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Post by ncrc5315 on Aug 23, 2021 15:08:16 GMT -8
My take away from the Spring Mill letter is - brace yourself for some major price increases! I doubt it, what your talking about is inflation, and there is no inflation.
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Post by tankcarsrule on Aug 23, 2021 15:14:47 GMT -8
My take away from the Spring Mill letter is - brace yourself for some major price increases! I doubt it, what your talking about is inflation, and there is no inflation. LOL X 1000,000,000,000!!!!!!!!!
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atg
New Member
Posts: 14
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Post by atg on Aug 24, 2021 16:13:47 GMT -8
“Brace yourself for some major price increases’. I thought last year as locos hit $300 that the ceiling was hit. Now I see prices closer to $400. Yes, details, lighting, and dcc is better, but I don’t think the hobby is better because of the higher prices…..cheers
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Post by espeenut on Aug 24, 2021 17:01:19 GMT -8
“Brace yourself for some major price increases’. I thought last year as locos hit $300 that the ceiling was hit. Now I see prices closer to $400. Yes, details, lighting, and dcc is better, but I don’t think the hobby is better because of the higher prices…..cheers ...and I've said it before and will say it again, I am deliriously happy that most of what I "need" has already been purchased, I wouldn't be able to participate in the hobby at the current asking prices. I have two locomotives on order that I really want as they have a definite place in my fleet, a Scale Trains Espee SD45 and the Bowser SP&S RS-3. I actually sold some items in order to afford these. I don't "need" any more rolling stock and really glad I picked up a lot of Exactrail, Intermountain and Tangent cars a while back when things were more affordable. It has become or quickly is becoming a rich man's hobby, that's just my humble opinion on the current state of affairs.
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Post by cemr5396 on Aug 25, 2021 4:39:27 GMT -8
I don't understand this sentiment I see here and on other online forums of not being able to 'afford' things. If there is something you want, save up for it! It's what past generations did, I don't now why we seem to be incapable of it now. I suspect it has something to do with our society's obsession with instant gratification.
I don't have the ability to simply drop 4 hundo on an engine at the drop of a hat either, but I find the advantage with the move to pre-orders in this hobby is if something is announced that I want, I put away $$ for it, so that when it shows up the sticker shock is reduced greatly or eliminated entirely.
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Post by dti406 on Aug 25, 2021 5:02:36 GMT -8
Want sticker shock?
10 car brass 1938 version Broadway Limited for $9,995.00, reservations now being taken .
Rick Jesionowski
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Post by riogrande on Aug 25, 2021 5:16:07 GMT -8
I don't understand this sentiment I see here and on other online forums of not being able to 'afford' things. If there is something you want, save up for it! It's what past generations did, Probably part of it is price increases have been jumping up in larger bites during the past year vs. the prior few years; people are reacting to bigger increases. But complaints about the cost of the hobby have been with us for years and it can get shrill at times. On other forums it sounds like the old fart club moaning in every post. You can almost hear them say "consarnit!, I remember when a movie cost 5 cents" LOL Those on fixed incomes are will have a harder time affording models with the bigger jumps in prices so I can understand those sentiments. Yes, save up and sell some trains you don't need. As far as instant gratification, that may be true in some cases but what about those who don't have oodles of hobby time? Buying RTR items can help get a model RR going where hobby time is limited due to working F/T, long commutes and honey-do lists etc. Planning ahead helps a lot! Now with Tangent announcements, that's a bit of a different situation. Want sticker shock? 10 car brass 1938 version Broadway Limited for $9,995.00, reservations now being taken . Rick Jesionowski Yeah, that's just a "no-way" for my budget. It's not sticker shock when it's that far out of my affordibility.
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Post by cemr5396 on Aug 25, 2021 5:32:14 GMT -8
Yes, save up and sell some trains you don't need. As far as instant gratification, that may be true in some cases but what about those who don't have oodles of hobby time? Buying RTR items can help get a model RR going where hobby time is limited due to working F/T, long commutes and honey-do lists etc. With that statement I was not so much talking about the proliferation of RTR models as I was about the 'impulse' buyers, the ones that go 'I see it I want it'. They seem to be the ones who have the hardest time making the hobby budget work. I am firmly in favor of the RTR camp myself, by filling a good chunk of my fleet with RTR locos and cars it gives me time to build some of the things that are not available RTR. To me the extra time it gives me to work on things is worth the price, I can devote more time to each project that I do have and in doing so they generally turn out better.
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Post by unittrain on Aug 25, 2021 6:09:57 GMT -8
Some say it's becoming a rich person's hobby but I say it's becoming a broke person's hobby the rich do not endlessly invest in liabilities or they wouldn't be rich, the people that run up credit cards endlessly will be a large portion of the consumer base, I'm glad I switched from N to HO in early 2019 as I got in just in time to aquire a large fleet of locomotives and rolling stock, I will continue to make purchases but in moderation for sure. It's shame the economic situation we all face a year ago it cost $19 to fill the tank of a small car now it's $31.
