Higher prices for certain road names?

I haven't noticed a price difference in road names for the exact same engine or piece of rolling stock by the same manufacturer in any road name offered, MTH or Lionel or Atlas. I have noticed a difference in price between the different engines and pieces of rolling stock. Can you provide an example from a catalog I can look at?

All of Lionel and the MTH that I see in the books in front of me have the same  price on all the engines of that stile. if one trainmaster  is $549.99 all the rode names are Same price. 

Andrew,

How about citing a factual reference to back up your assumption that was the basis of your original question.

jackson

If you check Grzyboski's Train Store (http://www.grzyboskitrains.com/) and enter a specific model, i.e, GP-35 in the search field you will see that some road names are more/less than others.

I haven't seen this, and I didn't go try to find any examples, but I suspect that if some roadnames have a lower price, it is because THOSE roadnames have had their prices lowered due to not selling and the shop wants to move the inventory that has been sitting on the shelf for far to long.

 I have bought many things from Grzyboski's and found them to have decent prices, their prices on what I have been interested in have always been lower than MSRP, so I doubt that they (or others) have RAISED prices because of a roadname was popular, but rather LOWERED prices on less popular roadnames to get them off the shelf.

Doug

Andrew,

Your question is one to cause some people to think. I'm in Northern California, and yes I have seen this happen in years past. Not so much anymore since over half of our LHS are footnotes in history.

In the glory years, most in my area modeled the, Southern Pacific and Western Pacific. Almost always dealers would stick to, MSRP and depending on the piece, MSRP plus 10-15%.

Maybe you are witnessing these practices. Keep in mind that in this hobby it's a buyers market.

When buying new from MTH I have not seen any price difference on the same model with different roadnames. 

On the second hand or used market some roadnames do command more even if they are Williams engines like the NYC or Pennsy.

For right now most of my buying of engines will be second hand or used as the prices for new engines are way too high for me to pay.

Lee Fritz

There are numerous examples of this in several of the  online offerings.

Here's an example from one OGR sponsors for Lionel Legacy GP-35's where they listed the MSRP as $499.99:

• SP - $458.99
• Reading - $369.99
• Conrail - $396.99
• Western Pacific - $321.99
• NW - $321.99
• CN - $458.99
• GN - $424.99
• GM&O - $424.99
• D&RGW - $369.99
• L&N - $458.99
• CB&Q - $458.99

As someone who looks at modern diesels on ebay regularly, it seems like BNSF sells for the most, somewhat more than UP.  CSX seems to sell for less.  

Another example is Lionel's S scale SD70ace's from a few years ago.  That run the BNSF seemed to hold its price, comparing retailers, I saw some price cuts on the UP version, and it seems like retailers couldn't give away the KCS version.

One that I have noticed in Williams that don't hold it's value is the Amtrak F-7's.

Not sure about Amtrak models in other brand names like Lionel or MTH.

Lee Fritz

I think a couple of reasons for different prices are: 1. Slow mover, older merchandise.

2. Similar to #1 but technology gets in here. An MTH proto-3 will cost more than a proto-1 or -2 for same products. Lionel's Legacy should cost more than TMCC for same products. I would almost think that a lesser known railroad would have a higher resale value than a UP, BNSF, Pennsy or NYC because of the rarity of the choices.

SO these are all from the same catalog and model run (or whatever it's called, same batch anyway)? Interesting. They must know what they are doing I suppose? My LHS gives me the same discount no matter the road name. However, sometimes it is not as much as the big dealers discounts. My LHS is just a small train store though.

Hehe, BNSF should be more than UP, that's my chosen road name and my favorite rail road.   Actually, all kidding aside, I think there is a lot less BNSF stuff offered than there is UP. That might have something to do with it? MTH makes quite a bit of BNSF, but Lionel offers very little of it, at least in the last few years since I got back in the hobby. I also find that interesting as BNSF is the no 2 rail road in size, just behind UP. I guess Lionel's customers are mostly in the East and all like the Eastern road names.

