I was speaking with someone in a local hobby shop recently and we got on the topic of weathering engines. I was speaking about diesels specifically, but I assume his comments would apply to steam as well.
He told me that if I wanted to weather them, by all means go ahead, but that if I was considering selling any of them in the future I would be reducing my market. He went on to say that about 70% of their customers won’t consider an engine that’s been weathered. This has nothing to do with the quality of the weathering job. They just don’t want a used engine unless it’s clean.
I found this very interesting since I had assumed that a lightly weathered engine would look more realistic and therefore have more appeal.
I got to wondering how many other modelers have run into this same sort of thing? Have you ever had difficulty selling a weathered piece of equipment?
There are basically two types of people in this hobby: collectors and runners. Collectors want pristine engines, and runners usually do their own work.
The LHS guy was right: weathering your stuff for resale will almost always drop it’s price. My weathering jobs are considered very good by my local NMRA club, but I’m lucky to get $5 for a weathered Accurail car with Kadees. A friend superdetails and weathers Kato diesels to VERY high standards, and occasionally tries to thin his fleet at the Wheaton GATS swap: he’s lucky to get $75 an engine.
The only place I don’t see this trend is in selling assembled resin freight cars. In that small niche of the hobby, you can take a $25 car, build it to a high degree, and add a quality paint, decal and weather job, and can realize $150 a car. But that’s a SMALL part of the hobby.
This may have been a fluke (or not), but I’ve sold 3 weathered Accurail cars w/Kadees & original plastic wheels for $34.
And why don’t you show off your steam here? I’m sure we’d all like to see it. [8D]
I have talked with a few people that weather equipment and resell them on, for example, eBay. They have said that it depends on what it is that is weathered. Some will go for less than retail, others get higher than expected.
I would also think that how it is weather would take effect, or more specifically, for what region. If you are modeling a coal region, you want something that is dirty and sooty, and so forth.
I have found that weathering hurts the resale value of brass pieces the most. Another thing at least on E-bay is it’s hard to tell just how much weathering is there and how well it’s done. Some model railroaders (even runners) just want to be in a fantasy world where every loco and car looks like it just came from the paint shop. A fellow member of the club I belong to always ridicules my Southern loco’s for being weathered although I took 2 books of photos to the club showing the real ones were generally in worse shape than my models.
I’ll agree that weathered brass steam tends to sell at a lower value than the shiny unpainted ones. I picked up some Rio Grande steam at my LHS not too long ago–estate sale–and they were nicely weathered, ran very well, and were definitely bargains. For instance, one of them was a Westside L-105 Challenger that I’ve seen upwards of $800 in raw brass, but was about half of that, weathered. Well, I’m a pragmatist, my locos don’t sit around in glass cases. I picked that one up, plus a 2-8-2 and a 4-6-2, all nicely weathered, for pretty bargain-basement prices. For my own brass locos, I certainly wouldn’t expect very much in re-sale, at least the ones that I’VE weathered. But then I don’t plan on selling any of my brass in the near future, I’m having too much fun running them.
Now if I could find a couple of PSC M-4 Yellowstones with Elesco FWH systems , or an SP&S Z-8 that have been nicely weathered and the price has dropped into the basement becuse of that, well, I’d be a REALLY happy camper, wouldn’t I?
Tom [:P][:P]
The one exception to this weathering rule seems to be modern equipment on ebay.
I’ve seen a $10 Accurail car that was carefully weathered to match prototype photos sell for $60 or more on ebay.
If the weathering job is realistically done to a fine level, those items seem to garner premium prices on ebay.
But a generic dirty car or loco on ebay doesn’t do any better than the non-weathered stuff. And “quickie” weathering actually seems to make the item sell worse on ebay.
Sharp photos of a realistically weathered car or loco from low angles in good lighting on a diorama or layout with nice scenery will have brisk bidding – and fetch a good price – on ebay.
I would think that this “problem” reflects the spectrum of customers who are used to new in the box to a realistical weathered unit that looks well used. The more weathering the farther from new in the box it is and the more “problems” that the unit may have. In addition the “fame” of the original owner could well impact its resaleability. Would we pass up an original Lynn Westcott, John Allen or Frank Sinatra piece of weather equipment; probably not but all but the latter might be passed up by the “Public”! Will
It goes without saying that weathered locos and freight cars go for a lot more on eBay than they would on consignment at a hobby shop. Even the run-of-the-mill quality.
As for resale value… the stuff has to be outstanding to be worth more than retail at a hobby shop. If it looks like something the average consumer could do himself - why pay the extra price?
There was a seller on ebay that had three B&O Sentinels from Intermountain built and weathered.
I won the bidding war for each one of the three 20 seconds apart with a fistful of dollars. I know the seller made a small profit for his good work.
I constantly watch for more of his work.
Having said all that, I do weather some of my equiptment. (Check the reefers in the photobucket below) those are considered “Keepers” never to be sold again. And yes they will run constantly instead of collecting dust.
One thing I have noticed is that if you have a picture of the prototype and you can match it with the model it will sell for considerably more than a generic weathering job. I weather all my stuff based on actual photo’s of the prototype. I have not sold many of my models that I have done this with but the ones I have have doubled or tripled my expected return. Now I won’t sell a weathered car without a picture of the prototype.
