We are not alone!

Digital apps for collecting cards?  Hmmm, does it deliver a virtual foamcore-like sheet of chalky gum with it?  Can you "flip" iPhones with your friends against the side of the school?  I hear those "leaners" are tough to bring down!   Also, putting them in between bicycle spokes might be problematic.  

As many have said, the downturn in collecting is not limited to toy trains, it is across the spectrum of collectables.

When I was a kid, we all bought and traded baseball cards. But nobody paid a premium for any cards. At best, people traded away more than one card to get a desired cards.

For most of us having baseball cards was a social thing. We played various games with them in the school yard. Surplus cards went into bicycle spokes to make noise.

The article mentions some examples of costly cards. Given those prices, who is even going to start collecting? (We have the same issue in the world of "O" gauge trains)

Combining real world, new technology and virtual reality is one way to extend our hobby and others, otherwise we will spend our time working to live in the Oasis*. Yes, this is gross over simplification of where we headed, but unless we spend time with kids and get them interested in hands-on hobbies and activities that is one potential future. If people do not experience the pleasure of model trains then there is no draw for them to the hobby. This is why Train Shows, Displays and clubs are so important.

*The Oasis is the virtual world from the book 'Ready Player One' just a recent entry in a long line of books and movies where humanity would rather live in a virtual world than the real one.
 

Yes, this is gross over simplification of where we headed, but unless we spend time with kids and get them interested in hands-on hobbies and activities that is one potential future.

To each their own.
I didn't spend hobby time with my kids because I was concerned about the future of model railroading or toy train collecting. I did it to spend time with my kids.

I had my collection of baseball cards "back in the day." Still have it somewhere. Like C.W. mentioned, I also had them in my spokes. I remember tossing them against the wall and whoever was closest to the wall would win the whole bunch and still have a tendency to want to do that with postcards and index cards to this day!

Times, baseball (with its high salaries, baseball strikes, cost of going to a game, cost of needing cable TV to view games & drug testing to name a few issues), baseball cards and toy trains seemed simpler (purer?) then. I can't see today's kids having an interest in baseball cards or maybe even little league baseball with all of the electronic games today or soccer or whatever, but maybe that is just me.  Having said all of that, I still enjoy watching baseball on TV and operating my "simple" prewar trains! 

Tom

C W Burfle posted:

Yes, this is gross over simplification of where we headed, but unless we spend time with kids and get them interested in hands-on hobbies and activities that is one potential future.

To each their own.
I didn't spend hobby time with my kids because I was concerned about the future of model railroading or toy train collecting. I did it to spend time with my kids.

I spend time with my kids just to spend time with my kids as well, I was talking more about outreach. At 11 and 15 my kids are more into D&D, Legos and reading than trains, but when I am working on the club layout or in the basement on my stuff they come down to check it out and help, at some point I am going to have to get out my lucky die a character sheet and build new Mage.

The very definition of the word "thing" is changing behind our backs. Millennials and younger no longer value "things" as we do. Indeed, they do not even define it the same way. A digital image is considered "real" by them in a way that you and I do not share. To us, it is a representation of an actual object; to many of them, that distinction is not made as clearly. A flawless digital photo of the Mona Lisa may actually, one day, become the Mona Lisa; they are, after all, functionally identical.

This bodes ill for the very concept of manufacturing and ownership, when entire categories of "things" will become extinct, and certainly not manufactured (read: salaries) bought and paid (read: salaries) for. The few Millennials I know have relatively little interest in material goods, as traditionally defined, especially by American culture.

So, all this "connectivity" is nothing less than the initial stages of the Hive Mind, where individualism does not exist and lockstep conformity is rigidly enforced - as it is, indeed, already. Try disagreeing now with The Mob publicly. The attacks will come quickly. For those who were afraid of the Red Menace and World Communism and Marx (not Louis!) and Lenin, well, those guys were amateurs; you ain't seen nuttin' yet. Even Communist China (quaint phrase) isn't Communist any more. 

The Internet - which I am using right now - and its fellow travelers (social media) is the worst invention in history. I did not always see it that way. New data has convinced me otherwise.

Anyway, as to the trains, when a few years ago I was asked why, at a train show, by someone who should know better,  I/we didn't just get train simulators and make up all the RR's we wanted, I knew this guy Just Didn't Get It. 

Kids. They Just Don't Get It.

C W Burfle posted:

As many have said, the downturn in collecting is not limited to toy trains, it is across the spectrum of collectables.

When I was a kid, we all bought and traded baseball cards. But nobody paid a premium for any cards. At best, people traded away more than one card to get a desired cards.

