Let’s her it for the famous $1.98 Athearn Kit of years past…like to hear readers meomries…
They sure beat the $2.98 R-T-R AHM from Woolsworth’s!
Sounds like an outrageously high price, what year was that? I recall buying kits in Jr High / H.S. and I recall some freight cars cost more than others. I think the pricey ones were $1.79 and the regular ones maybe $1.59. I’m talking early 60’s. It would be fun if someone could generate a list of car types and prices over the years.
I still buy a few at trains shows, as the shipping for EBay offers adds about 50% to the starting price, unless “free” shipping built into the price. But I also like to use current Accurail & Bowser kits, plus some prior P2K and others.
$1.98? $1.98?? Sir, some of us are still bitter about that price increase.
Bring back the $1.29 stockcar, or the $1.49 flatcar with airplane load. That’s what I say.
$1.98 indeed, sir. That’s when this became a rich man’s hobby. Do you think money grows on trees?
Dave Nelson
[}:)]
I’ve built them all.
I like passenger trains, so I saw Athearn as a quick, inexpensive way to build a fleet. I soon had a full train of both heavyweights in pullman green and lightweight fluted stainless cars. I love steam era boxcars with name train logos. I had every Santa Fe boxcar with the system map that Athearn offered, along with the name trains of the other major railroads. Reefer cars, tank cars, flat cars, cabeese. All Athearn. It didn’t hurt that I was working at a LHS at the time with an extensive model railroad department. I got first dibs on Athearn special-run box sets of hopper cars with Different Road Numbers!! I love long strings of 50-ton USRA hopper cars. I’ve put together long coal drags of Athearn and supplemented then with Accurail.
That was 20 years ago when I came back to the hobby. I have since moved on to Red Caboose, Intermountain and Proto 2000. Cars with wire grabs and separatly applied ladders have replaced most of the blue box. Walthers passenger cars are now polishing the rails. But I still have the Athearn hoppers. They’re still pretty cool.
Of course it does, at least my kids were convinced of that. A modelling project?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLpEZJtNuNE/UmurSx5rr-I/AAAAAAAAANc/GbMKoVs9lPM/s1600/money_grow_trees.PNG
I remember when my parents thought that Baltimore steamed crabs at $7 a dozen were too expensive. Last night I could have bought a dozen mediums for $55
I can well remember the $1.98 freight cars. I also remember going to Sears, Roebuck & Co. and buying lots of AHM RTR freight cars for 98¢ and Athearn Hi-F Drive F-units for $1. Then there was a store called Taubmann’s Hardware that sold Varney plastic kits for 99¢. I bought my first AHM Y-6b there for $19.98. Western Auto sold Varney & Marx most of the year for $1.25. Pretty steep prices for a kid!
oldline1
Back in the day i can get the AHM ore cars for 99 cents and the covered hoppers for$1.50 vs the Tyco 50ft flat with two trailers for $3.50 but he was a full price toy store.
Back in 1952 at 15 my main income was my paper route, 75¢ per week. I also worked part time for Mr. John Henson at H&H Hobbies on Pershing Drive in El Paso Texas, that helped out on buying my HO goodies. I never received a pay check from H&H, I had a running tab that was applied to HO stuff.
Best I can remember list was around $1.25 for a freight car kit. I remember buying my first HO locomotive for $6.85, MDC 0-6-0 kit. Atlas fiber tie strip was 55¢ for a 10 foot roll, steel rails were 5¢ each or 3 for 10¢. A single section of 36” atlas flex track (stapled rails) was 65¢. But then minimum wage was 75¢ in 1952 and a Coke was 5¢.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My first HO cars, in the '50s, were gifts, so I can’t attest to their cost. There were Athearn and Varney metal cars, Varney plastic hoppers and tank cars, a Roundhouse cast metal gondola and a cast metal depressed centre flatcar, from Authenticast. Also included was an A-B-B-A set of Globe F-units and a Silver Streak caboose.
Except for the F-units, I still have them, most of them in use on the layout.
I do remember, in the '70s, at Hobbies For Men, Athearn boxcars, undecorated, at $1.50 apiece…
Most of those are gone, now, but I got eight of these Athearn boxcars (not originally exactly as shown [;)]) for a buck or less each…
Wayne
a 1.98 kit in 1960 today would cost 16.54 today
Okay, somebody want to start a string on the price of Athearn diesels? One of my first purchases, back in '56 when I first changed over from American Flyer based, “scale-ized” train equipment, I bought one of the new “Hi-F” rubber band drive F7s for $6.95–or was it $5.95? The geared versions of those and the Geeps were only ten or eleven bucks.
Heck, when I opened Northrail Company, in the corner of my used paperback store, in 1980, the geared Fs and Geeps were still only $12.50. Any kid with a big enough allowance or a paper route could start a model railroad in those days, but when I see F7 AB sets now, they’re anywhere from $148 on up. I saw MDC steam loco kits go from $48.50 to $89.50 in the few years I was in business.
On another note, I used to make up train sets of Athearn diesels, MDC and Athearn cars, Snap Track, and little MRC power packs from time to time–usually for 60-80 bucks–assuring the customers (usually dads and granddads) that it was a hobby one could expand to fit their budgets.
(BTW, I’m mostly scratchbuilding in O scale these last 20-odd years, and the price tags on that stuff is nearly enough to need the rescue squad when I see them. How does $350 for a boxcar sound?)
Deano
I can remember buying yellow box Athearn cars for $1.49 and that was three fourths of my weekly allowance! Being 10 years old that seem to be a lot of money.
When I was a kid in the suburban Twin Cities, winter brought a season full of snow shoveling moneymaking opportunities for a young teen.
Within a 5 block radius of my house there were dozens of elder residents who needed their front walk and sidewalks shoveled. At $5 each it was very easy to make $ 40 to 50 after each snowfall and maybe 4 hrs of light labor!
Now for the model railroading connection…armed with such a financial windfall, I seemed to spend more time at our LHS (Gagers or Woodcraft for my local Minnesotans) deciding what to buy than I did doing the shoveling!
Those $1.98 Athearn kits didn’t really seem so expensive back then and I recall Atlas sectional track at 25 cents a piece. What a haul I made. I used to love to see a big snowfall and in Minnesota that was a regular event from November into April. The kits I really loved were the SP flat car with metal stakes and the New Haven modern box car with the big NH letters.
What those inexpensive kits did was to fuel my modeling interest in such a way that I am still in the hobby at age 63 today.
When you do an economic comparison between money values back then and now, that $ 1.98 may seem less significant in reality- especially to a hungry model railroad consumer like me!
Cedarwoodron
The $1.98 price was the going price in the mid to late 70’s, I still have unoopened boxes of the undecorated kits on my shelves, and I know what years I purchased them from the code the hobby shop put on the box.
Rick Jesionowski
I do remember when the 1/4oz. bottle of Testors hobby paint was 15 cents. I think it was labeled Testors “Pla”.
I still have two bottles of Testors Pla gloss yellow with the 10 cent price tag from Woolworths.The amazing thing both bottles are still usable.[:O]
don’t have any 10 cent bottles of testors left but have several 10 cent bottles of pactra
My favorite Athearn car was the pickle car. The box has a price of $3.50. I’m not sure when I bought it.
Paul
Athearn pickle car, back-dated with truss rods, and some finer details…
I don’t recall the original price, but probably a couple of bucks.
Wayne