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Post by tdspeedracer on Jan 28, 2015 18:27:25 GMT -8
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Post by jbilbrey on Jan 28, 2015 18:32:35 GMT -8
Over the last three years, I've sold over a third of my collection. For example, I went from having over a dozen CSX locomotives to just four. Most of my oddball and/or "foobie" items as well as items that really belonged outside my main era of focus were sold. Finalizing my layout design helped as well. I had a focus as to what I needed to be buying instead of buying what looked cool. I sold nearly all of my items at three local shows. The table fees were reasonable, and the shows had the largest attendance in my area. The rest was sold to close friends in the hobby.
You'll probably find yourself asking some tough questions as you decide what to keep and what to sell. For example, am I ever going run all of this equipment at once? Why do I need an ESPEE SD45T-2 when I am modeling a southeastern branchline? Am I really ever going complete a Clinchfield coal train that was to be pulled by a SD40/SD45-2 lash-up on my switching layout?
You'll probably find some stuff that for one reason or another you can either not sell or don't want to sell. My advice is to keep them. I have ended up buying back couple items (literally just two out of 5-6 storage totes of trains) in which I should not have sold in the first place. There are couple other items I have looked for after the fact only to realize that I had sold them; I've made no effort to replace them. There are one or two other items that I won't sell either as a reminder not to try a similar project again (No, you cannot kitbash a BLI RSD-15 into a C&O RSD-7 and chop down the size of the fuel tank; you cannot power it.) or you simply have too much money tied up in it (Seriously, who is going buy a F&C war-emergency gon with $60+ in Walthers cement containers in it for the money I have in it?)
James Bilbrey LaVergne, TN
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Post by atsfan on Jan 28, 2015 18:33:52 GMT -8
Not sure I follow you......
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Post by jbilbrey on Jan 28, 2015 18:37:02 GMT -8
Books have sold extremely well the last couple years. I had a friend that went through a divorce. He had my wife, who runs an eBay store, to sell a portion of his book collection (mostly Morning Sun "...in Color" as well as some oddball PRR stuff and even a book on RDC's). By the time my wife finished selling them, she had made him 2-3 times what he had hoped to get from the sales.
James Bilbrey LaVergne, TN
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2015 20:16:09 GMT -8
I agree. I know many of my books are going to sell for less than half the "list" price, and that's before shipping. BUT, I bought a lot of them used for cheap.... I'm selling off almost all my books that don't focus on the SP, PE, early BN and late CB&Q, SP&S, GN, and NP, or Los Angeles area history / development and railroads.
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Post by WP 257 on Jan 28, 2015 22:02:35 GMT -8
I disagree.
My good friend is sales manager of really nice, relatively large train store. He says yes--the Morning Sun-type, all color, 128-page books with great photos and only very limited text do still sell very well--the market for those books is there.
BUT
The market for all other train books--you know--the ones with more text than merely photo captions--is basically dead. They no longer sell. The majority of buyers today--in his shop--have little attention span and simply won't buy the in-depth historical books that some of us apparently actually still read. I don't care if it's a Fred Frailey book, with excellent historical insight--virtually nobody wants them anymore.
I had some great books I no longer needed--he wouldn't take them at any price--so I gave them away to other guys who I was trying to encourage their interest in this hobby. We'll see how that works...
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Post by enginseer on Jan 29, 2015 6:49:11 GMT -8
I have "unloaded" my collection of brass locomotives and have been really lucky to get close to breaking-even with the sales. While I never had the collection most folks have had in this hobby, collecting models can be VERY addicting. I have numerous hobbies that compete with model railroading and the situation could get out of hand if I'm not careful...
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