For most of us having baseball cards was a social thing. We played various games with them in the school yard. Surplus cards went into bicycle spokes to make noise.

The article mentions some examples of costly cards. Given those prices, who is even going to start collecting? (We have the same issue in the world of "O" gauge trains)

Not train related, but our quote about surplus cards going into bicycle spokes to make noice, reminds me of my favorite scene from Ken Burn's "Baseball", where they are interviewing one of the more well known eccentric characters in baseball, "Moon Man" Bill Lee, and he was commenting on the baseball card collecting world and basically said the same thing, that rather than trying to make a quick buck kids should put them in the spokes of their bikes and imagine they were flying

"This bodes ill for the very concept of manufacturing and ownership, when entire categories of "things" will become extinct, and certainly not manufactured (read: salaries) bought and paid (read: salaries) for. The few Millennials I know have relatively little interest in material goods, as traditionally defined, especially by American culture."

If this is true (and like many pronouncements about any generation, I wonder about that, the 60's movement turned into Yuppies, the 50's kids were all supposed to be the "wild ones", my generation were supposed to end up as tv addicted idiots, etc). There is some irony if in fact this is true, how many of the "greatest generation" bemoaned how materialistic we all had become, how many times were we preached at how people didn't save, that all they care about was "material things" by sources both secular and spiritual?  Things change, that is for sure, not many people buy butter churns any more or spinning wheels (outside ETC and maybe groups like the Amish), things like home movies and home videos and Polaroids have gone the way of the dinosaur, replaced by videos shot on cameras and displayed on a variety of screens.  I doubt very much materialism is going away, I think it is just changing forms, what young people covet and what we coveted are different. 

As far as collections losing value, part of the problem with collecting is that often it is driven by bubbles, rather than people actually liking it and that has a dark side. People who truly love the thing, are priced out, and what often then happens is the bubble bursts, and then a lot of them end up in limbo, not being owned by people who love them and those who own them clinging to them in the hope someday the rainbow will return......so no one wins. 

Has anyone here tried the virtual (model) railroading software called Trainz, by Auran?  It launched around 2000 along with Microsoft's Train Simulator, and both have a sizable following.  Trainz has evolved to accommodate "multi-player," which means that you can join an online session and see trains operated by other people in your game.  I personally think V-scale (Video or Virtual) was a huge missed opportunity for Lionel.  It adds an immersive and realistic dimension, while overcoming the chronic space limitations of 'O' and larger scales.

Lionel's implementation could have been like Skylanders for Baby Boomers...  You buy a model, put it on a special track or roller base, and it appears on the screen in the game.  The game communicates back through the roller base and tells the loco what to do: run fast or slow, heavy smoke, whistle, etc.  The roller base could have an optional video backdrop that shows the loco and its first few cars travelling through an appropriate landscape in day or night.  This could still come to pass; I believe it would be profitable for Lionel, and provide a pathway to get younger people interested in the big trains.

Another form of augmented reality could involve a Virtual Reality headset.  You put on the headset, and when your passenger train stops you actually "see" people getting on and off, cars moving on your streets, etc.  The trains themselves could be real, and running on a nearly bare board!  Don't fear the future, it only gets better!

Frankly I'm glad for the movement away from just "having" things, and toward "doing" things.  I'm not a Millenial, but I would rather have a memorable shared experience operating trains with other people, than just having one of everything in boxes in my closet!

Ted S posted:

Has anyone here tried the virtual (model) railroading software called Trainz, by Auran?  It launched around 2000 along with Microsoft's Train Simulator, and both have a sizable following.  Trainz has evolved to accommodate "multi-player," which means that you can join a session and see trains operated by other people in your game.  I personally think V-scale (Video or Virtual) was a huge missed opportunity for Lionel.  It adds an immersive and realistic dimension, while overcoming the chronic space limitations of 'O' and larger scales.

Lionel's implementation could have been like Skylanders for Baby Boomers...  You buy a model, put it on a special track or roller base, and it appears on the screen in the game.  The game communicates back through the roller base and tells the loco what to do: run fast or slow, heavy smoke, whistle, etc.  The roller base could have an optional video backdrop that shows the loco and its first few cars travelling through an appropriate landscape in day or night.  This could still come to pass; I believe it would be profitable for Lionel, and provide a pathway to get younger people interested in the big trains.

Another form of augmented reality could involve a Virtual Reality headset.  You put on the headset, and when your passenger train stops you actually "see" people getting on and off, cars moving on your streets, etc.  The trains themselves could be real, and running on a nearly bare board!  Don't fear the future, it only gets better!

