Probably not...BUT...if you take the jewel case with the locomotive or freight cars into a Port-A-Potty and open it for a few minutes...then close it again...and reseal it...no one will ever know the difference:tb-biggrin: *"Factory Air"...that one always gets me...ROFLMAO :tb-biggrin: .
They were all originally owned and operated by a little, old lady but only on Sunday after church. Seriously, though if any of you are close to Wichita, Kansas this sunday you are welcome to come out to the Toy Train show for the sale. Barry
I wonder when/if Micro Trains will ever add one of those hologram stickers to the box to show if it has been opened.
I believed then and still do now, that all modeling hobbies probably NEED collectors for a variety of reasons. I display models, but do not collect them per se, I just display some stuff I do not plan to run, with my model cars which I built and all that can be done is to display them. I am a certified tried and true user, runner, operator, handler, and do not preserve MicroTrains in their boxes. They are meant for me to run when I get them. I do not pay the "premium" prices of collector items so no biggie. But deep down we all have the capacity to collect, I think, but over the years I have come to realize there are so many factor beyond the collector's control to just drop the bottom off accumulated value. I think if I were to collect, it would be just to have THAT certain model, and try to ignore its dollar value. Think of some of the factors which will pull the rug off a rare collectable - discovery of a cache, re-issue by the manufacturer, discovery that the item is not so rare as shown on eBay, and on and on. Plus to be able to consider yourself a true collector, it takes a long period over time to collect and accumulate, plus a large dollar investment, patience and strength to endure devaluation. For me, I still get a rush from the thrill of throttling up my locos. And there is nothing on earth that can change THAT. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Well put Ken aka Florida Boy. I couldn't of said it better. There's no fun displaying them. Any train worth it's salt needs to be down on the track running.
I think that one of the main reasons there has been a price reduction in "collectibles" is a change in peoples attitudes. In the late '80s and early '90s there was a lot of interest in anything that was viewed as being "collectible". This caused an increase in prices. The sellers and auctioneers fed this by convincing people that anything that was collectible would always increase in value. So if you paid $200 for something that originally sold for $20 it didn't matter because tomorrow you could sell it for $300. I'm not talking about just trains, but comic books, sports memorabilia, glass figurines, etc. At some point enough people realized this wasn't true and the value wouldn't always increase. This caused the market to collapse. The same thing happened in the housing market. While there were a lot of factors involved, if you look past all the politics and changes in bank regulations, the real estate market was over valued. People had the attitude that it didn't matter what you paid for a house because it would always be worth more.
Collectables go through phases... if they are truly rare and in demand. Value is affected by scarcity and high demand... if either of those is lacking... value goes down. Any downturn in economic cycles can depress the demand for collectables. The interesting thing is that when there is a downturn in the stock market and real estate... often the collectable markets [again for 'true' collectables] seems to heat up. I know this happened after the 1982-1984 recession because I remember the big hype for sports card collection took-off back then. Micro-trains were also being highly touted in the mid 1980's... when I finally began to buy some. I seems that as some tried and true investments [stocks, precious metal, real estate] fail... other forms of less common 'investing' catches on. Rare works of art are beginning to sell again... perhaps we will see a resurgence in older 'rare' sports cards and even early 'rare' Micro-trains. I use 'rare' in quotation because I have my doubts on how rare they really are. There is only on "Whistler's Mother" painting that is truly valuable... there could be hundreds of 1950's Mickey Mantle cards in near-mint condition. Same holds true for the 'unknown' quantities of Micro-trains earliest cars... just how many are there in 'mint' condition. Certainly by the mid 1980's... the legend of Micro-trains had been that their cars could be valuable cause most people bought them to run them... so... N scalers began to hoard Micro-trains cars for resale. As more and more did the same... less of these cars were being run... ergo... lots of mint condition cars [no real scarcity]. I think many of us really have learned some expensive lessons over the past 30 year on what really is 'rare' versus what is being hyped as rare.
My thoughts on the collector's market: If model trains were meant to stay in a box, then we would see prototype trains in a box.
