Model Power will be sorely missed. As a hobbyshop manager, we relied on them for a lot of basic items that I am now scambling to find other sources for. Simple stuff such as lightbulbs, wire and wiring accessories, cheap street lights, and a number of other simple items that we sold through daily. They made a lot of bread and butter items that nobody here is mentioning. As far as their steam, I never experienced the first release which apparently was wrought with problems but I have second and subsequent releases where problems were addressed and love them. Any version with the traction tires runs like a swiss watch in my opinion. The only problem I have had with any of them was my fault when I derailed on turnout and melted the center out of a driver. I own a dozzen or so of their locos, mainly Pacifics and Mikados and now am scrambling to pick up a few more Mikados. The Kato and MP Mikado were completely different animals and are not interchangable. The Kato represents a heavy mike with a larger boiler and cylinders and a much more rare version of the loco. The Model power is a USRA light Mikado and much more useful to many modelers. The Model Power locos have finer detail on the valve gear and drivers than the Kato loco and except for their ancient pickup design, were solid locos. Adding an all wheels live pickup on the tender makes them champs. I can only hope with the lack of availability of a Pacific and Mikado in N scale now, somebody will step up to the plate and make a modern era mechanism for each. I am using a MP Pacific chassis for a stalled project and it is one of the smoothest out there.... ....its sure a heck of a lot better than the alternative...the old Atlas/RR Pacific.
I will certainly miss them. With just a little work, their 2-6-0's are very good representations of Southern Pacific moguls. I have two currently, and while they both required some tinkering to get them to run smoothly, they now compare favorably to any other locomotive I've ever owned. I installed Bachmann tender trucks for improved pickup and added a Tsunami 750 to one. I'm modeling the SP's Friant branch in the late fifties, so I need a bunch of them. Really hope another company is able to re-release them some day. [video=youtube;pHqK3qrwEfg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHqK3qrwEfg[/video]
For all the ebay jokes it happend lol!!!!!! http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=191145474193&alt=web Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
Sorry, don't get it. Nowhere does it say, "rare, collectors items, etc.". It really is a rare piece as it is almost 20 years old and still in the the wrapper. Just because it is a rare piece does not make it a good piece though. I bet you that seller knows nothing about trains other than they couldn't find a listing for it so they stuck a high price on it and hope to reel in a sucker. There is plenty of that out there without Model Power closing.
While I never cared much for their locomotives or rolling stock, I have worked with a lot of their buildings and have found them to be great starting points for more detailed structure projects. I also thought their vandy tenders were very good. Hopefully some of the best tooling will find it's way to other enterprises that will continue those products. Brad Myers Peninsula Ntrak / AsiaNrail My Blogs: http://www.n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/ http://www.palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ http://tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/
According to distributors, this set has been discontinued for at least 4 years. That is as far back as I can go for sales history and nobody has had them in that time. The last version was offered with Bachmann EZ track. This had to be around the time that Model Power was sued by Bachmann for copying thier track system which was around 10 years ago if I remember correctly. If somebody is still selling them, they have been setting on the shelf for quite a while. Model Power only had 2-3 sets available for the past Holiday season. The others planned never showed up. We had a few back orders cancled becuase they could not ship the product.
Ive frequented a few places no longer around today but last year that carried old stock. Saw 3 of them and if I recall going for $60. Than again ive only recently really seriously gotten back into the hobby. I remember 14 years ago being a high school kid on a budget and MP being the cheapest starter sets you could get as well as accesorys. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
I have five of their steam locomotives that have not had much use recently, but they all now have decoders so I am looking forward to having them on a new layout in the future. I hope some buys to steam line and continues to offer it.
In checking with my favored vender somewhere west of Baltimore this AM I find that they still have in stock 6 Mikes with standard tender and 7 Mikes with the vandy style. The only Pacifics listed are the semi streamlined and they have 24 of them plus a few 4-4-0s. And I would imagine a few of our venders here show similar stock. So no shortage yet for those that want to add a few to their roster.
Collectability of Model Power items... not likely. Perhaps the 'Hobby Quality' items could be considered 'rare' enough that they may command a premium in future years... but... I would not be betting on that. If you own some of their 'Hobby Quality' items... they probably are items "YOU" wanted to have because it fit "YOUR" modeling needs. It's very unlikely anyone expected Model Power to go out of business... and were hoarding their items. I noticed that a lot of e-tailers have had a run on Model Power steamers in the past couple of days though; and, even I was tempted. I sat back and thought about what I was about to do... and didn't go through with the purchases. My reasoning was: A. I was buying on an impulse... expecting others would be clamoring for these items in the future. REALITY... these have never been well received nor are they sought after items for their QUALITY. As such... unlike a Rolex... they are not going to be getting favorable mechanical or even aesthetical reviews EVER. B. In the absence of future market 'value'... Do " I " really need these items for my railroad? Well probably not... and knowing how the ones I already own run... why add to my misery. C. We really don't know if these items are scarce... which is "ONE" of the qualities needed for higher 'value'. The other quality is a 'SUBSTANTIAL' demand for the item that would create a 'frenzy' of irrational purchasing which would drive up the price. Model Power may not have made 'gazillions' of these models... but... I'd guess they were produced in the 'thousands' as opposed to the 'hundreds'. Still there would have to be hundreds of N scalers or other model railroad collectors that desired these items to really make them worth any more than their current value. Another importer or manufacturer may pick-up the line and continue making them... further flooding the market. I'd rather 'invest' in a half pound of silver... instead of a couple of these models.
I'd almost agree with you....except.... One of the best deals I ever got was a CASE of unopened, unpriced, untouched by human hands, Lone Star Treble O when a local Kresge store closed. Even in the 70's, that stuff was pretty much considered garbage. 20 years later it started to look really classic. Now I wished I'd saved just a sample. When I did sell it, it was 'factory air, rarer than rare' stuff. There's no telling what will turn out to be collectable. It's at least no worse than a lottery ticket. I collected baseball cards as a kid, and out of all the hundreds I had, TWO CARDS turned out to be winners and be worth well over $500 each in the heyday of baseball card collecting. That paid for a lot of N equipment then. The rest? zip. So who knows?
Randgust has a point, I think. Tinplate trains are, arguably, absolute garbage by any modeling standard of quality or prototype fidelity... and yet they are quite valuable collectors items, as they are increasingly rare examples of a particular era in history and in model trains and in toys in general. Will the Model Power trains turn out the same way, and if so, how long will the wait be, who knows.... but maybe...
I would be surprised. Many items in the Model Power lineup have been offered under other brand names. Some haven't, to be sure, but except for perhaps the locomotives, they've probably been produced in relatively large quantities for our relatively small hobby-- at least thousands of copies if not "five digits" or "six digits" worth of copies. How many "Steam Era People" figure sets are out there, for example?
