I have a neighbor who wants to sell 50 years worth of Rail Model Craftsman and Model Railroader… I was going to jump on it, but I was wondering what the going rate for something like this is? $150??? More??? I have no idea… Thanks in advance for any help!
Brian
I’ve usually seen them go for about 75 cents to $1.50 each at shows. More I suppose if they are really old or there is something special about a given issue.
EEEK that means this could get expensive!!! Hmmm…
Brian
Most of my customers will not pay one dollar each for older magazines, I usually just give away back issues as long as they are given to me. They are so plentiful.
More often than not, I see them for free. At train shows, a lot of guys give them away as opposed to throwing them out. My local hobby shop usually has a stack of old issues that they give away with a purchase. Even trying to sell them on ebay is pointless as the shipping will kill the sale. Most people are glad to just find someone willing to get them out of their house and get some use out of them. At best, offer a token dollar amount so he feels he got “something” for them.
Mark.
Of course, that was on a single issue purchase from a dealer at a show. Why don’t you just offer what you think is a fair price for the bulk lot?
LOL…that is the problem… no idea what a fair price is!!! LOL… but I am getting an idea thanks to you all… he was thinking $300, I am thinking of offering around 150-200…
Brian
The Cass Scenic Railroad and the East Broad Top were selling a year bundle of magazines (RMC and MR) for $5.
Phil
I think it may also matter the age of the magazines. If there are some old ones from the forties and fifties, and are in good condition, they may be worth more as a collectable. If they are all from the seventies and newer, I’d offer $50, maybe $100 tops depending on what you already have in your own collection. I’d be very surprised if there’s a line at his front door willing to give him $300 for them … offer him $100 (if you’d be willing to pay that for a bunch of old magazines) and when he refuses, give him your number and walk away. A few months from now when he’s tired of them being in the way, he may reconsider your generous offer. [;)]
Mark.
Hehheeh great minds think alike… just sent his wife (she is the one selling…sick of having them in the garage) an email offering just that amount!
Brian
Your neighbor is probably reading this thread!
The last time I checked (about fifteen years ago), my LHS was selling older Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman for $2.00, and more recent issues for $1.00. I have seen used issues of Mainline Modeler and other Hundman magazines going for full cover price.
I was present when a gentleman asked clerk at my LHS about selling his recently deceased father’s collection. The clerk said something to the effect that the most they would pay is about a nickle a copy, and very often they took the magazines without a specific price when buying rolling stock, books, and other items having greater resale potential, just to take them off the seller’s hands. The high markup is justified because the magazines are often unsorted, tend to linger on shelves for a long time, and are subject to damage, just from customers looking through the old mags to find what they want. The clerk also said that once the magazines lose their covers, they will likely never sell.
If I were to sell my heap of old magazines, I would proabably try to sell them as year sets. When I was acquiring back issues, I would have gladly paid up to $15.00 for a complete year of Model Railroader rather than sit on the floor in the hobby shop and hunt down specific issues to fill a gap.
OTOH, it seems that back issues of the smaller circulation magazines are getting hard to find.
Tell him I’ll give him a quarter for the oldest 500 copies in his inventory and I’ll pay shipping costs!!! Pure and simple, they ain’t worth a tinkersdamn except for what value they may have to you. About fifteen years ago I tried to get rid of twenty-five years of back issues of RMC and MR at a swap meet and the only response I got was when I was ask what I was going to do with them if they didn’t sell and I said I was going to junk them. The response: don’t throw’em away!!! Give’em to me!!! Yeah, right!!! By the way, I didn’t junk them. Right at the moment I am designing some post binders to put them in.
Now that I think about it, assuming you don’t want to try to sell them yourself, you might want to try going to an antique magazine dealer, or a dealer that specializes in railroad paper, and not a hobby shop. The only thing is I get the feeling that the antique magazine dealers will insist on good or better condition.
Unfortunately, it often happens that dealers in this sort of material will buy at wholesale and sell at retail.
here is around 50 back issues for $9
no bid
I receved 80 on ebay for $1 and with bulk media shipping was like $12
I just found 10 of the hard bound covers filled with model railroaders in the trash
with a plastic prefab layout score…
some of them have a musty smell is there a safe way to fix this problem??
here is 60 for $20
jm2c
In my experience, the musty smell gradually subsides. (If there is overt mold or mildew growing in the mags, then you do have a problem.)
Last swap-meet I went to (Sept 8th) single issues ran from .25 to $1.00…complete years (1980-2007) ran from $5.00 to $7.50 a year. If they are older (pre 1960) then they start getting up in price (over $1.00 ea).
Not very much.
Another part of the problem is the increasing availiblity of information on this website in the form of track plan PDF’s etc.
I will always enjoy recieving a new issue in the mail monthly or annually. But after a certain time, it goes into the trash. Paper is to me, obselete because Data can be stored on hard drives in great amounts cheaply.
Yeah that’s me, you don’t think they’re worth $300! What cheapskates!
(Just kidding!)[:D][(-D]
$100 is a very generous offer for a bunch of old magazines.
I look forward to the day when Kalmbach offers all their back issues on CD-ROM. I like having back issues but I’m sick of them collecting dust and taking up space.