Passing Up On Recent Deals...

Most definitely!  I was only able to order about 1/3 of the items I wanted from the most recent catalogs, which I did order. That just about did me in for this year. If some arrive soon and I get them paid off, I might add a few more items to the order from my want list. There was a LOT of stuff I wanted in the catalogs this year! Much more than normal!

Yes, same here. It just comes down to it that you can't have everything although I try. 

I've tried very hard to pass on all the deals of late....not doing well at all. I've added 3 locos and a 5 car WbB SL passenger set in the last two months. All of the items were around $100 or less.....just could not stop myself......but need to soon!

I will always buy a train if I can roll it over and make a few bucks.  Most of my collection has been done that way.  I have never used one dollar from my home expenses.  Wheeling and dealing has been part of my life.  I will buy anything if I can see a buck on the other end.  The only thing I stay clear of are  ebay queens.  Most of my trains are new MTH and some Lionel. 

I will buy trains that do not run and those fund my York trips.  It has been like a game to me. 

Theres always something I want, wish I could have jumped on the deals.  I got "slammed" over the winter with replacing and repairing necessities so money is tight.

Funny, I hate spending hundreds of dollars repairing a car or replacing a dead appliance, but I usually don't think twice if I have hundreds to spend on trains

Just one more.........

Now I won't buy unless the item is at a never before known - bottom fell out - price. I don't think I am alone because the sellers where I frequent are holding back the good stuff. My cousin in the business says fellow dealers are locked down and dug in for the long haul so long they don't know when to come out and sell anymore. Too many sellers don't need the money yet. Hard to believe...

That just about sums it up for me also. 

I'm selling not buying.

I'm happy about it, too.

i could not believe how high the Legacy Pere Marquette #1225 has gone.

I put it up on EBay and it was swallowed up in an hour or so.

Now for On3 !

scrappy

Lately, yes. Only lately, no. It's been true a long time. I had to begin to get real selective quite a few years ago. Getting more trains is a temptation that can be hard to get under control sometimes, that's for sure.

I suppose the answer depends on what "pass up" means.  I'm not sure I can explain this well - but my thinking is that unless a person simply says "I'm not buying anything, at all, no way, period," then you have set the bar on purchase resistance at some level and even if that is high, there will be, inevitably, items that rise above that so you do purchase them.  And if you look at enough internet sites, and visist enough LHSs, you'll find a near infinite number of them!

I went into this year truly, really, telling myself I was going to cut back - simply because I had no place to put any more trains. 

• Then the latest Lionel and MTH catalogs came out and I ordered seven locos and a bunch of rolling stock. 
• I managed to squeeze just enough additional shelves into my trainroom to just about hold all those pre-orders, when (and if) the all come in.
• I've filled up half those shelves with acquisitions that I just could not pass up: bargains on NIB Vision locos and such that I just "had" to have, etc.  

This weekend, I'm adding yet another 25 feet of shelving.  

I don't think it ever stops.

I have stopped completely...... well maybe not completely..... but pretty close to completely..... well anyway I am thinking completely about it.

I'm passing. The "deals" that I've been seeing here in northern NJ are not that great...maybe 20% off list at the most.

The way I see it, the law of supply & demand is at work. Demand is down, supply is up therefore prices should get even lower so unless I see something I really, really want, I'll wait. I'm not a collector and as long as I have enough stuff to run around the layout and put smiles on the grandchildren's (and my) face, I'm content.

selling myself-i am like marty-if I can get a good deal and roll it over-great-another problem is room-o gauge takes up a lot of room.had to pass on a lot of passenger car sets as they take up a lot of room-I also have almost everything I wanted in ogauge anyway.

Can't believe people are finding all that to buy in the current catalogs!  Went through

them several times thinking I must have missed one lousy car, and it was a big zero.  I can go through a decades old issue of MR and find all this HO stuff I want in three rail that has never been made.  I build structures, some industries that take special cars (not available either), but I find I "need" cars to serve those,  so I am rooting in junkboxes at shows for something I can kitbash, repaint, and reletter.  Cheaper, for

sure.

Typically, I don't buy the recently/newly made stuff. I don't find any of it interesting enough to justify the price, even when they are on sale. I did buy a few of the RMT Budd cars when they were on clearance not all that long ago. 

