I heard on a computer show today that a company is releasing a home 3D printing system for around $5000.(in a few months) They say this will lead to making your own parts at home from specs off the internet. So printing out your own model kits may not be too far off. I have no idea how it works, but remember what VCR’s cost when they first came out. Wouldn’t that be great! No more waiting 3 months for Internet Trains to ship your stuff.
Sources: NMRA board, Kalmbach, Walthers
Magazine circulation numbers don’t necessarily indicate hobby growth or shrinkage, but rather major changes in magazine marketing practices. You can elect to sell your magazines even at a loss to pump up circulation numbers. If you back away from such practices, your circulation numbers could drop off considerably. I’m not saying MR did this, but just pointing out there’s a lot of variables that affect magazine circulation, so you can’t just assume circulation = hobbyist head count.
Recent major media outlets have reported the hobby is growing again, as well.
The hobby was supposed to die because manufacturing ceased in WWII, then it was supposed to die because plastic ready to run equipment was going to kill it. Then in the 1960s slot cars were going to kill it. In the 70s the death of scratchbuilding was to be the end of the hobby. Since then high prices and the lack of young people joining the hobby
Joe, you’re essentialy blowing smoke with that response, come on! Address the question for goodness sake! Your story changed three times, each time becoming increasingly favorable toward what people want to hear. Did the NMRA, Kalmbach and Walthers consecutively tell you three different versions a few weeks appart (the first part of the latest version has to be a total falsehood anyway and your take on MR doubling its subscriptions meaning nothing is just plain silly!)?
CNJ831
What’s your point? I’m sure Joe saw things one way once, then got some additional data, and then changed his opinion based on the new information he gathered. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It just proves he’s open-minded about the whole topic.
Again, what’s your point? It sounds like you really do want the hobby to die, just to say that you were right.
CN:
I’m telling you what I have been told from people who ought to know. I’m not at liberty to give all the precise sources or exact hows and whys since some of the data was shared with me in confidence.
I’m telling you the general sense those in the hobby in positions of authority have and have expressed to me in conversations here and there. These are people who ought to know and they are not worried for the reasons I gave. Like me, you can trust they know what they’re talking about or believe that instead they (and I) are just making this stuff up (which we’re not, but you can believe what you like – it’s a free country).
If people who think the hobby is on its way out close their doors and they are wrong, then that just leaves more opportunities for the rest of us. On the other hand, if we who think the hobby is healthy still are the ones who are deluded, then we’ll lose our collective shirts and those people can tell us “we told you so”.
This is one of those topics where we can debate till the cows come home, but time will tell who is really the one who had the best “crystal ball” gaze. It is interesting to know the hobby’s demise has been predicted many times in the last century, yet it’s still here – and seems to be doing reasonably well, even very well if you look at the quality and variety of what’s available these days.
No, Metro, I certainly don’t wish to see the hobby die out or anything of the sort. My point is that I like to see folks told the honest truth, not simply offered up some undocumented claims, with conflicting “facts” or an evolving storyline that grows increasingly favorable with each telling that is seemingly designed to appear to agree with the best possible scenario most hobbyists desperately want to be the truth.
I ask only for honesty, frankness and the facts of the matter, nothing more.
CNJ831
No, Metro, I certainly don’t wish to see the hobby die out or anything of the sort. My point is that I like to see folks told the honest truth, not simply offered up some undocumented claims, with conflicting “facts” or an evolving storyline that grows increasingly favorable with each telling and that is seemingly designed to appear to agree with the best possible scenario most hobbyists desperately want to be the truth.
I ask only for honesty, frankness and the facts of the matter, nothing more.
CNJ831
“What is truth?”
Sharing my thought
May 15