Frankly I'm glad for the movement away from just "having" things, and toward "doing" things.  I'm not a Millenial, but I would rather have a memorable shared experience operating trains with other people, than just having one of everything in boxes in my closet!

Another form of virtual reality would be for your layout to consist of monitors that present the vr to you. With 3D technology the scenery would come a live

The above discussions re: internet and VR make me think of the (classic?) scene from Back to the Future 2 where Marty McFly plays the video game Wild Gunman, after several kids from the future (well, past for us now since it was 2015 ) couldn't figure out how to use the controls.

Their response after he hits all the targets: "You mean you have to use your hands?  That's like a baby's toy!" (maybe somewhat paraphrased, I didn't just lookup the exact quote....).

I think that lines up with the people suggesting to just do everything virtually with Trainz, MS Trains, or other simulators.  Now some simulators may have their place, but I think it's a different reason.  The recent Disneyland Railroad simulator intrigues me, but because I am fond of the park, and would love the feeling of running the train around it's perimeter, though I have not enough knowledge of how to operate an actual steam engine to be very good at it.

Re: the original BB cards and trains similarities, I see a lot of them.  I was active in BB cards back in that period of over-production in the late 80's to very early 90's.  I had opinions on what was my favorites among the products offered, and while the quality was ther,e the production was over the top, so they are worth nothing today (I'm thinking Score 1988 Baseball for those who may have been in BB cards back then).  Then came Upper Deck in (I think) 1990.  Less produced, but also much more expensive, so as a teenager, I was not about to start investing significantly more money to build out sets of cards.

I've seen some of the new gimmicks (jerseys, bat splinters, etc) included as "chasers" and to me as a collector, they are a big turn off since collecting a "set" is literally impossible, and I think that was a part of BB cards for me.  A fully built up set of 792 Topps cards or 660 Donruss or Fleer was a bit of a sense of accomplishment, aloing with a set of whatever the "add in" was (stickers for Fleer, Puzzle pieces for Donruss for many years.)

-Dave

Not a shred of interest in VR.  By definition, VR has no presence. 

I am no advocate of "things for things' sake," but virtual leaves me cold and unresponsive.  No picture can deliver the same experience as a 12 pound locomotive pounding the rails.  That experience is fully sharable.

A VR train is nothing going nowhere:  at least a boxed Lionel is something going nowhere.

Ted S posted:

Has anyone here tried the virtual (model) railroading software called Trainz, by Auran?  It launched around 2000 along with Microsoft's Train Simulator, and both have a sizable following.  Trainz has evolved to accommodate "multi-player," which means that you can join a session and see trains operated by other people in your game.  I personally think V-scale (Video or Virtual) was a huge missed opportunity for Lionel.  It adds an immersive and realistic dimension, while overcoming the chronic space limitations of 'O' and larger scales.

Lionel's implementation could have been like Skylanders for Baby Boomers...  You buy a model, put it on a special track or roller base, and it appears on the screen in the game.  The game communicates back through the roller base and tells the loco what to do: run fast or slow, heavy smoke, whistle, etc.  The roller base could have an optional video backdrop that shows the loco and its first few cars travelling through an appropriate landscape in day or night.  This could still come to pass; I believe it would be profitable for Lionel, and provide a pathway to get younger people interested in the big trains.

Another form of augmented reality could involve a Virtual Reality headset.  You put on the headset, and when your passenger train stops you actually "see" people getting on and off, cars moving on your streets, etc.  The trains themselves could be real, and running on a nearly bare board!  Don't fear the future, it only gets better!

Frankly I'm glad for the movement away from just "having" things, and toward "doing" things.  I'm not a Millenial, but I would rather have a memorable shared experience operating trains with other people, than just having one of everything in boxes in my closet!

A very interesting at least for me,thought invoking, post Ted....Thx

Slightly off-topic:  I'm reminded of one of my fave Zappa tunes...

Mitch 

Frankly I'm glad for the movement away from just "having" things, and toward "doing" things.  I'm not a Millenial, but I would rather have a memorable shared experience operating trains with other people, than just having one of everything in boxes in my closet!

I guess a person could collect by making most of their purchases through internet venues like EBay, or even this board. To me that is almost virtual collecting. I buy some stuff that way, but not much.

For many of us, having all that stuff in boxes, stored away is a result of plenty of activity.

Doing things like attending train shows, antique shows, estate and garage sales, etc. Then there is trading, and hanging out with fellow collectors, comparing notes, or even just chatting about trains and other things that really have nothing to do with trains.