You would have to be an idiot....

One of the big difference in pricing between MT and Kato or Atlas is where they are made. Kato and atlas i am shure they produce all their stuff over seas and ship it over. MT on the other hand produces all their stuff still in the us. The material and labor cost is different in the us than out of the us.

It all comes down to numbers for the runner packs. You can produce more for less. Also they most likely lock in material prices before they even begin to produce them to get the best price.

 

The other thing keeping the cost of the runner packs down is "garunteed sales". The runner packs are pre-order only so MTL is not worried about over producing cars that won't sell.
Stock not sold eats directly into profit. Their standard run cars are produced in a quantity that only MTL knows. If they get it right, and they sell out, the car is a hit and everybody complains that they didn't make enough. If they get it wrong and the car is a dud, it sets on the shelf eating up capital that could be spent on future runs. I'm sure part of this sales uncertainty is reflected in the price of the single cars.

 

To be perfectly clear E-bay and the bidding war has always disgusted me.

All this does is create a false sense of value, a false economy and false propriety. And yes you are an "Idiot" to even get caught up in this foolishness. Eventually, someone if not MT will put out a new run of these cars and at a reasonable price and the monies spent to acquire these Quote:"Hard to get, rare finds.." Unquote will seem very foolish and unwise to those who've spent their hard earned cash on... well.... a valueless item. E-bay is nothing but a place where you can be sucker punched into a false sense of propriety. The wise will brush off and ignore the offerings that turn into a wild hysterical bidding war to...Quote: ""WIN!....At all cost."" Unquote...foolish I say, absolutely foolish.

If I can't buy a train car at or for it's original price, I prefer for less at a swapmeet then it goes home with the seller. If you get my drift. Decal sheets and some spray paint can usually give me what I want at a cost less then the acclaimed ""Prize"" from E-bay.

I agree (as if you can't tell already) YES you'd be an "idiot". "Only fools rush in where"...you know the phrase.

Unless money is of no concern and you can buy the world for any price.

Now back to having fun with my railroad.

 

And another thing.

What's up with this pre-order stuff. I've never pre-ordered anything in all my years of model railroading. I've been able to buy and purchase from my local hobby shop all the quality products I need. I will not pre-order what I can't handle, give a visual check, test track and or fondle. Put it in front of me with the above criteria and it will most likely turn into a keeper and go home with me.

My local hobby shop knows me well and knows my buying habits as he does so with his other customers. "No", emphatically stated you don't need to pre-order anything. Find yourself a good hobby shop or supply center who knows their customers buying habits and make yourself known.

There are hobby shops who won't bring in something new unless their customers pre-order. I would suggest to those who practice such to get to know their customers and track their buying habits and take a chance. Pre-order is in essence a false sense of security. Think it over.

Gosh, I must be on a roll. Just my two cents...take it or leave it.

 

How about this one..

This made me take a look at a few of these I have. I have a few of the common ones, but another I found is not the same series, but in "Silver" C&O paint with a road number of "130". Anyone know the scoop on this one?

I "collect" myself, but I only pick up the rare collectable ones, to sell off to the nuts that pay the big bucks for them, only to fund stuff that I want to weather and run. Doing that has funded much of my toys, and fun with the hobby. I cant stand to sit things in boxes and look at them either. I like to grime up and run the heck out of my stuff...

If I could only count the number of collectors I made swallow their tounges by weathering, modifying, and running a rare car, lol.. priceless... :tb-cool:

 

Rare in the real world, but not in the model world. I have three of these.

C&O made a small number (20-30 I think?) out of aircraft aluminum right after WWII to test and see if they lasted longer than the more traditional materials. At the end of the day they decided the cost / benefit ratio wasn't there, and scrapped the project.

Micro Trains released them like 3-4 years ago, I forget the MT part number. They were easy to find, and I see them on e-bay and other places from time to time for more or less the same price as when they came out.

 

It might be interesting to note that at the Chantilly show's Swap A Rama there was an individual with at least eight of the rare number release, all priced at over $400, none of which sold at that price point at the NSC Convention. If the all time high bid was $901 why weren't these scooped?

