When did prices change for used trains. (Review the example and stay on topic please)

Inflation, for one. Gas was 30 cents a gallon.   A new car in 1960 averaged $ 2752;  in 2017 the average "transaction price" for Ford, Chrysler and GM "light vehicles" was $ 37,000.  But  in 1960 light trucks in 1960 were "plain" and only for work, and SUVs did not exist.   And, today's cheapest cars are way better and have more features  than the Cadillac or Lincoln of 1960, in almost every respect.  You might be safe to call the inflation a ten times factor.

A Lionel locomotive then was about $30 and today- maybe an average of $400-500, but again there is no comparision as to features.  Quality?? Subjective and the long term remains to be seen.

Then- there is availability-  probably fewer outlets exist for trains now than back then when there were many hobby shops, department stores, and even hardware stores carrying trains, and sets.

Will today's train products go UP in value?? Remains to be seen.  Certainly NOT if the product does not last. 

And demand- will this generation of kids (maybe today's 8- 15 year olds) WANT trains when they are in their 60's??  Maybe...IF we hobbyists introduce them to our hobby.  If not...

Can you validate the assumption that one would be considered more valuable than the other given your time frame?  I suspect both would have been considered rolling stock.  I don't think "rare" entered into the narrative until much later on.

moed321 posted:

OK, it is 1960.  You walk into a train store to buy some trains.  The shopkeep has on their wall new trains from the 1960 catalog, some still new 1959 inventory left over and used inventory they have taken on on trade.  Two items spot your eye, the 1956 6464-325 and the 1953/54 6464 green Rock Island boxcar. Both items are in top condition, not new but well taken care of.  

Today, we know the 6464-325 boxcar is a hard one to find, so we would expect to see it at a much higher price than the 6464 in this example.  So ignore what we know today, it's 1960.

I don't care what the price was in 1960 for these items, but was there a price difference between items like these, common and rare items then?  Would the these two items have a multiple of 5 or 6 between them even back then?  If not, when did the prices seperate to have such a large price difference.  

Given your premise that I 'walked into a train store to buy some trains' I must assume that I am a kid and not an adult collector.  Never met the collector that went into a store to buy 'some' trains.  Ergo, there is little if any difference in the price I will pay.  

Forward to the 70's when I am older and a TCA member at a meet.  Now I am a collector and don't know any better so I am willing to pay a difference in price based on my 'need' to own the rarest of the rare.

Both times I purchased a brown double door automobile car from an individual I did not pay more than I would have paid for the blue car.  The first time I did not know any better and the second time I did but still did not pay more.

Several months ago I was in an antique shop in Corpus Christi when on the floor I saw a box of trains.  It was a 671 Steam Turbine Set like the one I got from Joskeys in 1952.  The manager walked up while I was telling my wife about how I had carried the set home in my lap back then.  She walked away, made a phone call to the booth owner and came back with a price of $100.  At about two and a half times what my mother paid in 1952 I gladly took it.  When we got home and I was putting my childhood memories on the table, in the bottom of the box was a AA Erie Alco from the same period.

As a kid I do not ever recall saying that this engine or car will be worth a lot more someday.  If fact I don't say that today.  Trains are toys, sometimes big boy toys, but nevertheless toys.  People collect at their own peril.  If a box car is worth five or ten times the average price someone will reproduce it.  Oops, sorry, Lionel has already done that. 

If a car was listed in the catalog for (let's say) $5, then it didn't matter then whether or not it would one day be considered "rare". It was just regular production. Prices only began to change when buyers noticed that there were variations and lower production of certain cars (or engines or accessories, etc.) and completists wanted one of everything. 

I'm 66, and I've watched prices rise and fall on everything. 

Relax and just buy what makes you happy for whatever you can comfortably afford.

In 1960 I sincerely doubt the what we now consider the rarer car would have sold for a premium price. Rarity is established over the years, not soon after introduction.

Jim

artyoung posted:

 

Relax and just buy what makes you happy for whatever you can comfortably afford.

Excellent advice.

My experience in 1960 was simple. I saved my money through the year (Dad was self-employed and I helped out and earned some money). Armed with cash after Xmas, I would go to the Boston Store in Wilkes-Barre, PA and get Lionel product on sale, because the store wanted to clear out their inventory. I was eleven. Prices were negotiable. Discounts were heavy. I specifically recall buying the pickle car, the airplane car and the log dumping car. One or two years later I bought the turntable, the 616 switcher, and the Santa Fe work caboose.  This is what I recall. On a trip to NYC to stay with a friend,  in 1962, I bought the banjo signal at Macy's and paid list price. I also visited Madison Hardware and later mail ordered from Madison two pairs of 0-27 switches and a batch of 0-27 track and paid list price. Aside: I saw the Yankees play Baltimore in a double header and had a seat for $2.25. Yankees were swept. The last 1/3 of the second game, I sat behind home plate and saw Mickey Mantle strike out.

