Ok, I’m not a golfer and don’t want to offend any of you out there who enjoy this game. I have always compared my hobby with golf when justifying purchases to my wife—who does encourage me with Model Railroading. Golfers have shoes, clubs, and a whole bunch of receipts for green fees and travel expenses. At the end of the day I still have receipts but also have something I can put in my hand and look at, whether it be a box car or locomotive, items which can be enjoyed and used for years. I don’t care if they depreciate or appreciate in value over time because they have value to me day in and day out.
I’ve enjoyed this hobby for over 50 years and have never made a purchase based upon the potential for price gain down the road. My purchases are items I would like to have today and have never considered any model railroad acquisition as a financial investment.
When I sold off much of my N-scale collection on eBay the return on investment had been terrible to say the least, I figured I got back at best 40% what I put into it, however the money did help me defray the costs of my project racing bike at the time which had been the point. I’ve never bought trains thinking I’d make money on them one day, though I like the idea and will at least work to keep my models in as good a condition as possible, however my trains will likely only be collectibles if there is a solid economy and if I’m a famous dead person and my family is auctioning off my collection.
Model trains, to quote my former hobby store boss have no resale value as a whole. Brass does maintain resale value for the most part, with exceptions noted, and you have some craftsman kits which will continue to escalate in value, such as those by FSM and SRM.
Many hobbies don’t have a return on investment, most loose.
That is because a hobby is a highly personalized thing.
Brass may well have grown in value, but I guarantee ya my scenery on extruded foam base and my Bachmann DCC OnBoard locos won’t bring back much.
Even coin collecting is a fickle business. For every story of a coin or stamp fetching some astronomical price at auction there are probaly 1,500,000 collectors who will loose money, if not more. Even “gold collectable coins” are rarely made of pure gold, only gold clad.
Art is too.
so DOn’t look to your hobby to be a gainer in value.
I think a Model Railroad is an excellent investment!
In my relationship with my kids, something to do that I enjoy, a relaxing pastime, as something that will help me learn new skills and improve old ones, and something that helps me make new friends with people who have similar interests.
I’m with Sheldon and Wayne, I view my model railroading purchases as consumables. I expect to never see any monitary return on them. I have enjoyed purchasing, running, building, showing off or whatever I did with them. Any money returned at some future date is just a small, unexpected bonus. I get a lot more hours of enjoyment out of it than a DVD which I can watch how many times?
…don’t take this personally but you’re nuts. If you wanted to make money in a hobby you should have started a coin collecting “hobby” of collecting 99.99% pure gold coins in September 2008.
As hobbies go MRR is probably a better investment of resources than most other mainstream hobbies. You buy a train, enjoy 20 years or more of running it and you got your money worths out of it. . Spend $1000 on an R/C plane and it crashes the first flight out, you are out all that time and money into the plane (maybe you are lucky and can salvage the radio and a few servos). I have been MRR about 2 years now and if I had to sell off everthing tomorrow at 10% of what I paid, I think I would still be ok because I enjoyed all the hours spent MRRing. If you think at some time down the road you will sell your trains, I woud recommend not buying junk now If you want the best return on your investement, just keep your money but what fun would that be.
Very true and it also applies to silver coinage. It wasn’t that long ago when silver was going for about $8/ounce and it is now over $35, and at times approaches $40/ounce. Collecting truly rare coins or scarce coins, is generally a sound investment over the long haul—it is generally easy to find a buyer willing to pay a premium for good quality rare coins.
A problem with model railroad stuff as “collectibles” is you never really know what’s going to be desired 20-30 years from now and what will just be considered “run of the mill”. Even with Lionel, for every truly collectible item you’ve got a hundred “good not great” engines, cars, accessories etc.
I suspect when I die the only thing that will show a good return on investment will be my hardcover railroad books…assuming I die soon enough that people still read actual hardcopy books and not just stuff from a screen of course. I know some of my books bought in the 1980’s have doubled or tripled in value over the years.
In 54 years on this earth I have NEVER, and will NEVER buy something because “other people” like it or desire it. But then again I am known to follow my own drummer on a number of topics.
I’ve never bought a model train because it might be valuable later, I’ve never bought an automobile based on its projected trade in value, and I’ve never bought any “object of art” as an investment.
I’m far too self involved and too far too particular about my posessions to allow such things to influence my purchases. I buy trains based on filling the modeling goals of the layout, I buy automobiles based on their utility and value, and I buy decorative art strictly based on its style and appearence for the decorating task at hand. Art too is like model trains, to be used up like food anf drink.
But, since I don’t get “bored” with stuff quickly, this approach has served me well.
