Rude Awakening

If you want investments, see a financial advisor.  Trains are for the enjoyment of hobbyists.

 

Very few modern electric trains increase in value over the long hall.

Trains are great investment, just remember to unpack and enjoy them! Today's marvel may be tomorrow's 8 track player.  

Fred

With the glaring exception of Lionel's die-cast ES44 renditions, very little, if any of the new products have held their value (let alone increase). 

 

I remember when the JLC Challengers first arrived back in 2000, dealers were asking anywhere from $1900 to $2100+ in some instances (brand new).  They could be had now for less than $1000....

 

 

As far as I am concerned, the "Investment Train," left many years ago. It was one of the reasons why I sold out my original collection back in the early 1990's. I saw a bad trend starting back then and cleaned out the collection at just the right time, before the floor dropped out of the market.

 

Nowadays, I am only in the hobby as an operator. I will buy what fits my layout parameters and that's it. I will do so at the lowest price possible for an given train item.

 

Good luck, and tell your wife she looks lovely in that new coat!

MPC and Beanie Babies. Both tanked value-wise.

Let the wife handle the investments. Buy trains to enjoy and operate. The only dividends and capital gains here come from the enjoyment in playing with them.

 

Open that box and rune the train!!!

 

Buy vintage Marx if you want an investment. It sold for as little a $2 for a small set in the 30's and now sells on eBay for $25  to $125 or even more! 

I simply do not understand people who buy toy trains and expect them to even retain their value, much less increase.  I have yet to see "toy trains" in the list of buy recommendations on any investment guide or website.  I doubt I ever will.  

 

Frankly, Diok S, you are quite lucky.  Thirteen years after you paid $600 for it, with electronics and all that are outdated compared to today's, it is stillsselling for half what you paid for it.  That is better than many.

 

If it were me, I'd use it as it was intended.  Take it out of the box and enjoy it!

Vintage PYREX is the way to go!

If you buy the trains as an emotional investment, you're far more likely to get greater dividends!

 

If looking at buying trains as an investment purely in the sense of cashing in big-time later to boost your retirement income, your money would probably be better spent on wine, women and song.  With the latter you'll probably get the same return but at least you'd have more fun in the process.

 

I wish I had gotten out back then. I never bought them as an investment, but I think I may be stuck with that junk.

 

I too have discovered that paradigm shift to operation. No more collecting by the numbers.

I did.  I opened the box about an hour ago.  It runs beautifully.  Looks great.   I found 3 other unopened sets which I will open up tomorrow.  All go back at least 15 years.  I have not bought any new product in at least 6 years.  I look for old stuff that I can fix up.

Now it's just by the ton

 

 

 

 

I buy my trains to run and enjoy while I'm on this side of the dirt. Just go to the blue or silver hall at York and see how many of the same "Investments" you see every year at the same ridiculous prices!

QUIT while you'r ahead man.If I were your wife I would go out and buy a brand new car to go with it LOL.Nick

Diok,

 

Trains can be a good investment, one in happiness. 

 

Don't fret about the value, simply enjoy your trains.  And, when you wife comes home in her new coat, tell her how great it looks on her!

 

Jim

Be thankful that mink is out of vogue.

Good grief!  If you want an investment that appreciates in value, there are regulated financial instruments for just that purpose.  If you want to be speculative, there are stocks, gold, raw materials, agricultural commodities, etc.  Not to mention mutual funds and derivatives for all of these.

 

That being said, if you're not going to run the train or at least display it, please leave it in the store for me to buy!!    Seriously these toys are expensive enough without speculation and hoarding to drive the prices up.  

 

If it comes out of a mold, then unless that mold is destroyed, sooner or later they will make more.  It's never going to be "rare" like gold, diamonds, or fine art.  When the price of the item exceeds the cost of making a new one, then more will be made.  

 

If this kind of speculative hoarding is taken to an extreme, it could even limit the availability of spare parts to keep the trains we already paid for in working order.  So please, leave our toys out of your retirement plan.  Sheesh!

Having a lot of new-in-box trains means that it can be Christmas morning over and over.  I'm glad to see more people running rather than hoarding.

I may give her the unopened K-Line NYC F7 A-A set for her birthday!

