I have been watching e-bay lately and I am surprised at how much HO “New - Old Stock Items” which was never used and in many cases not even opened are available. The majority of the sellers are dealers and not individuals. In the case of individuals selling I would assume in most cases they purchased the items and never used them, or they belonged to a friend of relative and they are selling them for them. But the dealers?
Where is the majority of these items are coming from? Is it from Hobby Shops closing down, or is it from private estate sales? Could there be that many collectors in HO that accumulate these items and never use them, just collect them in comparison to Model railroaders who actively use their various roster of items?
It has been years since Kato made the HO drives for Stewart, yet if you check e-bay there are many Kato powered Stewart Diesels for sale that have never been used.
The two leading brands of model railroad equipment seems to be the Proto 2000 and Stewart Diesels. Kits for structures seem to be a wide assortment of brands as is rolling stock.
When I buy my model railroading equipment I make sure it is working properly by breaking it in. There would be little “new old stock” items if my model railroading equipment was suddenly liquidated.
My guess is the prolonged bad economy is shaking a lot of stuff loose from individuals who have had items in boxes on the shelves, both private and shops. There is stuff I’d love to get but after nearly 2 years of being unemployed or now under employed, I simply can’t afford much. For folks who still have disposable income, pickens are good I’d guess.
1} A hobby shop has closed down and is being liquidated. All of the stock is indeed old, but “new” still as it hasn’t been used.
2} A hobby shop has liquidated or marked down to a “nice Price” it’s older new stock that hasn’t sold and someone picked it up cheap cheap and is hoping someone will pay a ransom to get it and they will make “millions”
3} SOme people are just collectors and buy what they see they like when they see it and never get around to running it.
4} Some Ebay dealers may list as “new old stock” that which falls into the category of “not know if run at all, but still looks new in box”.
5}If the box is still sealed in its orginal packaging, and was built or parted out together in 1978, and not manufactured since, and just never sold it is still “new” “old stock”.
6}If the packaging is “shop worn” it can be labled as “new old stock”.
There could be more reasons. Not every Athearn BB ever made was sold and used. Take a look at teh number available in trains shows-often in boxes that are “shop worn”, but are still brand new and in their original boxes.
While many are not necessarily trying to be dishonest, “new old stock” sounds better than “slightly used” or “barely used” or “only test run” or “unknown if run”.
And then there are those who ARE dishonest and label it that way being dishonest.
i can’t answer your question but it caused me to do a little thinking. on the rare occasion, i go to a train show or window shop on e-bay, i too am puzzled by the amount of n.o.s. material out there. i still get a laugh out of some of the guys who are trying to get 10 bucks or more for an early athearn blue box car kit. my thinking is if no one wanted it when it was two dollars, why would anybody pay ten?
right now there are branchline passenger cars on gomotorbids that are selling for eight dollars or less and then showing up on ebay for 25-30. just business i guess. i’m glad i bought a lot of kits back when i could get them cheaper and i had a good income. now i just buy glue and paint most of the time but it is interesting to watch the market.
A hobby shop diesn’t need to be going out of busisness to get rid of old stock. If it is something that has been sitting on their shelf for a long time, they want to turn the stock over and get their money in motion. Look at some of the dealers at train shows, some of that stuff may have been around since before the idea of the Internet, they could be widening their market too.
Yes it is amazing. I window shop a lot but rarely buy anything. What I have noticed is a hogging of ebay by what I would call professional dealers. It used to be more individuals selling their personal possessions, so how some get the NOS items, I don’t know. And, with the increase in dealers, prices for the NOS items have been going up accordingly. Like someone else mentioned, selling an item for $10 when it didn’t sell years ago for $2 doesn’t make much sense. These guys also seem to list the same item over and over and over and never drop the price.
I’m generally only interested in items from personal sellers, so I guess any NOS items would be from their own, or a friend’s, collection. And I don’t understand how they never could have used the item enough to still represent it as NOS.
