[34C]

Never yet missed out on anything this time around: in my youth I never did obtain a Trix Pepp A2 which was produced in small and erratically timed quantity. However, when I started purchasing Bach's new blue riband range from 1999, the approach of my youth - ambling into a couple of model shops a week or three after the items arrived - quickly proved flawed: the new good RTR OO had evaporated from the shelves, like the dew off the grass.

However the 'firstest with the latest' tendencies of many RTR OO purchasers came to the rescue back then; the items I had missed reappeared s/h very quickly in good condition for significantly less than new price. I will always be happy to wait for what was then typically two thirds of original retail price; and happily this has continued to present day. Just wait, and sooner or later the price is right. My thanks to those 'got to have the latest' folk that supply the discount I want...

 

[34C]

...Where I depart from Adrian regards multiple locos of a single type, on small production locos then yes but on Black 5, 9F, B1 etc where there were hundreds that lasted nearly to the end then I have 4 or more ...

This is very much dependent on what the purchaser wants from their model railway.

I too have at least 3 examples of all 14 steam locomotive classes that were the core traction in the last half dozen years of BR steam in the KX inner suburban area. That's because you could easily see two locos of any of these classes at any time, and also enables a range of within class variations and clean to filthy appearance to be operating. (The most numerous are the N2 and N7 tank locos, because these could easily be seen half a dozen of each at my main location which had a total of over 20 of only these two classes allocated. It wouldn't look right if the inadequate shed space wasn't rammed with 0-6-2T's outside of the morning and evening rush periods...

The other 30-some steam loco classes that did appear in the area are typically represented by single models, unless I find them really irresistibly attractive, when I might stretch to a couple.