Points to consider before making the above comparison:
In 1953, less than 20 percent of U.S. homes had a television set;
The 33M you say Lionel did in sales in 1953 means nothing unless you have the figures for net profits, so here they are, corrected:
In 1953 Lionel did $28.1 in sales, with earnings of $1.6 million; while in the same year A.C. Gilbert Co. (American Flyer) did $18 million in sales with earnings of $536,000. Source: http://www.rit.edu/~tbbeqa/SalesAF.html, among others.
There were two main choices in 1953 – Lionel, or American Flyer – and the two were totally incompatable; in the heyday of both companies (1946-1959) Lionel sold $250 million (65% market share) worth of trains while Gilbert sold $134 million (35% market share) worth of American Flyer. This does not include 1960-1967, when both companies posted net losses for the eight-year period when interest in trains started to slide among youth.
It is therefore obvious in 1953 Lionel wasn’t competing with MTH or any other strong contender for 3-rail dollars. It had cornered the 3-rail mark
The state of the hobby, with all things considered, is remarkably healthy considering how long it has been around and the fact that it models a facet of fading americana that, as a shadow of it’s 19th century leading edge, has no toy industry national advertising campaign to support it as it did in the 40’s and 1950’s, some 50 years + ago. Not too shabby for a scale that was for all purposes “dead” in the 1960’s. Whither the slot cars…hula hoops…slide viewers… all wildly popular buying fads that are only footnotes in popular culture. This hobby will be around in my lifetime and beyond…these are golden years part 2…enjoy it while it lasts.
Being in the hobby with my own company, I will say that there is no shortage of consumers. I have a very small buisness with limited resources, but have no problem with demand. There is season for trains, summer not being one of them. Fall, winter, and spring are what I call “the silly season”. Calls pick up, orders get bigger, demand goes up. Summer comes and I am lucky to get one order a week. I am sure the big companies go through the same thing. The hobby is strong, and in no shape hurting.
I imagine we can all pretty much agree that this segment of the hobby will likely never again be as strong and robust as it is today. Any disagreement with that?
And I would further argue that this segment of the hobby, as it exists today, is not as strong and robust as it was at the start of the current century. Again, any disagreement there?
So what’s that all indicate? I’m not sure, because I can’t predict the future any better than anyone else here, but I do have my suspicions. All I know for sure is that I’m going to enjoy my trains while I can, regardless of how many manufacturers there are and how much (or little) product they produce, and will leave the hand-wringing to some other folks who seem to really enjoy worrying about what can be seen in that clouded crystal ball. My sincere hope is that most others here will elect to do the same.
You’re dead on about kicking back and enjoying life and not being uptight, although I still put in some long hours on the business I own.
I do look for offenses, thought – people who make up “facts” to support their ultra-thin arguments, closed-minded people with biases, bigots, liars, people who have one set of standards for themselves and another for everyone else, bullies, people who use forums like this to enhance their faux feelings of superiority by belittling others, people who have a personal political agenda and try to force it down the throat of others.
Like you, to get my personal enjoyment out of this hobby I don’t need the comfort of knowing an army of others are also involved; I could care less. I do it because I enjoy it, not because it might be popular right now.
I can make the same point. If I were on the insecure people, then right now skate boarding is the big thing in Cuero. It ticks me off how many people will do something just because they will be considered cool. I, unlike so many of my class mates, refuse conformity. Unlike so many of my classmates, I am not afriad to truly be myself.
Well when you are black, a redneck, and hate rap music, when every other person is in some form or stage of “gansterism”, wouldnt you say that I am doing a darn good job?
You misunderstand. Skin color or those other things you mention has nothing to do with conforming.
It’s like that song in the TV commercial with the people all mouthing in unison the refrain " 'Cause I’m not like everybody else…"
When many of us were younger during the late 1960s and early 1970s, we too did not want to conform so we did things like grow our hair and beards long and wear jeans, etc. Except by doing that – not conforming to our parents – we were considered by anyone with a crew cut to be conforming to a very large group called “hippies.” Get it?
Same thing with men who work in offices and wear a three-piece suit, shirt and tie to work every day. “I’m glad I don’t have to wear a uniform,” they’ll say, when in reality their three-piece suit IS a uniform – of sorts. Go to a courthouse and hang around for awhile and tell me most lawyers don’t wear a “uniform.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. [:D]
My spider sense tingles and I fear that for some strange reason, this thread has taken a strange turn and may steer onto the rocks and its own destruction. Lets stay focused on the topic, okay?
Not really necessary. It’s a simple pair of numbers. Arounnd 50 years ago there were about 160M folks in the US and they spent ABOUT 33M on Lionel.
2 variables: Today the population has increased and 1953 dollars have to be multiplied by a valuation calculator of some sort based on inflation, CPI or whatever is your pleasure.
