I have found some used rolling stock and a athearn dash 9-44cw and the guy wants $400. Or $600 with a box of ez track. Rolling stock is in the pictures. Would $400 be a reasonable price for this or is it to much?
If it’s all used, $150 to $200 would be as far as I would go.
$400 is a bit too much, even if it were all new !
Those Con-Cor car’s leave a LOT to be desired. ( I have never had good luck with Con-Cor, unless I kitbash the living “heck” out of em ! )
MB,
As far as eBay, there’s used…and then there’s “used”. Used can run the gamut between only being taken out of the box in order to display it in a case…or it may mean months or years of use (or abuse) on it. Condition (“C-” factor) is what you should be most concerned about. Those will be listed in the description near the bottom of the listing and rated from C-1 to C-10; C-10 being “new” or “NIB” (new in box).
From the listed items that you’ve provided the links for, I would have to concur with Tim. $400 is twice what it’s all worth. You could pick those items up individually off ebay and save a bunch of money. And that would include S&H.
Tom
If you look around, you can find all of those at a much better price, IMO.
The D9-44CW can be found new for just under $100, and I don’t feel those few railcars would be worth just over $300, and unless there is a ton of track, $200 for it is indeed high.
With track, I would be nervous at $300, and would, depending on how much track, offer between $200 and $225.
Used equipment should not go for the same price as new.
Model trains do not keep their value like most people think they do.
…unless it’s a REALLY rare item. Unfortunately, “rare” and “vintage” are one of the most abused terms used on eBay. And, just because something is “OOP” (out of production), it doesn’t necessarly equate to it also being valuable.
But…as the old adage goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and folks will pay what they want or what the seller asks. For me - I’d walk past this one and move on…
Tom
Yeah, I don’t know what the guy who posted those auctions for those prices is smoking, but it’s the good stuff.
Tom, you are right.
Rare items will hold value.
Athearn, Bachmann, Con-Cor, and Walthers are anything but rare items though…
At the price listed, my response would be “No way Josè!”
i found this on a local site not eBay but I agree it seems priced as new
Some of the cars have horn hook couplers, so they have been around a while. I agree with others, this is way overpriced.
I wouldn’t buy used track I couldn’t inspect in person, just too many possible problems.
I would pass this lot.
Paul
Like others have said, that’s just too much to pay for that stuff. My advise is save your money and buy new stuff if at all possible - and try to avoid Concor…
Way too many people selling stuff think that all old trtains are collectible.
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This is 100% untrue and nearly the opposite of reality.
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I agree with the crowd. The price is way too high.
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-Kevin
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Dave White used to run Lee’s Train Service in Oakland CA. He did mostly Lionel, new, used and repair.
People would come in with their box o’ Lionel. He’d tell them what it was worth. They’d be incensed, convinced he was trying to steal the stuff.
Here’s the deal: Lionel made high end stuff. And low end stuff. Guess which sold the most. So, for every 20 boxes of near-worthless stuff, there might be ONE worth what EVERYONE thought theirs was worth.
He said it was getting really really old.
Ed
The one exception for me would be their GM Aerotrain, which is quite nice and well put together.
Tom
There are things from any maker that can command a premium. I’ve flipped late production Athearn BB locomotives for more than original price simply because they were undecorated and far more rare. I can’t even imagine the asking price for the Walthers DC Metro cars from 25 years ago. Only had one run. Never even seen one on the secondhand market.
Anyone who has ever been on E-Bay looking for MR stuff knows there are some things with sky high prices and some good deals. The last time I was there, I was looking at Athearn HO intermodal stuff and a lot of it was MSRP plus and shipping charges. It all comes down to how bad you want it.
Not that this helps the OP any, but I would point out that general statements such as “avoid Con Cor” are rather too sweeping. “Con Cor” includes their own tooling which, yes, could vary widely in accuracy and and running condition but which has some good and interesting things; tooling they acquired from others that had some interesting cars; custom painted Athearn Blue Box that had distinctive paint schemes; their reissues of the old Revell tooling (example, the mill gondola) which are dated but there are some potentially interesting things, including the Ford truck and auto carrier; and if you go way back, their own line of craftsman kits – not plastic – that hardly anyone seems to remember, but there were many things of interest in their line back then, including some HOn3 stuff, and their old “One of 500” series.
I’m not here to sing the praises of Con Cor, but so many different things and types of kits have been issued under their name over the decades that the name alone tells you little – just as (to return to the original topic) so many conditions of trains are described by the isolated word “used” that it almost has no meaning other than “not new.” But sometimes it even means new!
Dave Nelson
I think it is too much. Around $250 might be a good price if there was some items that I really wanted.
I’m fortunate to have a good hobbyshop, Just Train Crazy, about five minutes away. While there’s not a lot of stuff I “need” (mostly scratchbuilding supplies or parts) the store does have a “used” section and also deals in estate lots, so there’s often some things of interest to be found.
I saw a Westerfield kit for a Fowler boxcar there, for $10.00, a very good price, but not really something I needed. However, there was also a kit for an N&W older-style hopper that the store’s owner simply wanted to move, too, (not too many people are interested in kits, it seems) but I didn’t really need, or even want it. “Well, the boxcar is ten bucks, or you can have the boxcar and the hopper for nine!”, he said.
I was immediately convinced that I needed both…“Okay.”, I said.
The boxcar ended-up as a MoW car…
…and the hopper (apparently a very old kit, with extremely brittle castings, as I learned when building it) turned out okay, but was not a great pleasure to build…
Another potentially good source of used stuff is at train shows, although you need to know your prices, as there are always dealers selling new stuff, or older NiB stuff at above normal retail prices.
I got this old Varney tank (just the tank) for free, then bought a Tichy tank car underframe kit at my LHS, shortening the tank just a bit so that it would fit onto the new underframe…
Proubly worth $150 considering the condition and without seeing accual engine