Does anyone else get a lump in the throat when we decide to thin out our collection of “stuff”?
I have decided to once nitrate on CPR only, and now three of my trains are leaving… The Super Continental, the 20th Century Limited, and the Hiawatha.
The Super Con is by far the hardest to see go, especially when you think of the years spent assembling it, and knowing that on eBay, it will probably be a dealer who will end up with it and then he will part it out, piece by piece…
I don’t know why I find it so necessary to sell stuff together, maybe it’s that I don’t want to break up what I put together, but it just feels ‘right’. Curious on thoughts regarding this.
The other thing that hurts is when you put a fair price on a piece, and a dealer comes in and offers you 10 cents on the dollar, then ridicules you when you say no.
Im sure many of you have decided to sell unneeded stuff, let me know your thoughts on this… I can’t deide whether to keep tem, or just unload stuff I never pull out anymore… Despite a second locker at our club, and all the extra closet space at home along with the shelves in our garage, I still don’t have enough room fr all my extra stuff?
I buy and sell stuff all the time and yes, sometimes it is hard to part with something that you have put a lot of time and effort into or that has sentimental value. I have a 1997 Chevy S10 that I used for a parts chaser, bought it new and now I drive it around 1000 kms a year. My wife says sell it, I have a full size Extended cab 4x4 so I don’t need two trucks but I just can’t sell it, lol.
Speaking on experience with buying train collections. Yes your items will be parted out, they are worth more that way. You might as well do it yourself and make more money.
If you entered the hobby as an investment you now realize you will never retire on the profits, a question arises, just how much “stuff” do you have? and how much are you trying to get rid of? 3 engines? 20 cars? or more? Model railroaders with small operations cannot comprehend having such large collections that a large portion of the hobby must be deleted, how did it get so big? ? ?
Keep the Super Con then [:D] Build a small display case to show it off. Or like at my club, there are several trains from club members on the layout that are open to use for anyone because they are like you, no room at home but cannot bear to part with them either.
I assume your storing HO or N. Try storing O, it’s twice a big in every dimension. I have a lot of stuff I would like to sell but refuse to sell it for 1/2 or 1/3 of what I paid so my current thinking is to just keep it. I have sold non model railroad stuff where I used the theory something is better than nothing as I sold it for give away prices on things I knew I would never do anything with anymore.
I hear you, I am also reaching that point where it is time to think about getting rid of a few items as well. When I started, it was just about anything that ran on the West Coast of the US or anything Canadian.
The Super Continental, gee I am waiting for Rapido to release the FP9’s in the Yellow, Green and Black colours. Rapido has yet to release a tail end car, did CN not have a dedicated car for the end of the train?
I only recently became aware of just how low the train collectors are willing to pay, While not quite 10 cents on the dollar it is not that much more. A member of the local model railroad club died and when the wife went to sell the items by contacting a number of those collectors who advertise in Model Railroading were only prepared to pay a very minimum value. For plastic the offers were really low, for the brass it was still very low. I bought a few pieces as what I offered made her day, I offered over three times the amount the collector offered, this was for Canadian brass which most often even now sells for a premium as the runs are not that large in comparison to the US road names.
I myself would be more interested in the items going to a good home and being used that the amount of money I could get for them.
I can be a perfectionist regarding the outward appearance of my best motive power.
Anything I don’t like, for whatever reason–running performance, minor cosmetic flaws, etc.–I have sold on Ebay or traded in on something else that I wanted more.
I have no problem thinning the fleet to whatever the “best” things are at the moment that I believe I “need”, and I’ve tried just about everybody’s products of many descriptions–always trying to find what I consider to be the best. I’ve tried everything from steam 2-6-0’s to Big Boys to F’s and PA’s and SD70ACe’s and Gevo’s and everything in between.
Recently I’ve learned a new appreciation for Walthers Proto 2000 Alco RS-27 model, as it’s definitely one of the best executed, overall most “realistic” appearing Alco road diesels one can find on HO layouts. Other newer models haven’t significantly improved upon the RS-27’s overall high standard of quality–they may have matched it or come close–but they haven’t exceeded it. I owned several RS-27’s years ago, but just bought two brand new ones of roadnames I did not previously ever own. They were available at a reasonable price and I wanted them, so I got them. This time they’re staying…
I also don’t look back and miss stuff that I once owned–there’s usually a reason I traded it on to others. Though I owned some fine brass models, they weren’t always all they were cracked up to be, either, and I don’t miss any of them at all now. The newer plastic and hybrid stuff is just fantastic!
Just did the same thing, I am backdating to the 1960’s so all my modern equipment and I just got done selling on ebay. It was hard to do but it at least freed up the capital to get more equipment from my era.
And boy I love the look of these New York Central Athearn Genesis GP9
Generally speaking, I find the new stuff I buy now, across the board, to be better than whatever it is I’m selling (with limited exceptions like the Proto 2000 RS-27 which is still one heck of a great engine).
If I was a GP-9 fan, I’m sure I’d be happy with the new Genesis version.
Well, deciding to thin the collection and actually doing it are two different things.
That is just a salesman’s ploy to get you to sell. Do not take it personally. That is how these folks make their money.
That is what storage units and extra buildings are for. I just saw a 24’x36’ building at Menard’s for $7500. Seems like a pretty good “model railroad” building to me. I went the other way from new and purchased a “recycled” building…
Remember stores need to pay soo little for your stuff they can afford to sit on it for awhile until they can resell it for a profit then provide some level of customer service for the buyer. Think Craigslist. It works well for us as long as we avoid email inquiries. It is free and you can repost and repost until you find a buyer.
I just thinned down my collection to the point of having a very few pieces. I need to throw monies at other things in my life right now and of all the things I own, only the trains actually possess any real value. I used eBay as I have good luck selling stuff on there, often for decent, even if not amazing returns. I never got into trains as a way to make money, there are other things to do that’d work better for that. I just like collecting, than exchanging so to speak for different pieces over time. My HO N&W and Pennsy stuff has largely been sold off now as I’ve been thinking much lately about doing western railroading in N-scale.
I still have all my HO and O as well as my son’s N and some G and O27 I picked up along the way. Even though I’m in S now I still buy HO, O27, and O as it appeals to me - mostly old stuff, but some new. While the main layout (under construction) is 12x31 S scale, I have a 5x12 that has loops of HO, O27, and S just for running some trains. While I resisted the term for a while, I have to admit that I really enjoy collecting as well as building and operating the stuff.
If I were to sell, I would do it at a train show or on eBay. Unless it’s part of the collectible market (brass, Lionel, Flyer) you won’t get much, but more than a dealer will pay.
If you never sold your trains how do you know the return?
You might be mildly surprise what your return could be for some items.
Grant it BB cars and engines brings little return but,some of the older models can fetch a nice return especially since limited runs became the norm.
There are some older Bev-Bel/Athearn cars that will fetch around $25-30.00.I seen the rarer N Scale Micro Train boxcars sell for $200-300…The sad part is some modelers sell these cars for $5.00-10.00 because they don’t have the foggiest idea what their cars true value is.
Even some N Scale some locomotives will fetch a decent return.