ME TOO!!! I think about it....but some of the deals are unreal. I gotta stop internet surfing and that will stop 75% of it......but I can't!

The deals are there if you've got wide curves on your layout and don't care about specific road names.  I've yet to see much that meets my criteria/needs, but have certainly been on the lookout.

Hey guys.  Most guys  say we are going to slow down or stop for a while.  It sounds good but never happens.  Who cares what we buy.  Have fun and enjoy yourself.  Buy anything you want.  Trains are fun and that is why we are all here.  ENJOY.

Marty,

I tell that to my CEO, Lynn all the time. Enjoy!

I have to agree with AMS though, the deals where you can really make out are high end. My flipping days are over. Too many people have their hands in their pockets at train shows these days. Can't spend the time on making deals for a few bucks at a deal like the old days.

My activities are filling in the gaps in my collection, rather than starting new areas. I organize my trains by sets and so I can figure out what I need. The next issue would then be whether or not to add more sets.

I've found several locs (SP and UP) in the current Lionel catalog to be very attractive along with some rolling stock.  My layout is in a super state--I'm happily doing the remaining wiring.

So, in short, I was willing, ready and able to buy some goodies from the recent catalogs...UNTIL the triple whammy got me:

1.  New HVAC system.  Even in SoCal we need heat-A/C occasionally and my wife didn't seem to want to go without (LOL!!).

2.  New "trenchless" sewer line.  ****.  For some reason, the city didn't want me just running sewage down the drive-way to the gutter.  Can't figure out why...?

3.  And, just two weeks ago, a built-in wall oven went belly up requiring replacement.  (I can do without heat or A/C in SoCal...but not without cooked food.)

So, for the time being, my train-buying engine has stopped.  I'll be at York in October and intend to rev up the machine again....

A couple of years ago I finally developed the discipline to stop purchasing brand new big ticket items despite their allure.  In all honesty I think some "out of the box' disappointments had a lot to do with it.  I went off in another direction and restricted my buying to a few post-war pieces I still wanted and unbelievably enough clockwork trains from Marx, Hafner, Ives and Hornby.  One heck of a lot cheaper and still whole bunches of fun.  

Turning my back and walking away from all the WbB blow-outs was very painful....

I'm feeling the "pinch" also. Except my "pinch" is space. All my trains are prewar that belonged to my grandfather. Sure, I'd like some of the newer stuff, however, I'd be foolish to sell any of my inherited collection. I've yet to unpack what items I have purchased in the past year.

I know the feeling, all too well!  

I've put the brakes on any new purchases not directly related to building my new layout.

This means track...switches... etc.. only!   I have enough trains and accessories and until I have somewhere to run them it makes no sense to buy more.

Of course if that once in a lifetime deal on that gotta have item comes along...well...

I have more than enough...probably way more enough.  I ordered some cheap Marx cars from a fellow forumite and when I get them, that should be it.  Hopefully...

David, I've become very selective in my buying. In fact I've been selling my older 50's Lionel trains. Even giving some away. I will never run them and I'm never going to have that wall of trains I always thought I would have when I retired. I'm totally into a more scale look and I have twenty eight scale three rail engines. I can never run them all on the layout so why buy more. I may upgrade some engines but unless someone comes out with a Milwaukee Westinghouse or a Milwaukee GE switcher I'm out of the market. The only thing I've been buying are buildings and other things for my new layout. Don

You buy more because you want to run different things at different times. Mike, Jerry, et al are counting on it. Otherwise their business model for high end buyers won't work.

Gerry

+1; basement needs water proofing so that will keep me from taking advantage of ANY deals.

However I have a brass Accucraft  Narrow Gauge K-28 that will be  sent to Train-LI-Usa today to have DCC, sound ( chuff and smoke will be timed by engine/motor speed), smoke unit and a fire box glow added (Accucraft engines do not have this feature).

"She took the Atchison, Topeka & the Santa FE".

Gerry has a good point: on some days you want to run one loco, on some another.  But in addition, it's a pleasure all the time to see all those scale locos on selves, on display particularly when arranged well so one can compare features and similarities, etc.  The only thing better than twenty-eight scale locos up on the wal would be, well . . . twenty nine!

