I was just at Hobbytown USA near my house, picking up some paint. And they an Athearn Covered Hopper RTR that was weathered, graffiti and all. It actuallly looked really good.
I didn’t know they had those available? That’s the first time I have ever seen a pre-weathered car. But the $50 price tag is a bit much.
Although I haven’t seen anything recently about Athearn offering pre-weathered, or graffiti-covered cars, RTR, pre-weathed, rolling stock is certainly nothing new. A number of companies, including Athearn, as I seem to recall, have tried to make a go of this in the past 10, or so, years. However, in spite of the initial excitement at each introduction, the cars (always offered at higher that basic RTR prices, of course) vanish from the marketplaced within about 6 months.
CNJ831
My LHS had some weathered Athearn’s box cars some time ago, but no where that cost. Think they where in the $20.00 range. Guess that was 2 years ago or so. My self, I am not that crazy about weathering my self, about a third of my cars are.
By the way Micheal, yours does look good.
Ken
I have seen a few my LHS but I dont remember the price but they did not look all that weathered. The one I saw looked a little dirty and beat to heck. Most of my weathering I do is along the line of dirty car versus rust buckets so the RTR car would work great in my layout but I still like doing my own.
Ya I’m going to stick with weathering my own too. I like the dirty car versus rust buckets as well.
They had a bunch of nice aribrush kits at the store, I may pick one up soon. I’m sure I’ll be using it for more than just weathering. And I’m going to start building some structures. So it’s definitely justified. [;)]
Thanks for the comment on my cars Ken.
I’ve seen them as well, but I’m more of a “rusty” guy.
That price sounds like some one’s after market work. Athearn’s web site lists a much lower cost and doesn’t appear to have any with graffiti (not that I looked at all of them).
Enjoy
Paul
cudaken they run about 20 bucks here in canada too not 50
cudaken they run around 20 bucks here in canada too not 50 rambo1…
sorry for the double postrambo1…
A few years ago Ertl tried this also. The rolling stock was well detailed, almost as good as Kadee. They were weathered & sold for $20 - $25. It only lasted a year or 2 & everyone was closing them out at about $8.00 or less. They also purchased some structure kits to assemble & sell as “Built ups”. They also faded from view. I was looking for an Easton Mill kit & was told by everyone that Ertl bought them all to sell as Built Ups. Jerry
Indeed, Ertl was the first to attempt the mass marketing of pre-weathered freight cars, but that was more like 10-15 years ago; a time when any hobbyist worth his salt wouldn’t ever consider buying such items instead of weathering their rolling stock themselves. The price the Ertl cars demanded was also out of line for the era, especially considering that the same quality of “weathering” could be obtained at home with a single 5 second pass of an airbrush. Little surprise that they ended up a dismal failure, with the remaining stock “dumped” at bargain prices.
CNJ831