Well…if one wanted to supposedly ‘invest’ $$$ in something then why not stocks? Can make a ‘hobby’ out of that…[:-^]
Or…just as piculous here…why not ‘analogue’ synthesizers from the 1960’s/1970’s? An Arp2600 no a days can set you back about $8,000 or you can always find a Buchla for around $10,000 now…[:-^]
Yep, we can probably put a fork in this topic and say it is cooked.
Just like any item one can invest money in, there can be a lot of volatility and you have to buy low and sell high. I remember some Hallmark Christmas ornaments like the Star Ship Enterprise sold for $20 new and a few years later was selling on Ebay for $200. But now they are way down. You have to know when to ride the wave and get out. I bought some Kumata made brass HO California Zephyr passenger cars for an average of around $165 each. I didn’t buy them as an investment but the effect was the same when BLI released their cars. I consigned my brass CZ cars to sell at Caboose Hobbies and it took over 2 years to unload them and I think I got maybe half the cost out of them that I had in. There you go.
The biggest issue for investing in things like this is RISK and Timing. In general I think it’s good advice to say at best: tread lightly young padowan. But better advice: Probably best to just stick with “safe” forms of investing which means usually slow and steady gets the job done.
Rio Grande is probably right – this topic has largely run its course.
Really, the ONLY investments with truly appreciating value are those which will remain semi-liquid in the future (stocks, bonds, commodities). For a “collectible” to appreciate in value, you have to be able to count on finding someone in the future who would be willing to pay the acquisition cost plus the time value of money. Not likely!
The value of a collection is in having it.
Model railroading stuff, OTOH, isn’t really a collection unless you never run it and keep it well preserved.
But look at it another way – you’re investing in fun or relaxation. What’s that worth to you? $10 an hour, $20, $5? Even at $5 an hour, if you get 201 hours of enjoyment out of the $1000 you put in, then you’re making a good investment.
Based on that scale, my “investment” in model railroading has paid for itself several times over.
I wouldn’t call it an “investment” as such, but occasionally I have picked up things specifically because I thought I could resell them, with some success. These tend to be very, very unusual circumstances, like finding a batch of stuff at a garage sale for ridiculously low prices. I have bought a few small collections because I wanted a few things, and sold the remainder, in some cases making more than I spent. Once a hobby shop that specialized in R/C cars had a large collection of old HO equipment, including a couple of brass locos and cars. I asked how much for all of it, and the owner named a very low price (he must have got it for a song) so I picked it up even though I only wanted a few pieces. I made my “investment” back and then some, plus got the items I wanted for “free,” but that’s a once-in-a-blue-moon experience, not something you can count on coming down the pike. Plus it was all equipment in my scale and general era, if any of it didn’t sell I would have just kept it and run it on my home layout.
I have also noticed that people tend to sell old kits etc. more cheaply during economic downturns, and the same kits sell for a lot more when the economy is doing relatively well, and have sold some “deals” for a profit by getting a dealer table in sunny economic times and selling off my stash of “recession models.” Fortunately my own circumstances weren’t so dire that I had to sell them before things were looking up! Doing this sort of thing depends on your own level of experience at assessing the value of model railroad stuff, your willingness to store, price, and sell the things, and the market. It’s not an “investment” in the traditional sense, but more of an occasional opportunity.
And sometimes the only return I look for when selling a kit is a bit more storage space! When I first got back into the hobby I was a little indiscriminate about my MRR purchases (much to the joy of my local hobby shop.) After a kit sits for a few years, I will often consider whether I’m really going to
Well, model railroading is an investment, but not in money terms. It is an investment into fun, entertainment and relaxation. Aside from very rare tin plate models of the beginnings of model railroading, who achieve skyrocketing prices at auctions (when in mint condition), all equipment rather depreciates in value, unless you are prepared to wait for 60 - 80 years. When you are forced to sell your prized collection, like I had to, your are lucky to achieve 40 - 50 % of your initial investment. That hurts!
Since I am “getting up there” my wife was given instructions a few years ago in writing on what steps to take when I pass (if I go first). I have a large investment in HO, but I know that the return will be pretty low. I told her to contact the local NMRA brothers to give them first crack at anything (I do have some nice equipment amongst the junk) and she has a price list on everything. I have also enlisted a couple of the older NMRA guys in our group who have offered to help her.
Then I told her to let them have a sale to the public with the leftovers, but not to worry about selling track, scenery, benchwork, but to put the effort in the structures and equipment, plus DCC equipment. Then pay someone to “clean out the junk” left in the basement.
I do have one item, an old original Lionel scale Hudson steam engine that I received from m;y dad for my first birthday (he was anxious to get rolling) and which still runs today on a test track. I have had offers of a few thousand bucks for it, so I keep it in sight but out of reach.