Gerry makes a good point, but I'm sure there are some among us who quite literally have reached something of a saturation point.  I know that is pretty much the case with me.  I'm virtually out of display spaces in my home, and definitely out of closet space (where trains don't belong in the first place).  I have nearly complete rosters of all recent Alaska RR and U.S. Army Transportation Corps locomotives, and also have some 50 or more trolleys and PCC cars.  And this, of course, doesn't even include the many On30 and Large Scale trains I have, or even the great many tinplate trains.

Valid business model or not, there truly is a point where some (many?) simply can't accommodate more trains.  At that point it becomes a sell-to-buy situation, as it currently is for me.

My saturation point will come - I will reach it, when I complete buying my list - and acquisitions will slow as time passes: seven years ago when I got back into O I had about 80 locos on it, now l have less than a dozen: this year was very good as to the list - five locos on it were offered in the lastest catalogs.  Some on my list I expect Mike, Jerry, or someone else to offer, new, sometime in the future - just a matter of time (Dreyfus Hudson, cast not tin-plate Gresley A3 and A4, ETAT Chapelon 242A) and some I expect never to get but will buy if and when (Russian Soviet-era A20-1 (4-14-4)).  Until then I keep filling in but only on the list, unless something comes along that I have not previously heard of, which hasn't happened very often so far. 

After that, I will buy only as replacements, like you do now.  for example, it's conceivable that someday someone could offer a scale Big Boy that would motivate me to replace the JLC I have now, although what features it would have that would push me to do so, I haven't a clue.

saturation is also the state of the secondary market.  i sat through a Stout auction last weekend to pickup a single Marx item (which might turn out to be well worth the $40 + 14% + $40 shipping), but saw just about every PA, NJC & Lackawanna item ever produced by MTH, KLine and Weaver, all in C8/9, sell for about $0.20 on the dollar of the original purchase price.

again, i fail to see why anyone buys a new catalog item from anyone just to have "another new engine".  in the past decade+ i've bought two new O gauge locomotives.  not saying it's impossible to push my buttons, but it's got to be something very special to me at this point.

...prewar is another story.

I think 20 cents on the dollar is about right for anything old enough that the running capability or the sound is not competitive with modern offerings.  Hard to accept PS1 or early TMCC performance when you're running Legacy or PS3 beside them - such a difference!   I have paid about 70 cents/dollar for used though, recently bought an early Vision loco - but its the same technology as current offerings so that's the difference in my mind).  On the other hand, if I don't intend to run it, just want it for display . . . I bought an MTH coal turbine for just pennies on the dollar because that was the case - it was old and had problems but it displays beautifully.

I am fascinated to find that many toy train collectors are truly addictive when it comes to  purchasing trains.  They will spend thousands of dollars and often not even open the boxes, because there is no room in their houses to display, much less run the trains. Many have no printed inventories.  They forget what they own and purchase duplicates.  Fortunately most have the resources to fund their addiction, but some do not and the results can be quite painful.  Is it possible that 5 to 10% of the toy train collectors are addicts?  If so, there are several thousand aggressive purchasers out there, perhaps more than enough to absorb short production runs.

you have a point, Lee, but personally i'm not that much into the sound and control systems.  if a model is accurate and runs smoothly, that's about all i want.  the early Weaver brass by Samhongsa are still the best looking modern O gauge models to me.

"Anyone else feeling the limits of practicality preventing themselves from jumping at some pretty good deals lately??

Not limits of practicality. Limits of value, limits of family & life priorities. There are no 'real deals' at this point in the current economic (Federal Reserve monetary, stock market) cycle. Not in toy trains, not at the car dealerships, not at the gas pump, the clothing stores & supermarkets or your local bank ... and that is not an accident. Those will not be happening (again) until the next recessionary contraction period. What we can see now is the typical seasonal marketing, & seasonal inventory clearances. 

Then again there is the matter of current practices of far too many in the toy train business, (which has proven to be yet another predictable long cycle business).  Those with discretionary choices. fiscal discipline and cross market savvy will find their patience well rewarded, as has been the case in the past.

Here's Carly Simon, who could just as well be singing about the love of toy trains.

Thanks for that Carly video. I'd give a whole bunch of trains to be on Martha's Vineyard listening to her sing!