I'll leave that answer to the reader, but I will add my contention, which I've been noting for some time now, that most of the money to be made "investing" in N Scale has already been made. NSC's own analysis of the aftermarket for Micro-Trains shows that prices have been down for two years running, and would be down even more were it not for a few key car sales that are skewing the results.

However...

I really wish we'd stop the grenade throwing with respect to runners vs. collectors vs. investors et al. I don't see how this contributes anything positive to the hobby or to the reputation of this discussion venue. To each his own, and don't be so insecure about other people's choices. Your own hobby-hood is not in any way being threatened by what anyone else does.

If it were me, I'd lock threads like this right along with "so and so is a bad dealer" threads. But that's why I don't moderate.

 

My local hobby shop knows what i like and usaly orders stuff that i want. There is some cases that i pre-order stuff. Most of the time its due to arrive right before a train show an i want to make shure i get it or my limited run military stuff.

 

Oh man, I have one of the very first boxcars MT ever made. It's happily sitting, with a window cut into both sides, as a waystation on one of my docks. I guess I'm not a collector, as I also repainted it. I have six N Scale Collector tanks cars running on my road. I threw away the boxes, after letting the factory air escape.

It seems like I'm the idiot. Oh well, I never counted on N scale to fund my retirement.

 

I think there are a lot of factors driving down prices:

• Micro Trains has figured out the numbers, more or less. The days of accidentally running 500 cars when there is demand for 10,000 are over, unless of course they do it on purpose.
• Too many people are speculating that a current release will be rare, and generating pre-orders. This makes the first point even less likely to happen.
• Prior to e-bay, and to a lesser degree some of the hobby shops having web sites that specialize in "rare" cars there was limited price and availability transparency. Someone might have overpaid at a swap meet because there was no other way to find the product. Now when they come up on ebay from time to time and you can check past prices there's no reason to over pay.
• The economy is not doing well at this point. I think the entire collector / hobby sector is taking a bit of a hit, and the biggest hit is in high priced items. If you only have $200 to spend for the next six months you're going to buy several cheaper things, not a $200 collector car.
• There are more and more runners. Look at the number of NTrak modules coming to national conventions. The number is growing rapidly. For the most part these are runners, and runners who like moderate to long trains. I have a hunch from a car sales perspective, at least for some things, they really drive sales. There's a reason people are doing 24 road numbers now of some popular cars. The more they make of something the harder it is to collect it.

I have nothing against collectors. I do a very small amount of collecting myself (probably 10-20 items total). Indeed, they do me a service, several times I've wanted older cars and were there not collectors trying to sell them I wouldn't have gotten them.

My issue is what I view as price gouging. This may not have been a case, I personally had no idea that one road number was so rare. That said, I watch for these cars all the time; depending on quantity and shipping I pay $10-$20 per car. Some body styles come up more often than others (man, they must have made a trillion of the composite side hoppers). What annoys me is when I see one go for $45 or $50.

Perhaps I shouldn't care; but to me it's a way to turn off people to the hobby and it's a way to annoy lots more people when it appears on the swap table at the next 15 shows for $75.

 

Off topic: Reply to Pre-Order comments

Rick,

Let me put it a different way.

Pre-ordering has shifted the risk from the manufacture to the hobbyshop. The manufacture is not accepting the risk because they know everything they produce will sell. The hobbyshop is the one now taking the chance at ordering extra's for customers that don't know about the pre-order.

Because things cycle through so fast now, I am always leary of ordering more than I know that I can sell. I know my customers but still I won't order more than one or two extra of anything over what they request. I see shops with 5-10 year old stock setting on the shelves, that will not happen where I work. Stagnant inventory is something we can't afford.

Many customers are not comfortable or willing to go searching the net to find something. The Kato Daylight sets is a perfect example. I had 6 hard pre-orders at our shop and I added 4 more (keep in mind, we are not a huge internet shop and never sell many multiples of any item) so ordering 10 sets was a big risk. I wish I would have ordered 15. Fortunately our customers are satisfied with the fact that Kato has more coming and will wait to purchase from us, rather than surf to find them. If it wasn't for Kato making a second run, those that didn't pre-order or get one of the extra sets i grabbed would be out of luck. There are no other sets in town at other local shops either.