Mark

I would say in the original example above the retailer would have no clue about the rarity of the items but would be frustration that they were not selling. Often times what we see as a rare collectable was a marketing or production disappointment at best. To those original retailers they just wanted to turn inventory by making a sale so they can pay their bills and continue to operate.

O Gauge Jim posted:

In 1960 I sincerely doubt the what we now consider the rarer car would have sold for a premium price. Rarity is established over the years, not soon after introduction.

Jim

yep, what he said...

the 60 s ,wow ,I don t think I ever heard something was rare,just low on stock!! No premium was paid, if you were lucky to find something ,nobody else could,you were lucky and did not pay a premium!!!I was fortunate ,we had 2 Lionel stores in our area if they did nt have it ,they would locate or order .,would love to go there just to browse and wish,drove my parents crazy.!Life was so much easier back then!!No pressure ,no excessive premiums.thanks for letting me vent,i loved it!!!!!

rich b

You might pay a bit more. Not too likely, but you might. Post War did not spawn the collectors bug.

   A precedent had already been set by collectors with tin plate like the Baby Ruth tin, etc. And even the cast era black jack gg1 and other one year only items. Be it a 6464, or tin Baby Ruth or scale Hudson, "premiums existed". But I think a reluctancy to pay a high premium was more common then.

   Without an ear inside Lionel you had no real way of even guessing at what production was like... but some folks did and bought and acted accordingly.  Sealed shippers unopened from the 30s? There were at least half a dozen here in Gramps collection, including a black jack GG-1.... If you could afford it.. nobody could, but there were here

The labels had his name and addresses on them... Not bought at shows, lol.

necrails posted:

 I suspect both would have been considered rolling stock.  I don't think "rare" entered into the narrative until much later on.

I would share that impression as well. Back around 1960, virtually nobody was serious about collecting these toy trains. They bought them to play with or for their kids to play with, but nobody really cared much about variations, production errors, scarcity, or any of that stuff.

O Gauge Jim posted:

In 1960 I sincerely doubt the what we now consider the rarer car would have sold for a premium price. Rarity is established over the years, not soon after introduction.

Jim

But would certain pre-war items have sold at a premium?

Alan

moed321 posted:

OK, it is 1960.  You walk into a train store to buy some trains.  The shopkeep has on their wall new trains from the 1960 catalog, some still new 1959 inventory left over and used inventory they have taken on on trade.  Two items spot your eye, the 1956 6464-325 and the 1953/54 6464 green Rock Island boxcar. Both items are in top condition, not new but well taken care of.  

Today, we know the 6464-325 boxcar is a hard one to find, so we would expect to see it at a much higher price than the 6464 in this example.  So ignore what we know today, it's 1960.

I don't care what the price was in 1960 for these items, but was there a price difference between items like these, common and rare items then?  Would the these two items have a multiple of 5 or 6 between them even back then?  If not, when did the prices seperate to have such a large price difference.  

No rocket science required here. The cars would be the same price in 1960. The people who became the TCA, the Baby Boomers, were soon coming of age, and their desire to acquire stuff they were unable to have as kids, fueled the collecting and the prices.

Not to say there were those that were not "Boomers" involved, but it's a safe bet that most collectors were of that group. I'm guessing your "when" is when the TCA membership ramped up. Guessing they  (TCA) have figures of the peak years of membership.

Simon (a Boomer, but NOT a Collector)

Allan Miller posted:

necrails posted:

 I suspect both would have been considered rolling stock.  I don't think "rare" entered into the narrative until much later on.

I would share that impression as well. Back around 1960, virtually nobody was serious about collecting these toy trains. They bought them to play with or for their kids to play with, but nobody really cared much about variations, production errors, scarcity, or any of that stuff.

I agree with all that, and would like to suggest that not many people even knew what a rare version was until the books started coming out.

The Greenberg's books and price guides tended to level the field, as everyone became aware of rare versions and wanted to know if their toy was a rare version or not.

I agree. They were just toy trains until the kids of the 50s grew up and decided to collect thus finding out for themselves some items are harder to find than other. This created a more desirable item. Before you knew it prices increased and collector clubs were formed and so on. 

Variations did not really bring premium prices until the early 70's. Most early collectors were trying to find one of each number or by type. There were always those looking for items that were a different color or mold variations, but there were not enough of them to move the market The 6464 cars were among the very first items to have cost differences due to variations and I really suspect that premium was due to the numbers being printed on the side of the car. No other Lionel cars to my knowledge used a base number and then added a suffix to denote a roadname. 

In my experience, nothing postwar was considered "old and rare" in 1960.    My buddy and I bought used trainsets from want-ads similar to garage sales, very cheap in good shape.     We were poor high school kids so they had to be.     Also the local dealers did not have any "rare" items that were that new.    The two big dealers had older inventory, but the prices did not seem to be any different on not so common itemx.    A boxcar was a boxcar to them.

RoyBoy posted:

Allan Miller posted:

necrails posted:

 I suspect both would have been considered rolling stock.  I don't think "rare" entered into the narrative until much later on.

