You would have to be an idiot....

I am a C&O buff, and I need another 20+ of the 33' twin bay hoppers Micro Trains has made over the years. While not currently in print, they are far from hard to find. I generally pay $10-$20 on e-bay for them, depending on shipping costs and how many someone has up for sale. I think for some of the truely rare versions I'd paid as much as $25 at one point.

Well, normally I don't post to ebay ads, but here's a good one....

Kadee Micro-Trains® 57070 CO Hopper 53252 Rare - eBay (item 350046270497 end time May-08-08 15:14:57 PDT)

57070's are not particularly rare, you can find several more on e-bay right now for $15-$25 buy it nows. However these jokers have a buy it now of $199.95. No joke. Man, I hope no one buys that...

 

Leo,
I just bid on one that ended yesterday at over $210.00. I nievely thought I might get a deal as it was setting at $31.00 with 2 minutes to go. No, I was no where near the $200 mark in my bidding. $200.00 is an average price for the collector I want to run it. There are BIN auctions for up to $350 for the same car. The odd thing, for such a rare car, I know where there are 4 of them available right now all at $250+ pricing. The worst thing, the highest paid for the car is over $900.00.

It is only that road number, the others are not special. I don't know the full background on the situation but I am pretty sure it is the first release of that body style from MT/Kadee.

The worst part of all this is early in my ebay experiences when I was rounding up C&O and B&O hoppers, I let one go at $25 because I thought it insane to pay that much. If I had only known at the time.

The other one to watch is the B&O X-416 Tank Car, it will top well over $200 in open auction also.

 

Ahhh, Good ole Nevil. Anyone who went to Chantilly will remember him as the guy who had the N-Scale car carrier.

 

Too add to that...there is a member of our N-Trak club that in the early 90's, made the down payment on his house by selling off 100 select MT cars. He had been buying every release from day 1. He had two cars go for over $3000 each. Total haul on the 100 cars was close to $14,000. This was before E-bay and they were auctioned off by Tex-N-rails.

 

Ok, so educate me. I own maybe, 25 57070's. I have no idea if they are first, second or third run (best info I have is there were three runs). I never paid more than $25, mostly in the teens. I run them all.

So is one of the runs really rare? It has a different road number? I don't really care, since I let the factory air out, but the collector market is bizarre to me.

I need 13 more of the 33' twin bays (don't care if they are composite, steel, notched, offset, they have made many versions) so I keep looking for them. I'll avoid the $199 ones though, I want to run them!

 

Rd # 53252 had an all-time high of $902.00 released 11/01/1977

I hope you weathered it. You could bring it to Louisville and watch NSC members faint.

:tb-cool:

 

Leo,
That I know of, there have only been 4 numbers in the composite side 57000 series released in C&O.

55252 - The rare one. 1977
55364 - Released the same year not so rare.
55442 - Easy to find. 1996
55463 - Easy to find. 2001

In the 56000 series only one C&O has been released.

In the 55000 series, also only one C&O

The 86000 series had two 3 car sets available plus the single aluminum car from just a while ago.

Then the new 08500000 that just came out a month or two ago.

 

I just checked my string of 83, none of that road number. Probably due to my cheapness of bidding.

If I do pick up one for a price I can afford I will quickly weather and run it. I like helping the collectors drive up the prices.

:tb-rolleyes:

 

I have all except 55252, the rare one. I'm probably also a heathen for removing the coal load from the latest version since I always run empties. :tb-cool:

 

Oh yeah, I still think you're an idiot to pay $200 for a Micro-Trains car, no matter how rare. I will probably get a lot of grief from the collectors over this statement, but it's just plastic.

An upside down plane on a stamp, very interesting. A Micro-Trains car with only a few hundred run. *yawn* That's ever special run they ever did....

 

I just made a couple resin molds to fill my hoppers up.

In C&O, I have 3 of each of the MTL listed above (except the 55252), all the Athearn number releases and a majority of the numbers that I can find for the older Roundhouse release. I'm missing maybe 5 of the available 18 or so numbers of the MDC cars. Also have the 3 of each of the 11 Atlas 55T releases and one each of the Bowser GLa's.

Now if I could only do that with my main love, B&O. They are so much harder to come by than the C&O releases, plus I am a bit more picky in the paint scheme to match my time frame. The new Atlas offset side release due next month is going to help fill in some blanks in the B&O roster.

 

I have 4 or 5 of the Altas 55T. I am less than impressed. Don't get me wrong, I normally like Atlas, but compared to the Micro Trains I just don't think they cut it.

I have none of the Roundhouse or MDC cars. Do they stand up to the Micro Trains? I looked at the Bowser GLa's, but they are just a little later than I want to model with these hoppers.

