I'm doing my twice-annual comparison of online Lionel dealers as part of the catalog pre-orders and wanted to see if there's anyone else I should include. These dealers have pre-orders active on their websites now:
I'm assuming that Charles Ro and Pat's Trains will have their pre-orders up shortly. Are there any others I should look at?
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I’d add Nassau hobby center to your list too, their preorder pricing is available if you search by Lionel item number.
I put in an order at Ro. I just searched for the item number in the catalog and up it came. So the pricing of the 2025 Catalog at Ro is available. Only after placing my order that I noticed that they did not have a formal preorder page yet.
@WBC posted:I put in an order at Ro. I just searched for the item number in the catalog and up it came. So the pricing of the 2025 Catalog at Ro is available. Only after placing my order that I noticed that they did not have a formal preorder page yet.
Oh, good. Every year the shipping from CRo ends up being the difference in total price for me, I'm glad to hear the prices are up!
Added Nassau and Charles Ro. Just waiting on Pat's Trains and any other suggestions that get added here.
Not a lot of change from 2024 Vol2: Mr. Muffin is the lowest price, beating Charles Ro by a single percentage point (20% versus 19%), neither charges out-of-state tax nor requires a deposit. Once you add in the shipping costs, however, CRo wins. Subsidizing the shipping, especially on large orders, is a huge savings.
Nassau (19%), and Legacy Station (18%) are close, but both add state tax and a 10% deposit and don't discount shipping.
Nicholas Smith Trains and Trainworld are at 15%, with neither charging a deposit or discounting shipping. Trainworld charges sales tax.
Mario's Trains is only at 14%, but the shipping is free, which definitely should push people their way depending on the size of the order.
CT's Trains (11%) and Hobbyspeed (1%) both require full payment up front, a year before shipping anything, which is a definitely deal-breaker for me. I've reached out to Hobbyspeed because I'm not seeing ANY discounts applied to the prices, not a standard dealer discount or a pre-order discount. If I get an update from them, I'll add it here.
Are you sure Nassau adds tax? I've ordered from them and do recall being taxed.
Does the Muffin discount calculation take into account his volume purchase discount?
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