I live in the Kansas City area and BNSF (and Santa Fe) and Kansas City Southern are more in demand around here. My LHS tries to get most of the KCS stuff that comes out as I guess it sells well here. So far just the BNSF items in each MTH catalog has managed to deplete my train budget each year, and that's without getting all the BNSF items available in the catalogs. I haven't yet had a chance to get to the KCS stuff. Maybe if I ever catch up on BNSF items, I will try some KCS, I do like their current paint scheme.  

I agree, this just proves my point, the Highest priced ones were already $41.00 below MSRP. Maybe not a HUGE discount (8.2% off MSRP) but still discounted from MSRP.

Did you follow these prices? did they all start at the same price? or did the seller RAISE the prices on the SP, CN L&N and CB&Q versions.

 I didn't track the (un-named) seller's prices, but suspect that the GN, GM&O, Conrail, Reading, D&RGW were less popular in decending order, with the NW a surprisingly poor selling version for this seller.

 Looks to me like as stated above, this seller is LOWERING prices on stock that is not moving, which is a common practice.

Doug

This is all a tempest in a teapot. 

Lionel, MTH, etc. set the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.

Once it's on the dealer's shelves, the dealer is free to raise or lower that price at his discretion or peril.  Back in the 80's, when an ad stated "call for price" for a popular item, it was usually higher than MSRP.  (Collectable, you know...)

But, in the end, it's no different than when buying a TV, computer, cell phone, appliance or car. 

Prices will vary.  It's the world we live in nowadays.

Rusty

It isn't difficult, supply and demand as well as what the consumer is willing to pay will determine  the price.

It depends on the proximity of the Train Store location and the railroad they are selling. The further away the railroad, the lower the price is a typical pricing structure.

Andrew

My interpretation of the original question was that he was referring to the manufacturers (ie. Lionel, MTH, Atlas) and not the resellers. A reseller be it a hobby shop, toy store, big box or whatever can certainly sell a product at whatever price they choose. That is simply rule one in business. Look in your Sunday paper and see the different prices on Coca Cola vs. Pepsi from store to store.

jackson

I think that when you see a difference in price, it often is due to discounting of those rail lines that aren't selling.  (For example, several dealers have certain Lionel NS Heritage models or GP35's for sale at difference prices). 

One might also see different releases of the same model at different prices if the manufacturer has increase the price from one run to another.

Jim

I have no idea if railroads charge for using their brand, but if they do, considering the above example, Lionel doesn't pass this charge to the customer via their MSRP.

Licensing Lawsuit.

I would say it varies more with secondhand trains. It seems like items from harder to find road names like SAL, ACL, FEC etc hold their values pretty well on the used market.

Martin,

With regard to your claim, "I think that what you said below is true IF the manufacturers made the exact same number of each road name.  But we know they don't." In view of the fact that the manufacturers don't release their production numbers, and i don't believe anyone has both copies of the purchase orders the respective shipping lists from every reseller in the country, i would question how you or anyone else can say with factual certainty we don't (or do) know that manufacturers make or don't make the same number of each road name.

Hence, the conclusion that you make to claim manufacturers affect dealer pricing by creating supply numbers is based solely on your opinion, but not on factual evidence.

What a reseller charges for his product is based on many individual market forces period, and that is all well and good in a free market economy. BUT I have yet to see anyone here show evidence (catalog prices, shipping invoices, etc.) where any single manufacturer (not a reseller) charges more for certain road names vs. others for the exact same product from the exact same production run.

jackson

Martin,

You seem to have me confused with some other poster as i never posted about Charles Ro, the UP, or ES44AC's.

All i said was, "Andrew,How about citing a factual reference to back up your assumption that was the basis of your original question" and then, "My interpretation of the original question was that he was referring to the manufacturers (ie. Lionel, MTH, Atlas) and not the resellers......."

Please stop attributing things to me that i neither said nor are not true. I am sorry if i caused you any confusion. Have a nice day.

jackson

Had I known just how much, "poo-poo" this thread would cause, I would have allowed it to vanish into history.