The Eighth Edition was published in 2001 and is the most recent.
I have an Eighth Edition of the Greenberg Marx Guide. It is the newest I can find. Are there any more recent?
I tried posting on my other computer which is brand new and as you can see above, it left the message out.
Last week I found a real winner a Marx 5545 CB&Q flat car with the Erie girder, it was in nearly excellent condition. I paid $6 and after cleaning the trucks with WD-40 it appeared new! My book says $50 in value.
I agree. I use the price guide strickly for the pics and dates. I pay what I can and am willing to.
Dave
It's a TOY, A child's PLAYTHING!!! (Woody from Toy Story)
If it happens and its the same small format as the previous AF & Lionel guides, I'm glad I have my old one simply because of the great photos in it, its also a larger format book so is easier to handle while reading, but the smaller updated pocket sized guide would still be appreciated for tripss to train shows and antique stores.
Have fun with your trains
There is also a post about this in the Marx Yahoo group. It says that Kalmbach will not publish a 2012 American Flyer Guide, and instead will publish a 2012 Marx guide. The Flyer Guide will return in 2013.
I'm not aware that we are publishing this, so lets not get too far ahead of ourselves on predicting the contents.
Bob Keller
Haha their doing this after I finally picked up a 2nd ed copy of the old Greenburg guide. I already have about as much as I can use save a few special cars but I will be very curious to see how the book value price varies from the street value price on Ebay or at shows.
Having a Marx price guide helps me date an item. as for $$ I know what I am willing to pay and that works for me.
"IT's GOOD TO BE THE KING",by Mel Brooks
Charter Member- Tardis Train Crew (TTC) - Detroit3railers- Detroit Historical society Glancy Modular trains- Charter member BTTS
I have always thought that as a concept, price guides were more of an issue than a helpful factor, as they tend to be static and cannot flex as quickly as the market does. It is like having a price guide for stocks. Another issue particularly with Marx is the absolutely enormous range of variations. Another comes from my own experience, what one is willing to pay depends on what gaps are present in your own collection in relation to what is available, which goes up and down. Feast or famine. Another is ( which I am sure others have experienced), is a person with little knowledge specific to Marx, will call nearly everything "rare" when often it is applied to the most common items and then you will find a rare item that is under priced. It's a dynamic rather than any semi-fixed value when it comes to Marx.
Another issue is the seller who is more common. If you say, well the price guide says such and such..they say "try to find it cheaper"..I go by watching the market directly, from several sources and not a paperback guide. The Marxtin CD is still the best affordable guide to variation..and rarity, not cost per say. It's not the cost, it's the knowledge of the history of Marx who very arguably, was the largest of all toy manufacturers.
Six inch tin alone divided between Joy Line and Marx labels and several coupler variations, ( hook and loop, knuckle and tab), the frame variations, coupler mounting variations ,tank car end cap variations, etc is formidable. One person working on this..I pity that person.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
At the April York meet I heard about an upcoming new Marx price guide while buying some Marx parts. There were were two other Marx collectors discussing this, and they told me that Kalmbach is on a short deadline and is only using a single person to review the prices. Personally I feel this is a disservice to the Marx community. No one knows it all, and it would be much better to have multiple reviewers that specialize in different areas (6 inch tin, 3/16, plastic, etc). I attended the Marx 'Show and Tell' at York, and the wealth of knowledge at that is event was truly amazing. I imagine if Kalmbach polled a cross section of the people in that room, the qualify and accuracy of the price guide would be much higher. David Schwartz
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