Pre-orders keep our stock fluid and fresh and not the museums that some shops turn into.

 

Not only weather, heat it up and bow the sides out a little. Induce some "damage" to the sides and ends. Gotta have bumps and scrapes. Body mount the couplers, put FVM wheels on it. Let's see, what else...:tb-wink:

 

This information caused me to rush to the trainroom. Of course I havent a single one of those $900 relics. Next time...

 

I was prepared to go to $10 on this one:
KADEE# 20062 SOUTHERN/SR 40' SD BX CR - eBay (item 320238037388 end time Apr-25-08 20:00:00 PDT)
Silly me.

Al

 

trains

well hi there im new here and looking to get rid of this stuff i found at a yard sale for free!! any ideas i hooked up trains to track it works thaTs all i know!19 cars good cond. and 12 cars missing wheels and stuff with lots of spare parts ! 1 tech2 loco motion 1500 and a norfolk and westeern locomotive n scale and a big mountain track thingy! email malinagillooly@sbcgobal.net !

 

Timely ending

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310043154279
(two Kadee C&O 2-bay hoppers)

How many participants of these threads, pay attention to the For Sale ads on the various N scale forums?

 

I don't think we're throwing grenades, just stating the obvious that anyone who bids $900 dollars on a Micro Trains hopper would be better off spending their money seeking some serious help. When you get that desperate to get your hands on something it's no longer a hobby, it's called an addiction.:tb-biggrin:

 

Don't be a Scrooge! ;-)

You'll be able to buy that car next week on eBay Stores for somewhere in the neighborhood of $250-$300

 

Sometimes value is in the eye of the 'investor'.

I was 'sucked' into the... "buy Micro-trains for it's future value" hype many years ago. Fortunately I was too broke to buy anything for more than $50.00 in aftermarket auctions. Having said that... some of the stuff I have has appreciated (on paper) since late 1980'-early 1990's. The HIGH BIDS always seemed fictitious to me. Most of those bids were set 10 to 25 years ago at the height of the investor/speculation hype.

The most likely price for the majority of the alleged Rarest of MT rolling stock now-a-days is about half of the HIGH BID winners. Most of the times what happens is that the starting bid is about half of the High Bid... and only one or two collectors will bid the minimum or a few bucks over the minimum. Often... these rare cars get NO BIDS.

I've always been suspicious that some of the early alleged collectors bid-up their own cars through 'shills' and created the artificially High Bids. Essentially they would pay a 20% selling fee to 'create' an artificial market. So... if they had several of thiese 'rare' cars... even if they didn't ever sell for the HIGH BID again... they would still make a windfall on sales at half or more of the HIGH BID.

The newer 'discontinued' Micro-trains rolling stock rarely sells for much more than the MSRP. The mystique of Micro-trains seems to have fallen off since they moved to their Talent Oregon facility. Micro-trains can now produce far more than they could at the small Medford Oregon facility. The aura of scarcity, one of the keys to higher value, appears to have decreased. The other key to value, intense demand, seems to have decreased among model railroaders (& perhaps collectors) as more options for equal or better quality items have become availble... at lower prices.

Still... collectors... who may also be 'investors' or 'speculators' in those older Micro-trains products, may still see value in the lower production MINT CONDITION early released rolling stock. They recognize that the older cars were frequently run by the original owners and that those few truly MINT CONDITION cars are sought after by individuals who prize MINT CONDITION items which may truly be scarce.

This is not unlike the reason why the Honus Wagner T-209 baseball card has sold for over $1,000,000 several times. Someone mentioned the 'upside-down' postage stamp and the other postage stamp with a "candle with flame on the bottom" collectables whcih have sold for incredible amounts to philatelly collectors. There are many coin collectors looking for the alleged 1943 copper penny (pennies were made of steel during WWII) which could be worth MILLIONS... and thats not even because of the cost of copper .

Yes... these seem to be crazy people... who have no sense of the value of these items. It is in THEIR eyes that the value lies... not in ours.