There exists almost no hobby in which one can expect any sort of reasonable return on "investment.  Unless one is collecting rare Ferraris or gold coins, there's just not enough money in anything to make it worth the time and effort.  The only things I've collected and haven't lost money are guns and watches.  The guns are all about "break even" and the watches are each worth marginally more what I paid for them.  You have to keep both for a while - over five years, in some cases ten or more.  Investment?  Hardly!  They make fore a cheap hobby in the long run,  but nothing more.  Model trains are one of the worst choices I can think of;  as general interest wanes and those of us who defined the value age and move "on", I think the values are likely to decrease, even on the older rare stuff.   After all, any item is only worth what someone is willing to pay.  As those "someones" become more rare, values ultimately suffer.   Without a meaningful connection, who really cares what that old box of old metal and electric motors is "worth"?  What some old guy paid for them?  Irrelevant.   

 

I hope your wife enjoys her new coat.  She probably deserves it on some level, and it will probably be worth more than most model trains in a few years 

You haven't lost any money yet unless you actually sell the train for less than you paid. The auction venue that you refer to is very quirky. Continually, many items in less than mint condition sell for substantial money while same thing mint in the box can't get 50%. My strategy would be to unbox it and make sure it works, because you could be in a whole new world of misery if it turns out to be defective. Two years ago I bought a mint sealed 2000 Service Station set for a fraction of it's original price. By the time I was done having the sound repaired my "profit margin" was greatly reduced. Anyway, unbox it, use it carefully, depreciate it, and get $200 of enjoyment out of it. Then offer it for sale if you still feel like trying to get some $ out of it. It won't seem like so much of a loss - you may even do better than you imagined.

Diok S. -

 

It seems like you were thinking like the old days of train collecting - pre MPC era.

 

Most important point - don't tell you wife anything and you won't be out the cost of a new coat.

 

Steve, Lady and Tex

Given all of this, how would an insurance company determine the value in the event of a loss?  Cost or current market value, however that would be determined.  I paid $600 for the set, Greenberg says it is worth $740, one just sold on Ebay for $322.  If it is stolen, or lost in a fire or flood, what happens? 

Most accountants or CPAs would value model trains at the lower of cost or market (ie EBAY).

Only Antiques Roadshow uses the Retail Store Asking Price vs Auction Sale Price vs "I would Insure It for"  Values.

I try to buy models that I never see again at that low a price, below replacement cost.

Anything made of plastic can easily be made again, maybe on my own rapid prototyping

machine (not now-someday), for just the cost of materials.

I sold all of my 3 rail stuff back in '98 to help finance a house down payment. Did great on the sales prices. I raised $6000+ to help put us in our home. (Said home is now paid for!)

 

Got out just before the "crash".

Haha, you told your wife you screwed up.

Give it another 50 years and you might have something. It's like the quote from the Indiana Jones movie...a cheap watch is only worth ten bucks, but if you bury it in the sand for a thousand years it becomes priceless. 

Jeff Davis

It should be noted that $600 in 2002 is ~$900-$950 today .

 

Only a very few big names from postwar heyday hold or increase in value, and that's if they were kept as museum pieces. But then again my hunch is relative to most other hobbies or toys of the day model trains probably do okay when it comes to residual value.

 

I think the muscle/classic car scene is quite analogous. Without the doldrums of the '70s and '80s the exploding collectibility that began in the '90s probably never would have happened. These days pretty much no Corvette or Mustang or Camaro sold today will ever really be collectible.

Automatic weapons. I sold mine for much, much more than I paid for them. They got so valuable you couldn't shoot them. I think that has leveled off. Guns, in general have exploded in price.

The Lionel catalogs stated quite clearly that they were a lifetime investment in happiness, not money.  A complete run of MAD magazine from 1952 to last month however, is both.

I'm going to take the road less traveled here.  All hoarders of trains, please keep doing so.  Please buy every top end locomotive and set that is put out.  Please wrap them up in protective cocoons and store them away, unopened, for 15 or 20 years.  Thank you.  This will help lionel and Mth, and the others stay in business, and in 20 years it will allow me to buy plenty of "brand new" toys  on the cheap on whatever passes for eBay  at that time.  

 

In all seriousness, though, I don't understand buying anything to leave it in the box.  Even putting it up on the wall offers something to look at, but as for me, If I'm not going to run it, I'm not going to buy it.  

 

“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.” -AR

The secret to making $1,000,000 in model trains is to start with $2,000,000 worth of model trains.

 

Gilly

Back around 1986 I bought a Boston & Albany Hudson that was sold directly from Lionel for around $698. I sold it a couple of years later for $2,000.

I don't know.  The two cases of Natty Boh reefers I'm sitting on should bring a pretty penny in 10 years...lol

-Greg

Eddie, that was 29 years ago! The world of O gauge trains has changed drastically since then. The era of collecting trains to make money is over. That ship sailed a long time ago.