Advice please?

Collecting can be a bit of a trap , Sometimes you can buy a Locomotive cheap because no one else is looking for it at that time and that is great.

There are so many variations in earlier models (50's especially) I saw one HO Lithographed tinplate coach (must have been at the change over point in the production line ) in CIWL colours with DSG lettering , 1952 production in very poor condition sell for over US$400 or a little HO O&K Diesel loco body shell only in yellow sell for US$1200

If you are lucky enough to find a rare item , collectors will pay big $

I wanted to have all the rolling stock in a particular catalog (1962 Fleischmann) , because it was the first catalog I had , I managed to collect about 90% of it , but along the way I bought so many other items and duplicated items it got ridiculous
so most of it I have since sold and kept some of the rare items and my personal favourites .

Regards

Zmil

I have a friend who has collected every item in the 1952 (his year of birth) Marklin catalogue.

It is a stunning collection. There is a specific coach that was made for 1 year only that took him a long time to find, and he needed 3 versions of it (2 for starter sets). He bought and sold a lot of items for this colection so that he has ended up with mint in box items.

Best thing about the collection is that he does display it, and some of the things are really surprising, original Marklin wire in the original paper packets!

John

Hi Mike,

There's little I can add to the good advice from John & Zmil, however anything marketed as a "collectable" does not seem to be worth as much as run of the mill items that were produced in small numbers for whatever reason (maybe not good sellers ?)

Further to that last point, it is interesting that things marketed as 'collectable' usually end up being anything-but (and this does not just apply to model trains). I have a copy of the british model train price guide and some of the figures are prettty eye-watering - several thousand pounds for some rare Wrenns for example. I think spending more on a model locomotive than I would spend on a car is lunacy but then again each to their own. The problem with collecting is that you are in danger of putting lots of nice goodies in a cabinet and never using them.

Off piste a bit but I do have one of the Merlin's and must say its a lovely model, of course I lost any future value as I installed smoke and sound, that darned speedo drive is a pain.

A nice model indeed and worthy of collection for what it is.

CFT