What’s the likelihood that the MR DVD collection will ever go on sale? I have no urgent need and don"t want to lay out $199 for it (not saying it’s not worth it) but would likely bite at say 1/2 price. Do they put their goodies on sale from time to time?
Like anything else, when enough people balk at the price, it will come down. I would consider at $50. Any more and I will simply do without.
As long as it sells well at that price, there is no reason. Besides, that project took a lot of time to put together, as they had to scan every magazine that wasn’t already in a digital format.
The fact that almost everyone who was selling back issues immediately dumped them on the market for next to nothing tells you a lot. The market dried up for old paper copies.
They ran a combo deal witht he Special Issues collection a few weeks ago, $5 or $10 off the combined price of both collections.
But yeah, I can’t GIVE away my old paper copies, that has to tell you something about how well it is selling for $200. It works out to be less than 25 cents an issue, and when people were selling paper copies they often wanted more than that, closer to $1 per issue. I read mine through, starting with the first issue, and as I went, i favorited any article that looks useful for me, structure articles and track plans and so forth, and have quite a collection going back to the 40’s of things I want to build for my layout.
I happen to have a computer behind my workbench area, although I can;t runt he DVD collection on it, it runs Linux. But, you can print things out from the DVD collection, so I print to the free CutePDF utility that makes a PDF, and I can look at the article while I work, either on that computer or on my iPad.
–Randy
Doesn’t one of Neil’s recent editorials mention that the DVDs remain for sale but that supplies are dwindling? I gathered from the way he phrased it that they do not intend to keep it permanently available but rather, when it’s gone it’s gone (or perhaps down the line they’d offer an 85 or 90 year collection). On that basis I suspect they feel no urgency to offer it at a reduced price.
Dave Nelson
I HOPE what they do is offer periodic updates, say ever 10 years or so, to add on the newer issues, rather than a seperate program, so the searches carry over and everything. Or maybe every 5 years, to keep costs down.
Despite having a digital subscription for the past year and then some, those issues don;t integrate intot he collection, so even with that I’d probably still buy the add ons to my 75 year collection.
–Randy
I bought it and it is well worth it. And I have all the paper copies back to 1948.
I also hope they do updates. But for that to happen, the collection has to sell well at a price point that makes it profitable.
Enjoy
Paul
I’ve said it before and will say it again, the 75 Year Model Railroader DVD was one of my best model railroading purchases, and no I don’t have any Kalmbach shares.
I would add my support to Randys and Ironrooster Paul wish for periodic updates.
Cheers, the Bear.
If they separate the index so it can be put on a hard drive then they could update the DVDs with a new annual every year.
There are other indices out there already that include MR and the other magazines, for that purpose. The thing about the search built in to the 75 year DVD set is that is actually takes you to the results directly, it doesn;t just say that a given article was in the March 1959 issue on page 65.
–Randy