I would share that impression as well. Back around 1960, virtually nobody was serious about collecting these toy trains. They bought them to play with or for their kids to play with, but nobody really cared much about variations, production errors, scarcity, or any of that stuff.

I agree with all that, and would like to suggest that not many people even knew what a rare version was until the books started coming out.

The Greenberg's books and price guides tended to level the field, as everyone became aware of rare versions and wanted to know if their toy was a rare version or not.

I don't think we can blame or credit Bruce Greenberg for the rise in prices.  In the early 70's while he was still a Political Science Major at Michigan we would hunt for trains.  He was prewar and I was postwar.  For the most part you were buying toys someone no longer wanted.   At the TCA meets prices were rising on postwar diesels, boxcars and striped aluminum cars.  The exception was the AA Santa Fe.  Those you would buy for $25, strip and repaint.  Things like the 44 Ton diesel, the small Alcos and any steam engine below a 635 were considered junk.  

RoyBoy posted:

The Greenberg's books and price guides tended to level the field, as everyone became aware of rare versions and wanted to know if their toy was a rare version or not.

Had it not been for the various publications produced by Bruce Greenberg and Tom McComas, it's doubtful the collecting segment of the hobby would ever have experienced the boom times experienced in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, in particular. Spreading the word about what was made and a product's relative availability, etc., certainly fueled the collecting fever. I remember those days in the late 80s and through the 90s when the York Meet was so jam-packed you could hardly find a place to park unless you arrived very early in the morning.

Everything is about numbers.  I joined the TCA in 1970.  My number is 70-3068.  Not that many people spread across the country chasing trains.  I just looked on the TCA site and picked off some numbers every ten years after I joined:  1980-15,000    1990-30,000   2000-50,000

This is either the good news or the bad news depending on your perspective.  There are a lot more people chasing a finite number of trains that have already been produced.  Skipping the discussion on whether or not Lionel is the Holy Grail of collecting, the product they were producing in the 1970 - 1985 is not the high point of their production history.  Williams came in to play by the mid 70's with modern trains and helped fill the void for new and different product.  Weaver and MTH added product.  New and different product in both cases. 

If the primary collector interest is both prewar and postwar Lionel product then simple math says prices are going through the roof.  The guys that want to operate have it pretty good because there are multiple producers with a wide variety of product.  What does all this mean?  I have no clue except that I still buy all the trains I can afford.

Back then, before my time btw, I would think they were just normal model trains for that era in that scale, new or used.  The "collectability" factor didn't come into play until much later on.  And this factor can be highly variable depending where you are in the USA, where the said item is for sale and so forth.  Back then, it was just a used model looking for a new home and owner to enjoy it.  Be it your son/daughter, a friend or for yourself.   Today is much similar, if we keep the age of the "used" item the same(just a few years out of production).  Back to 1960 and those two 6464 series box cars.   Depending on said hobby shops location, one or the other road name might command a bit more $$ over the other just due to the popularity of that road name.  Where as in another location, that road name might be a dud and sell for much less than at the other location.  That is also somewhat true in todays market(new and used).  But for arguments sake we say that both road names are desirable, most likely the asking price would be the same if all other factors are the same in relation to box/no box and condition of the model.  Back in 1960, the word "collectability" had yet to be a factor in toy trains and was that way for another couple decades from the prices I have heard of the model selling for well into the 1970's and almost into the early 1980's   Without the wonders of the internet and magazines of todays world, the buyer in 1960 would have no idea how rare or not rare a certain model really was.  Maybe he or she would have said that X freight car ect was harder to find than Y freight car ect. And we haven't even factored in the holiday buying rush that was much much greater in the toy train world back then.   

Fascinating thread.

Dealers charging a premium based on rarity hinged on dealers knowing an item is rare and buyers being willing to pay a premium for a rare item. As others have noted, it is unlikely either condition would have been met in 1960.  Kids and parents bought specific Lionel items because they liked them.  In areas without large hobby shops, you bought what was available, and many of us never even saw a lot of the things featured in the Lionel catalogs.  Most of us (and your parents, too) had enough trouble finding the money for the trains we wanted without any premium. A box car was a box car, although some of us did have favorite road names or color schemes, but it was all based on personal taste, not rarity. 

In 1960, except for coin collectors and stamp collectors, I'm not sure we had many people who collected any items in the obsessive sense of "I've-gotta-have-one-of-everything." That seemed to come a decade or so later, and wasn't limited to Lionel trains.

IMO, the big price jump in P/W trains started about in the late 1970's and by the 1990's it started going the other way. The buyers were those in the baby boom generation who grew up with model trains and started buying the items that they always wanted as a kid.  With the high number of model trains being produced since then much with new tech features, the selection has broadened. This has all but collapsed the P/W collector market. The classic car and antiques market has also experienced a downward spiral. In general, the demographic of those interested in hobbies is shrinking. Millennials have little interest in hobbies.