I stopped by my train store this afternoon 'cause I happened to be in the area, and picked up the new Lionel and KLine catalogs, plus this store’s early buy sheet. I was disappointed that a couple of the cars I wanted wasn’t on the early buy sheet, so just out of curiousity I went to the website of another store I’ve frequented to see if they had put out their early buy yet. I was surprised to find they had exactly the same sheet as the first store, which made me wonder whether this is a Lionel program instead of a store-by-store offering.
I don’t know if its a program or not but as far as I’m aware we’ve only one sheet. Prices on it are list and it appears to have just about everything in the catalogue. Though I haven’t sat down and compared it. We’ve had a few of the larger customers give us their wants already. From what I understand the dealers’ discounts are based on a screwy formula so we’re not quite sure what we’ll be selling for vs. list. I do know Fastrack prices have been raised.
If the item has already appeared in a previous catalog, it’s often not listed on the next catalog’s early buy list by dealers. Suggest you try Island Trains or Charles Ro, two of Lionel’s bigger dealers I’ve used successfully in the past. They also have websites, as you know. The item may already have been produced or may be delayed despite having been in the last catalog. Either way, no early buy usually.
Spank, I think you may be right. On some forum thread about catalogs, someone mentioned his dealer had the catalogs in, but his price sheets weren’t quite ready to be distributed. My local guy has the same story. Now that I think about it, I’ve wondered how he has time to create the price\early buy sheets as he is a one-man operation and barely has time to unpack boxes. Maybe the giganto super dealers can and do have the wherewithal to make different pricing structures, but I bet the smaller guys are stuck with the “program” (or else try to sell full retail).