You will eventually see everything.......

[ScaleCraft]

..........all the above is horsey poop/opinion.

Both ways. See it all the time. New house, boxes really, chipboard construction, asphalt roofing, postage stamp lot..."from the $1.1 millions...." Worth it? Really? Maybe to the county Tax Assessor.
Watch Barrett/Jackson, tell me some of those Kludges are worth that.

I had one of those come through several years ago. 1946 Ford convertible. BIG bucks. Garbage. None of the brakes matches, cylinders (shot) honed and new kits, leaked everywhere, firewall had more holes in it that the Democrat Party Platform, distributor shot, engine shot, all the blowby through the holes in the firewall....but its worth is because somebody bid it up. Couldn't drive it with the top up. You'd pass out from the carbon monoxide.

But that's okay. I have one of those Walthers doodlebugs. Those power trucks were garbage when new. So you get to fab in a new brick...but its worth it. Pry the sides off, strip, straighten, paint, but its worth it.
Big difference in total cost when you pay five bucks or $82 for the basic unit.

[E7]

I wii be the first to AGREE that quality is d*mn hard to find.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

We seem to have lost Sunday's conversation here...........

Oh well.......saved $4,

[ScaleCraft]

Missed that rule that said if you want to buy it I have to sell it. Must be Soviet.

I still think it's hilarious that folks think something is worth what someone will pay for it. The two don't always have any correlation to each other.

Some folks applaud the Venture Capitalist who wants $17K for some mass produced PRC plastic passenger cars....the analogy of worth what somebody will pay for it falls so completely flat it isn't even funny.

Theorums and Postulates. You state your case, any number of examples to prove, just takes one reality check to disprove it.
Fun watching folks try...and try..and try.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I still think it's hilarious that folks think something is worth what someone will pay for it.

Glad you are entertained. It's a fundamental paradigm of higher end collectables; also ties into value being assigned to time periods of median yearly income. It's also fundamental to when you need money and are forced to sell . Your belief in the value of something devolves to meaningless and only what someone will pay you for it matters. Similarly, the stock market - it's all a confidence game and illusory at best. Think about the tulip bubble and its end in 1637. None of it is real.

Some folks applaud the Venture Capitalist who wants $17K for some mass produced PRC plastic passenger cars....the analogy of worth what somebody will pay for it falls so completely flat it isn't even funny.

Did those ever sell? If not, backwards and truly meaningless.

Missed that rule that said if you want to buy it I have to sell it. Must be Soviet.

No rule. I offered $5, you countered due to the drive, I changed my offer to your owing me $10 for having to take a 3 rail drive and disposing it, Sadly Sunday here got lost....

[ScaleCraft]

So, now you want to include collector mentality. Lord Knows that has tanked. Look at all the folks who brings trailers full of jun...errr.....stuff to York, every year, believing the Trash Collectors of America who convinced them this was their retirement...kids college..whatever.

You can believe that all you want, but at some point, somebody is gonna lose. The $17K cars...let's say some clueless yay who (who believes the Collector BS) buys them. Now, are they suddenly worth what was paid for them?

If yes, read on, if no, retreat from the field.

If yes, then how much are they going to be worth when he tries to recoup his investment?

How does the mantra survive that?

[rogruth]

I take some stuff to sell at a local train show in January each year.
I sell rolling stock for 5 & 10 dollars. I played with it and now I don't
want to just throw it away so I get a few bucks.
Locos @ $ 50.00.
If I wasn't already retired I don't think I could retire on this.

When, how, who started the idea that you could make big money from toy trains?

[ScaleCraft]

Trash Collectors of America! TCA! Watched a couple of them clowns work over a widow with pricing....not to take advantage per se...but "Hey, Millie's 726 sold for $250 and it was BAD! (as in, cab roof bent, scratched to Hades, BIG 0 Scale GN boxcar decal wrapped around top and bottom of tender..) " and THEN...."But OURS are NICER and now worth $500!"

I used to listen to the clowns talk about their collections....rooms in the house floor to ceiling boxes of trains....their retirement....grandkids college...but you can only pump that balloon so many times before it pops.

Why I was a member of that august group for one year (1991) and quit. Have the card stuck on the wall in my basement to remind me never, ever to do THAT again!

[rogruth]

Thanks, Dave.
I was also a TCA member for a year (maybe two).

So how did prices get so high around the turn of this century and what caused the bust?

[ScaleCraft]

Same thing in the old car hobby. Watched it. When the folks who owned them new, drove them growing up, started dying off...prices plummeted.

My brother and I restored a 29 Tudor Model A. All done but upholstery. LOTS of money and enjoyment...you know you never get out of a restoration what you put in. Watched the Model T's tanking when that phenomena started of folks dying. Sold ours the next year, the year after that A's with overdrive, juice brakes, all done, about half what we got, which was nowhere close to what we had into it.

Folks are dying off who had these as kids. Not much new blood. I can't even GIVE stuff away. five and en for 027 cars is about right.

American Pickers and all those car shows give a phony sense of reality.

Ever see what happened with Pickers and their Lionel find?

[rogruth]

Yep. I saw that pickers episode.
I have always wondered how many times this has happened to them.
They usually list how much they paid for an item and what they want for it but seldom what they actually got for it.

[Chris Webster]

An Overland (I think) or possibly a Sunset 3rd rail FL9 that they sold for $203.99 buy-it-now.... painted in DeBruin's favorite paint scheme:
Ebay #392809321590 O Scale Brass Penn Central EMD F9 Diesel A Unit (Powered) (2 Rail)

[De Bruin]

oooooo I missed that...Oh well, I struggle with Overland drives anyway, but yes that PC scheme mmmm-hmmm.
Thanks Chris

[Chris Webster]

oooooo I missed that...Oh well, I struggle with Overland drives anyway, but yes that PC scheme mmmm-hmmm.

I missed it too.

For the same price you can have a BL2 with bashed-in corners and partially split body, mounted atop an Atlas F9 chassis that is missing sideframes...
Ebay #333605690589 - O Scale EMD BL2 Diesel Engine (2 Rail)

[Chris Webster]

Also meant to ask you about these cars:
Ebay #293572654729 Custom O Scale Southern Passenger Cars [8] 2-Rail
They look well-built, but something seemed off to me -- are they too short or something?