So? What does that have to do with the price of rice? They also didn’t have internet ecommerce, global production and the most youth consumer oriented market in history.
Incorrect. It means plenty and it’s very understandable and simple: There were 160M people once upon a time and they spent approximately 33M on Lionel trains back sometime around 53 or so. That says plenty and most folks can wrap their brains around that without clouding.
Not so fast on the correction. Actually multiple sources list 32.9M (I rounded to 33M) for 53. Your own reference also shows the same 32.9M for 54. Hmmmm. Yet other references indicate 53 to be their acme without providing specific monetary values. I selected 53 as I was simply selecting the acme for their sales from the ‘glory years’. If you insist it was actually 54 or want quibble over 28.1 vs 32.9 knock yourself out. I’ll happily revise my statement to say ‘approx 50+ years ago Lionel peaked doing about 33M in sales in a single year’ and you can nitpick over subtracing 50 from
Not really necessary. It’s a simple pair of numbers. Arounnd 50 years ago there were about 160M folks in the US and they spent ABOUT 33M on Lionel.
2 variables: Today the population has increased and 1953 dollars have to be multiplied by a valuation calculator of some sort based on inflation, CPI or whatever is your pleasure.
So? What does that have to do with the price of rice? They also didn’t have internet ecommerce, global production and the most youth consumer oriented market in history.
Incorrect. It means plenty and it’s very understandable and simple: There were 160M people once upon a time and they spent approximately 33M on Lionel trains back sometime around 53 or so. That says plenty and most folks can wrap their brains around that without clouding.
Not so fast on the correction. Actually multiple sources list 32.9M (I rounded to 33M) for 53. Your own reference also shows the same 32.9M for 54. Hmmmm. Yet other references indicate 53 to be their acme without providing specific monetary values. I selected 53 as I was simply selecting the acme for their sales from the ‘glory years’. If you insist it was actually 54 or want quibble over 28.1 vs 32.9 knock yourself out. I’ll happily revise my statement to say ‘approx 50+ years ago Lionel peaked doing about 33M in sales in a single year’ and you can nitpick ov
Toy trains are good. More toy trains are even better. Whatever state you live in and however many
Americans choose or do not choose to join you in your hobby. On those state-ments, I think most or all of us can agree :).
It is what it is. Enjoy what we have and don’t worry. If you want to do something to help our hobby do anything you can think of to expose more people to it. That means adults and kids. Keep everything positive. It is going to be ok.
That’s pretty much as I see it, Mike! We can only do what we–as individuals–can do to share the hobby with others and hope it inspires them to become involved. The industry side will continue to change and evolve, sometimes in ways that distresses some folks, but there’s little the average hobbyists can do about that, and there’s sure no point in worrying about it.
Have fun with what you have; buy the things that interest you most when they are offered and you can afford them; share the hobby with others when the opportunity arises; and don’t fret about what the future holds. That’s about the best any one of us can do!
Well it shouldn’t have required too much effort. Quite obviously in '53 (or 54 or so as you prefer) 160M people in the US spent about $33ish million on Lionel (in '53 dollars). Present population growth AND dollar value being what it is today I thought the conclusion somewhat self evident.
So if that’s ‘going out on a limb’ are you saying that today Lionel HAS a comparable or greater penetration into the US market than it did 50 some odd years ago?
Toy trains used to be considered THE toy. Trains were so prevalent/pervasive in peoples lives that they couldn’t be ignored. Prior to WW2 almost 10% of the countries working population were somehow involved with railroading. Almost everyone knew someone or had a relative that was somehow involved in railroading. Toys tended to mimic things people dealt with in their lives. Since trains were everywhere, so were their toy replicas.
Lionel always considered itself a toy company, not just a toy train company. This was probably it’s most egregious failure/sin. It wasn’t able to adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace of 1950’s and beyond. Technologies had arisen that were shaking the toy business profoundly and upstarts like Mattel and Ideal were easily able to overtake Lionel. The company also failed to realize the significance of the decline in importance of real railroads in people’s everyday lives (very much like the real railroads). Coupled with a baby boom that should have meant increased sales and prosperity, Lionel’s failure to adapt made for a very rapid and near catastrophic decline.
I grew up with the car/bus/airplane/electronic era brought about by the rapid transfer of technologies from World War 2 and the Korean War. While air and road transportation go back to pre World War 1, they were not on the massive scale that occurred Post WW 2. Toys based on cars/airplanes/and emerging space technologies easily overtook the toy train as a pre-eminent play things. Relatively cheap and complex toys that required little or no set up time/space or skill were able to easily overcome the toy train as the number one toy. Why buy something that will take at a minimum hours to set up when you can crack open a box, pop in some batteries and start blasting away at Martians or Commies or Commie Martians/Martian Commies.
Things will never go back to the way they were before 1952/1953. This i