The MSRP for this engine is $249.99. Is there that much of a demand for this engine? I have a number of the earlier Paragon engines and they are a very good running engine but for what price?
I agree, I wouldn’t pay that price either, but…perhaps it’s one of the rarer roadnames and is hard to find. As with most anything scarcity dictates price.
One possible source is estate sales - and at least one dealer advertises that he will buy model railroad stock from the estates of modelers who have marked up on the big call board up yonder.
If I were to keel over at this keyboard, my executor would have to try to get some value from a bunch of unassembled kits, including BB kits (mostly hoppers) but also including unassembled brass steam and electric (catenary) locos bought in Japan forty or more years ago.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - occasionally assembling kits bought at that time)
NOS is probably a lot more commen than many people think today. I, and several of my friends have purchased a lot more equipment than one person could ever logically use or need, but that’s not the point. We enjoy having them, looking at them, and occassionally actually may run a few of them for a short time.
When my 2nd wife and I got married about 10 years ago we both owned our own homes but decided to purchase a new home in the country. Our goal was a semi-large, comfortable home with a completely open large basement for a new train layout. We sold our old homes, she took “her” money, bought a new Chevy Trailblazer and invested the rest in CDs, (bank CDs).
I decided to take my money and buy trains instead, CDs were paying a little over 5% then and basically nothing for the last 2-3 years.
I was careful in my buying so I was certain I could always retreive my money and should have no problem making 5% on my investment with “no taxes”.
So as it stands today I have a 12X15 room with floor to ceiling shelves that are filled to capacity and has overflowed into a spare bedroom that we don’t use and probably 90% of it is NOS.
Now I have no doubt that some will say that is silly and you may be correct but, some golf, some go boating, some collect stamps, and some collect useless stocks, it’s all about what gets you excited.
I have more then one hobby but this is by far the main hobby and I will probably sell quite a bit of it off one day when the layout is up and completely in running order and I determine what I actually “need” to fulfill my dreams. Until then I’ll keep snagging the occassional engine, be it brass or plastic, freight or passenger car or whatever else comes my way for what I feel is a
In the days of building most of your layout from kits or planning and making extensive modifications to RTR items, that would not generally be true. To successfully build kits or make extensive bashes requires me to think through what I need on hand before I start the project. The last thing I want is to need a part or tool in the middle of the construction or bash that my LHS doesn’t stock.
Personally, I don’t buy much of anything that will go straight into operation on the layout. The cost per hour of model railroading with unmodified RTR is much too high for me. Adding construction time for kits and bashes significantly lowers the hobby cost/hour to something more reasonable. And there is very little off the shelf equipment that fits my prototype and era, anyway.
So my buying mostly follows this pattern:
determine what my layout needs next for locomotive, structure, car, etc.
determine what path I am going to use to get there (what kit or RTR item will be the starting point)
buy the kit or bash item
dry run the assembly and/or bash to determine what additional parts/supplies I need
order/buy the parts and supplies
start building/bashing the project
change my mind as to what the completed item will look like, or realize there are additional parts and supplies I need to complete
get the additional parts and supplies
repeat the last 2 steps a couple of times
complete the item
Note that there is quite a lag from initial purchase of an item to completing it, and that there is considerable dead time along the way. To keep things moving, and urgent but often disappointing
I’m primarily a model builder, don’t have a layout, just modules I operate with our local club. I’ve succumbed to some of the newer models released in the past few years, mostly because they were so darned nice! But recently I looked at my shelf of models, and all of these commercially built ones didn’t seem to be of much use to me. So I packed most of them in their original boxes and offered them for sale at our local shows. They were to me “new old stock”, as they had never been operated, just opened and put on the shelf to gather dust.
