up front about the fact that the set lacked a couple of items, one of which was the locomotive. A minor detail. But he insisted that the item was still a great buy since it was “in the original packaging”. I didn’t have the heart to tell the guy I would have probably ended up throwing the boxes away…
Right now I’m modeling in two scales, and really have no place to put a third. So I let the great deal pass me by. Still, maybe someday…
AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH! Never throw OLD train set boxes away. Haven’t you seen those threads where thos old lionel and Gilbert boxes go for a hunnert bucks??
Anyways my "inner collecter is fairly well suppressed over say the $200 limit,and I already have a Uintah 2-6-6-2T. Albeits plastic.
With a heat-seeking missile, as soon as I was somewhere near being on his six…[}:)]
The most recent bout with said critter was brought on by an ad for a DMU set that I would really like to have, to replace the foobie presently holding down that part of the schedule. The missile was fired by my Mastercard - NO WAY was I going to spend three times the quarterly model railroad budget on a single six car train! [|(]
But, boy oh boy, I really would like to have it. [sigh]
As for the OP’s wish list:
The Uintah 2-6-6-2T (HOn3) is available - and relatively inexpensive. It’s the Mantua that is erroneously referred to as the logger. [8D] If the fine folks who market it ever see what I’ve done to the superstructure of the 16.5mm gauge version, they’ll disown it on sight. [alien]
The DD51 doesn’t have A1A trucks, it has a B-2-B wheel arrangement. The unpowered axles have their very own truck. [:O]
If I want to run a quadruplex I simply put all four of my D50 class mikes on the head end of the train. Adding the D51 brings it up to quintuplex status. [:P] But then it can’t take more than a dozen cars and still fit in the passing sidings, and a dozen cars is well within the capacity of any one of my JNR x-6-x steamers.[:-^]
Don’t you just hate it when reality intrudes on your dream world?[:(]
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on budget, behind schedule)
I dont collect brass but mainly Locos with DCC and Sound. I like to read the history online and watch post videos then i seem to hunt and find the model with the features I like.
At the train store and some dude dumped a buch of stuff needing cash real bad. He had a Trix big boy, 2 Athean 844s and HO scale Lionel oil burner challenger with missing smoke deflectors. Also a bunch of trix PFE reefers and caboose by Marklin. They got decent cash and then i got the phone call. I went down to the LHS and opened the wooden box and saw the Trix big boy. We dusted it off added a missing screw and ordered all the missing detail parts from Walther’s. The screw was needed in the second set of drive wheels and once the screw was replaced the engine was smooth like a Swiss watch. Got the engine for less than a blue line big boy and its really nice find. They were pricy new and the sound is ok but not like engines today. Though it runs real nice and i had to drop the bones once the man opened the wooden box. I am not big loco crazy i own maybe 4 large locos but the Germans make these run smooth and parts are right at Walther’s. I do like to collect but i am going to focus on the more choice models for now. I have been buying every brand and just seeing what is offered. I sell them on eBay if they dont test well to my demands. I know what to buy and what not.
Inner collector is one thing but being a completist to your collection could have a grave financial path of mass spending.
What I’ve been doing is a constant review of my collection and goals and sell off items that fall outside the needs. This provides some funding to purchase newer items which fit my MR goals long term better.
My “Inner Collector” is a strong and powerful guy [}:)]
Whenever he sees something just nice looking, he starts to call out with a stong voice “Me wants”. He does that with a lot of standard and narrow gauge steamers, in all scales, up to G scale live steam. There was a time when he was quite successful, but since some years, my “Inner Banker” and Mr. Mastercard have gained strength and now know how to efficiently fight him off. I only hear very little “Me Wants” nowadays.
My “Inner Collector” is employed as CEO of my Rail Venture company, but as such, he has his own board of directors. I’m usually forced to sat on their meetings, it hurts and there;s usually yelling. He spends his hobby time making long lists of stuff he wants, so the list can be lost. Foprtunately, the fact that he currently resides in a teenager with no recognizable income has given him a healthy understanding of a budget, and the success of Layaway.
Usually, he
s interested in the odd, unique equipment, commemorative cars, and demonstrator schemes.
In the mid-1970s Custom Brass imported an A1A GMD1 in HO scale. Not very well detailed, but at the time it sufficed.
A few years back Overland Models had a run of GMD1s in HO scale, and they looked great.
The only other HO scale GMD1 I know of is a resin kit offered by Point One Models, although I believe Point One was taken over by Kaslo Shops. I don’t know if the GMD1 kit is still available.
