Am I this far behind on prices or am I just nuts LOL

[Anonymous]

This is certainly not a new phenomenon concerning overpricing Lionel as it has been going on for years, especially among the so called “Antique Dealers”. Back in the early 1970s, when there were still tons of good collectible Lionel postwar items around I would occasionally get a call from someone who had an old Lionel Scout set, or when someone brought a Scout set in to sell to me. Sometimes the owners would get indignant if I told them that I wasn’t interested in buying the set at any price. I would simply say: “Yes your set is Lionel, but not everything Lionel made is sought after by collectors. Your set’s sentimental value is greater than it’s retail value and if I were you I would keep it or pass it on to someone in your family.”

BillFromWayne
www.modeltrainjournal.com

[philo426]

I see some of the prices on E-bay and just laugh.Some of these boneheads do not have a clue!I also do not like how the word "Rare" is abused on e-bay!Man.There must be plenty of fools to support such greedy and sometimes clueless sellers!

[Anonymous]

I've experienced this, too. One antique shop near me has a banged-up Marx set consisting of a 591 engine (the tin ones with the plastic fronts), a 6-inch tender and caboose that they want $65 (Canadian) for. They also have a box containing a 1960's Lionel 2-4-2, tender and O27 track. The engine body and motor are seperated and one side of the engine is melted, preventing it from fitting onto the motor. The tender also has one side melted and the track is rusty. Asking price: $100. These have been sitting there for years now.

An antique mall I visited this summer in Stillwater, MN, where Big_Boy_4005 lives, has a common Lionel O27 set on a big 50% off sale. Only $2499, regular $4999!

One good experience I've had with overpriced trains occured at an antique mall. There was a box with two cheap 1960's Lionel O27 sets, all very common and not in great shape. The only thing I wanted from it was a 6473 horse transport cattle car in mint condition with the horses' heads all intact. It had been sitting their for a couple of years and I aksed I guy I know who works there if I could buy that car seperately. He let me have it at a fair price. The rest of the stuff is still there and has the same asking price that it did before I bought the horse car!

mersenne6, Yes I saw that engine, too. The guy wanted $600 for it!

Dave, Don't give anybody ideas! Somebody will actually do it!

[FJ and G]

Not long ago, there was a guy with a popular website who posted a picture of a bunny. He said that unless donations of the amount of XXX$$$$ came in, he would execute the bunny and post the pictures. The article appeared, I believe in the Washington Post and on NPR.

I don't know what became of the matter, but it would not surprise me if someone had a Lionel Postwar Piece, threatening to flatten it with a sledgehammer, unless XXX$$$ were received for the item on eBay or paid direct.

[mersenne6]

Actually, these seem pretty much par for the course. The first guy has exactly 1 piece of feedback and the second guy sells clothes which would indicate, as others have noted, that what we have here are two people who heard that "toy trains are valuable" and chose their price point accordingly.

My favorite along these lines occured a few months back over in the Marx section. There was some guy offering only a battered Marx #666 engine with the lead in to the effect that the piece was a rare engine of the devil. He had some insane starting bid and he got the same number of bidders as these two will probably get - 0 .

[AlanRail]

AND for another thing

there are those who will spend the money on set thinking they got a real deal!

[brianel027]

Nope, you aren't nuts. This is the unfortunate aspect of the hobby where folks see the name "Lionel" and instantly assume it's worth its weight in gold. But this aspect is true of nearly any hobby or kind of item that is viewed as being collectible. And just as you have buyers who are uninformed, there are sellers who are also uninformed.

Of course, eBay is also an auction. As a general rule, I've noticed items that have high starting bids tend to not get as much action as items with more reasonable starting bids. But most folks have no idea what is truly potentially worth some money and what isn't. I once saw a box of Scout engines that were terrible shape... poor at best. There were 4 locos, not all with tenders either and the guy wanted $1,000.00. They wouldn't have been worth that even if they had been mint in their boxes. In some of these cases it may be more a matter that the seller desparately needs to raise a large sum of money and starts thinking what they have to sell that could possibly bring in that much money. And then they remember that Lionel train set tucked away in the attic. And didn't they hear something on the news about some Lionel train being worth a ton of money? So they assume the trains they have are also worth a ton of money.

I'm more forgiving of the novices and uninformed. It really bugs me when I'm at a train show and see some guy who should know better (and probably does) selling a used train set in a Pepsi soda box with a sign that says the set is mint and a price to match. Or has tags on common train cars that say "rare" in big letters. Guess these folks are hoping to sell their trains to the kind of person WC Fields once reffered to as "There's one born every day!"

[pbjwilson]

Goofy is what that is.

I knew a guy who had a 2026 steamer. It was in average "good" condition. He went to a hobby shop to buy some track for an under the x-mas tree layout. He later informed me that his engine was worth $400 because he saw one "just like it "at the hobby shop. After a little prodding I found out what he saw was a 736 Berk in excellent condition. I informed him that his engine was a different model from the one at the hobby shop, to which he replied, "oh, you mean Lionel made more than one kind of engine?"

To the uninformed a Lionel train has got to be worth alot of money because they see or read about someone selling their trains for big bucks.

With old or antique things in general I call this the "Antiques Roadshow Effect". It refers to people who say "I saw one just like it on the Antiques Roadshow" and think whatever item they own is worth just as much as the one they saw on the show.

[rtraincollector]

Have you notice lately thats theres more and more train sets on ebay that because there Lionel people think there worth a fortune and there basicly your bottom of line to mid range sets and there not even post war sets lol

For example http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19150&item=5974565191&rd=1

Or even if they are postwar there still have a price of a rare set
example again
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19150&item=5974565191&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19150&item=5973900420&rd=1