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Post by riogrande on Aug 25, 2021 6:43:56 GMT -8
Yes, save up and sell some trains you don't need. As far as instant gratification, that may be true in some cases but what about those who don't have oodles of hobby time? Buying RTR items can help get a model RR going where hobby time is limited due to working F/T, long commutes and honey-do lists etc. With that statement I was not so much talking about the proliferation of RTR models as I was about the 'impulse' buyers, the ones that go 'I see it I want it'. They seem to be the ones who have the hardest time making the hobby budget work. I am firmly in favor of the RTR camp myself, by filling a good chunk of my fleet with RTR locos and cars it gives me time to build some of the things that are not available RTR. To me the extra time it gives me to work on things is worth the price, I can devote more time to each project that I do have and in doing so they generally turn out better. Shiny things! Ditto on the other comments.
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Post by csxt8400 on Aug 25, 2021 10:37:09 GMT -8
Some say it's becoming a rich person's hobby but I say it's becoming a broke person's hobby the rich do not endlessly invest in liabilities or they wouldn't be rich, the people that run up credit cards endlessly will be a large portion of the consumer base, I'm glad I switched from N to HO in early 2019 as I got in just in time to aquire a large fleet of locomotives and rolling stock, I will continue to make purchases but in moderation for sure. It's shame the economic situation we all face a year ago it cost $19 to fill the tank of a small car now it's $31. Yeah, diesel at 2.79 was a lot nicer than the current 3.19.
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Post by militaryrail on Aug 25, 2021 20:22:00 GMT -8
I don't understand this sentiment I see here and on other online forums of not being able to 'afford' things. If there is something you want, save up for it! It's what past generations did, I don't now why we seem to be incapable of it now. I suspect it has something to do with our society's obsession with instant gratification. I don't have the ability to simply drop 4 hundo on an engine at the drop of a hat either, but I find the advantage with the move to pre-orders in this hobby is if something is announced that I want, I put away $$ for it, so that when it shows up the sticker shock is reduced greatly or eliminated entirely. I do sort of agree with you but even with that it can be hard. For instance I was saving 1k for these cars (I didn't pre order due to delays & other things not due to mfg). But then Scale Trains announced the SDL-39 I model the Milwaukee Road in 1976 to present day (Yeah I'm one of them guys). Before I knew it my DODX budget became a SDL-39 budget. Then ST announced a new run of Milwaukee Road SD40-2 (I missed last run so now my entire yearly budget + some is eaten up.) Keep in mind $1,500.00 is a lot to some & pre-orders make it harder to save & guarantee you get what you want. I hope these cars will do so well that they will do another run. I simply choose the SDL-39 because its undeniably needed for the Milwaukee Road in 1976 on the Midwest lines.
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Post by lvrr325 on Aug 26, 2021 6:11:05 GMT -8
Probably 50% of the reason I became a dealer is to reduce the costs of modeling. Just spending the money to buy collections and selling them out at shows and online puts a good dent into them, maybe I want 10 things in the collection and I sell off 40 others and come out ahead. I've done this quite a few times. It also gets me to more shows to find more bargains both for myself and things I can resell and increase the profit that way. Then once you start looking for it, you find more of it, sometimes you get lucky. I don't normally do Lionel but I went to an auction a couple weeks ago and was able to get two cars for $45 that each sold for about $200.
I try to do the same with new stuff, sell enough to cover the cost of the few things I want to keep for myself, but it's much harder as the profit margin is much lower. Like when Kato announced a set of HO cats in action poses, I pre-ordered just enough to be even if the last set stays here. So far I've sold two sets. They're not cheap which hurts them.
The pre-order scenario makes it tough too. I sometimes can sell engines or cars just because people didn't know they were coming or missed the pre-order window and they decide they want one when I have a few available. Other times they just fizzle and go nowhere and I end up sitting on them for ages. The Rapido dome cars I picked up I figured I'd sell at least one fairly fast, nothing, not even an offer. New Atlas auto racks that came out last month, no action. Everything is a long range guess and what's hot right now might not be when the new thing finally shows up in 18-30 months.
As for RTR, I would say a large part of the reason I went from a modern era imagined Lehigh Valley back to a circa-1974 Lehigh Valley is because suddenly you could buy so many of the correct locomotives already done. In the 1990s you pretty much had to paint yourself, and it was much easier to get 1990s era locomotives, so I started there. Today there's good models of the C420, C628, U23B and even plain GP38 that didn't exist then and all have been offered RTR in various LV schemes over the years to where I have more engines than my layout can handle trains. Even the X58 boxcars I don't have to modify and paint Athearn cars, I can buy the Tangent one, plop it on the track and be done.
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Post by valenciajim on Aug 26, 2021 12:27:24 GMT -8
Over the past year, I have read several studies that were conducted about the economic impact of pandemics. Pandemics disrupt supply chains. In pre-industrial times, they disrupted agriculture which was the basis of economies in those days. Usually a pandemic is followed by a few years of inflation until supply catches up with demand. That is what we are seeing currently.
One other factor is that the Chinese currency is getting stronger against the US dollar. Although it is my understanding that most manufacturing contracts are denominated in dollars, my guess is that newer contracts probably cost more dollars to reflect Chinese inflation and a stronger Chinese currency.
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Aug 27, 2021 1:02:45 GMT -8
I see folks on eBay complain how China has a deal with the post office where shipping there to here is much cheaper than the reverse. I wonder if the way you beat the container shortage is to ship direct to customers from China? USPS is Expensive!! Cost for me to ship a 9oz package (250grams) from Sweden to the US is just $8.61; the other way it's now $25.50 1kg (2lb 3oz) is $18.36 from me to you, the other way $39.40 2kg (4lb 6oz) is $24.08 from me to you, the other way $67.50
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