There was also a GMD1 body kit available in N scale, but I can’t remember who made it.
Well I’m a collector. I enjoy collecting odd ball locomotives, locomotives in Canadian paint schemes, rolling stock in one off paint schemes and cabooses. All of my collection will end up in wall mounted glass display cabinets in my train room. The loco’s will get the odd run on the layout but for the most part they will stay in the cabinet. I have all the locomotives and rolling stock I need for my Ontario Northland inspired layout so other then the odd boxcar, nothing will be added to it. I find it kind of funny that people get the idea that “collectors” are ruining the hobby for everyone else. I really don’t see how. There is a market for anything and if model manufacturers want to cater to collectors then great, if they want to cater to say Pennsy modelers then that’s OK too. There is always going to be something that you want that isn’t available but to shoot down BLI’s announcement of a very nice loco that deep down most people would want I think is just stupid. I can’t believe some of the comment’s in that BLI thread. The way I see it is people just want an excuse to bad mouth these big loco’s because, A, they won’t run on their tiny little layout with it’s tiny little curves or, B, they can’t afford to actually buy the model in the first place.
My inner collector screams that very very load. Then Mrs. Inner collector smacks him on the back of the head and he quiets down. So far he’s screamed for a Mantua 2-6-6-2 articulated, a 2-8-2T narrow gauge, 4-6-2 with elephant ears, the WC GP30 at the LHS, a GB&W Alco S-6 in #101 livery, a 2-truck Shay, a 3-truck Shay, an Alco RS2/3, an SP GS-4 in blacked out war paint, and, oh yeah, that really nice looking brass Milwaukee Road 2-8-0 at the LHS. At 900 simoleans, Mrs. Inner Collector started reachin for her kids Luis Ville Slugger REAL fast.
My inner collector is a quirky fellow - he’s not as interested in what it is, but who has been in the item’s past. My collection includes autographed baseballs, autographed photos, and an autographed harmonica. There is one train item in the collection: A brass NWSL 0-6-0 and it is not right for my layout - wrong era. I bought it because it was once owned by Linn Westcott (came with a certificate signed by Harriet Westcott). The loco has a hand-made drawbar to place the tender a more accurate distance behind the cab; I know this was a pet-peave of Westcott’s, so I assume that it is his own work. The draw bar makes the tender touch the cab roof on 22" R curves, so it has issues on my layout (a carefully placed strip of transparent tape fixed that).
Anyway, my inner collector is looking for things that have a history with people who mean something to me, not just things. He’s always looking, but real finds are so rare that he really doesn’t cost me very much.
I’m just not a Collector. I will admit to being somewhat of an “Accumulator,” but that’s not the same as collecting. I do accumulate stuff for that future, grander layout, but it’s done with the belief that I won’t be able to find this stuff later, and certainly won’t be able to find it at the current price. It’s all very methodical and logical, in its own mad way.
So, boxes of freight cars, vehicles and structures, all filled with their original kit contents.
To me, a Collector must display his collection, or have plans to do so, eventually. That’s not me. On my trains, the closest I come to a “collection” is a half-dozen beer reefers, although the operating Mantua hopper cars might qualify also.
Maybe, though, our layouts are more like the “living museum” concept, the way the streetcars in San Francisco are run. Beautifully restored, lovingly maintained and respectfully operated, these old cars were discarded by other municipal transit systems decades ago, and are now not only carrying passengers, but still part of the workaday municipal transit system of the city. Now, if you want to see a collection, that’s one to take a look at.
It is easier to tame the inner collector once your shelves are full to the brim and newer purchases actually have to sit on the floor or on chairs …
Actually I have been fairly disciplined and limit my collecting to models of trains that mean something to me but don’t fit my era or prototype. For example a Centralia Car Shops Soo Line wood caboose matched one I had seen years earlier to Sault St Marie. A Wisconsin & Southern 25th anniversary painted diesel from Athearn was a replica of a prototype I had photographed in Milton Junction WI. A Northern Pacific wood caboose in O scale matched one sitting in the very park in Mendota IL just outside the door of the swap meet where I bought the model. I see Walthers is coming out with an excursion train version of their Skytop and SuperDome cars and since I hvae seen those cars often I may well indulge – as I would if someone came out with an affordable Milwaukee Road 261 or Soo Line 1003. I am going to be seeing the 4449 Daylight engine soon and I suspect it may cause me to explore what is available.