 

I have the Atlas cars mainly because they were easy to aquire and fill in the train nicely. I have no complaints with them at all. I have them for B&O also but I probably have more of them than the B&O actually had. The fishbelly was rare for B&O. A little more common on C&O but still not the mainstay of the fleet.



The MDC/Roundhouse cars have pretty good printing on them but will require couplers and or trucks. I found it best to bodymount the couplers otherwise quite a bit of grinding is needed to have talgo mounted trucks clear the frame details. On the batch I have, I used Atlas trucks, cut the accumate couplers off complete and super glued them to the sub frame to body mount them. Much easier than drilling and tapping for screws and they have survived an 88 car train without failure.

The Athearn cars are the same as the MDC/Roundhouse except they come with knuckles already and a load. The paint is a bit thick, at least on the ones I have. More recent runs have a lighter paint job and look better.

The Bowsers are a good looking car, probably a better black color than any of the other offerings. The load is very plain. Trucks are unique to the car and have accumates but seem to work fine.

 

Same here, I collect to run the models. And might even weather them one day. I have some MTL Circus cars I bought when they came out, changed the Pizza Cutters to low profile wheels but kept the Pizza Cutters in the car's box.
When my sister looked at my collected cars she told me I might be a bit mad, too, so I think that everyone might pay what he wants for a model. I particularly like the story of the down payment by MTL cars

Have a nice Sunday.

 

Stories like that is what made EVERYONE want to be a N-Scale investor, uuhhh, collector. Micro-Trains had, to an extent, regeared themselves to the collector with the fantasy schemes, Smokey, Good Humor, ad nauseum. I still have hopes that Joe can force the mgmt back to the basics of railroading and be truer to the prototypes.

 

Can I repeat my standing request for undecorated offset side 2 bay open hoppers. I got some decals to use up. I believe the MTL # is 55000. I heard a rumor that said June. How I wish.

 

It kills me that I am paying $15-$20 for a 40 ft. or 50 ft. MT car (sorry Joe, don't hurt me!). Everyone says its the paintjob that drives the price. Atlas can produce the identical paintjob for $7 on a 40 ft. or 50 ft. car. And in Atlas higher quality you're paying $10-$15....

I can pick up either of the Atlas quality of cars, detail them and still have a cheaper priced car, including the cost of detail parts and labor.

I've said it before I remember picking up MT cars for under 10 clams a pop. People say inflation, cost of oil, value of the dollar, cost of healthcare, aliens, the war (of good vs. evil in the center of the earth), solar flares and planetary alignment all contribute to the final cost (the last 5 definitely).

Yet I look at Kato or Atlas and they are producing products on the cheap. Largely diesel prices have stayed on the level for the past 15 years yet quality, detail and performance have greatly increased. Steam locomotive prices have come down yet quality, detail and performance have also greatly increased. And if the prices have increased, its not in direct proportion to MT's pricing, and the MT products largely have remained unchanged.

Without going into further details...I just wish there was a viable solution to getting cheaper "generic" MT cars. The runner packs are great and the cost is great, but why can't those same prices be brought to single cars.

Anyway I'm way off target, collectors are what they are and us rivet counters and runners will always be at odds with the collectors

 

To set the record straight on the Kadee/MTL C & O 57000 series hopper cars.
There have been 4 releases of this car, MTL # 57070.

1) Rd #55364 released July 77 for $8.50 Current high auction bid $34 on March 2000

2) Rd #53252 released Nov 77 for $8.80 Current high auction bid $901 on June 1997

3) Rd #55442 released Apr 96 for $11.60 Current high auction bid $18 on Jan 2003

4) Rd #55463 released Oct 01 for $14.25 Current high auction bid $18 on Nov 2003

These values are from my Paddington & Wehr JUST THE FACTS, Reference & Price Guide Jan, 2008 edition.

I don't know why the rd#53252 went for such a high bid, maybe some collector wanted this car to fill out their collection, and price was NO object. Maybe two collectors got into a bid war and drove the bid up. I see in the guide that the #53252 car was auctioned again in June 2006 with a bid of $503.

I am not a Kadee/Mtl car collector, but I used to collect KD/MTL Special-Run cars. I ahve at least two of every SP-RUN KD/MTL car put out pre-2000. I really lost interest in collecting KD/MTL SP-RUN since 2000. Just too many SP-RUN cars have been produced since then. There is nothing special about the SP-RUN cars anymore. So now I will run a lot of SP-RUN cars on the rebuilt INDIANA RAILWAY. Drives the collectors NUTS!!!!

 

Thats Kewl !!