A previous remark that eBay seems to be more and more dealers or professional sellers seems to be what eBay is trying to become - eliminate the nickle and dime sellers and concentrate on the bigger volume sellers. They’re pushing all sorts of offers, trying to be like Amazon - an Internet outlet for retailers and wholesalers. They’ve been filling my inbox with special selling deals - no listing fees, but with a 9% final value fee. Add the PayPal fees and eBay is losing its lustre!
Years ago, while living in Dayton, Ohio, I planned a V&O style coal hauling bridge route. I bought dozens of Atlas 2 bay hoppers, many Atlas/Kato Alcos, most at local swap meets. Most were still new in their original boxes. Well, things change. I realized with space, money and time constraints, that layout ain’t gonna happen! Now I live in western Colorado, where you have to drive 2 to 4 hours to attend a swap meet with a paltry 20 tables. EBay became my outlet to dispose of my unneeded stuff. While I’ve been an eBayer since 1998, the current market is pretty soft. Those Atlas hoppers, with original prices of 10 to 13 dollars get no bids at $6.95 But they are “new old stock”
One dealer I buy from, Jay’s Trains, not ebay, told me he bought a bunch of Mantua’s some years ago. The tenders had a cheap sound module. I was interested in a Mantua Pacific kit.
This guys has loads of stuff never opened. He also has some used and bought from estate sales.
One example. Many have done this over the years for selling in the future when they retired.
It is still in Factory Sealed Box.
I bought 100s of Mantua locos from Trost Distributing in Chicago 7 - 10 years ago.
These kits with sound were produced for a very short period.
Probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
Reading some of the replies has caused me to think about my specific situation more.
As far as car kits, I have many that I’ve picked up over the years and have never ever taken them out of the box. I suppose I, or my future estate, could resell them as new old stock.
However, every locomotive that I buy I immediately open and test run to make sure I don’t need to place claims against the warranty. So all of my locomtives have had the scotch tape sliced, box opened, and have been test run. Some have been test run a few times over the years. While these locomotives are basically new and should fetch a similar price as NOS, I don’t feel it would be right to list them as NOS. As far as comparisons, I would assume that most private modeler’s have at least test run their locomotives.
So to respond to the OP’s post, I assume the older Stewart/Kato locomotives he is referring to must be “stock” i.e. inventory, that a closed hobby shop dealer is trying to sell, or even an active hobby shop is finally trying to move. If those 10 to 15 year old items are truly NOS from a closed hobby shop, well, no wonder its closed.
Yep…and I bought 4 of them at great prices. All 4 were new as advertised. I remember buying them when they first came out for around $80 each; I spent less than half for each of these.
Don7 writes "could there be that many collectors in HO that accumulate these items and never usethem?" Have you noticed on this forum just how much “stuff” some people buy? I find it hard to believe the enormous amounts of “stuff” these guys accumulate, hundreds of boxes stashed away on shelf after shelf after shelf, it would be impossible to actually use any of it in 3 lifetimes, yet they admit they are not collectors but will use it sometime .
They admit to NOT being collectors or hoarders but they certainly are accumulaters. Some of the basements filled with stuff have to be seen to be believed, this may account for the deluge of new/old stock out there now.
I bought some Stewart diesels, I wanted the later DCC ready units and end up with a bunch of Kato drives which are not DCC ready. Guess I will try to find someone to trade chassis with.
I agree that the Kato drives are superior to the Stewart drives in performance, however they are not DCC ready. Too bad.
Before I retired in '06, I began accumulating HO stuff (mostly from Ebay) until I had about 75 powered units and well over 600 cars - with the majority still in kit form.
Upon retiring, and when the realization hit me that I’ll not be moving, and have wayyyy more stuff than I can use, I started to thin out - each year via Ebay Christmas Sales. About half of the items (about 100 each December) was “new old stock”.
Among my acquisitions was 6 Stewart ABBA units - either factory powered or with the power chassis bought extra. Ha, I’m narrowing that down by three this year.
I do know of a LHS that buys stocks from stores going out of business, and he always has a huge amount of stuff - mostly kits - that have been out of production for many years.