I bought my ZW at a antique shop. The owner had it marked at $325. I told him that a reconditioned ZW might bring that kind of money but the one he had needed work. The cord was shot, one of the handles didnt move well,etc. I offered him $200, and he took it. A new cord and a little cleaning and it worked great. That was ten yrs. ago and now it could use some new rollers. You never know. I think the guy figured heres an easy $200 on something that he paid very little for.
But yes I have seen some crazy prices at antique shops for trains that are really junk.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
I am not against antique shops, some times you can get a good deal there, just some of thier prices are too high.
Have gotten better deals at yard sales. At one yard sale I bought an H.O. race car set for $20.00 and sold it two weeks later on ebay for $210.00. You need to know what something is worth and is there a market for it.
Lee F.
Well, I have had a great deal of experience with antique stores and it seems that there is a great variety in the prices these places charge.
Location can sometimes play a part: emphasis on "sometimes". Antique dealers in places that are frequented by lots of tourists are more likely to have higher prices, just as with any other kind of retailer in such a place. A number of years ago, when I was just getting started in O gauge, I bought a boxed Marx set for $70 at an antique dealer here in Regina, Saskatchewan. When I did, he said, "That's good price on a set like that. Of course, in New York, you could get $200, but you could never get that kind of money out here." That statement may sound logical, but, I have encountered other dealers in the city and even in small little prairie towns that charge exorbitant prices.
I can name numerous places where I have seen rip-off prices. Take the store that had sloppily repainted HO cars, many with parts missing, for $20 each which sat for years and years. Then, there's the place with a badly melted Lionel 1060 and tender with rusty O27 track for $100. I can name other examples, but why bother? I think we've all encountered simmilar rip-offs.
Don't dismiss antique dealers as a whole, though. I've found great deals at quite a few. Once when visiting Winnipeg, I went to an antique store that had three Marx sets: a B&O diesel set with 3/16" cars with large trucks (just the train, no track) for only $50, a boxed 7-inch SP diesel set for $95 and a 4-wheel plastic set with a 490 steamer (no box) for $65. Naturally, I didn't have to think twice about the B&O set! The other two trains were reasonably priced, but I had almost everything in both of them. The dealer wondered if I would be interested in buying them as well. I told him that I wasn't sure as they weren't anything I really needed. He then said, "Give me another 80 bucks, you can take 'em both!" I certainly couldn't pass that up! While talking with him, he mentioned having a boxed prewar American Flyer set that he sold a couple months ago for $200, a price he admitted was "probably a bit low". I have a lot of other stories of great buys from antique stores as well.
Sometimes, though, there is even variation at the same store. One dealer I was at wanted $90 for a box of wrecked cheap HO, $275 for an extremely common Marx set and $4000 (yes, four thousand!) for an unused set of modern Lionel Postwar Celebration Series Warbonnet F3's. However, he also had a boxed postwar Lionel set with a 202 UP Alco in very nice shape for only $125 (I already had this set boxed, so I passed) and some nice Marx 3/16" cars for only $10 each, which I did buy. Where is the logic?
By the way, all the prices I have quoted in this post are in Canadian dollars.
I make it a point to visit or phone every antique dealer I can when travelling. There are a lot who want far too much money, and two thirds of them don't have any trains at all, but the ones with good prices make it all worthwhile in the end.
It seems, though, that these places come and go like the wind. I've lost count of how many antique dealers have opened up and/or closed down in the time I've been collecting trains.
I've only had one reasonalbly good train purchase at an antique store. It was an unremarkable, play-worn Marx 6" tin NYC caboose that I paid $5 for - about what you'd pay on Ebay. Unfortunately, it was the only train item in the store.
Doug,
That guy you describe sounds like he can sell freezers to Eskimos, just trying to say he is a real slick salesman if he can get $600.00 for some beat-up trains.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
dennyblock wrote:Just got back from Hampton Beach NH, I dragged the wife through 3 train shops while there[about 1 hr per store] so I let her take me antiquing. In one place I saw a scout engine with a cracked shell marked very rare, $350.00! In another place a box of rusty O-27 track for $125.00 I did pass on both The sad part is someone who dosen't know better may buy them.
The other sad part to this story is that it happens in all parts of the country. There is an antique shop in Jupiter FL and they have some older Lionel trains for sale but at twice the Greenberg Price Guide prices, I have seen these trains for sale for over a year, some people just look at these trains because of the prices. The antique shop is near My Rose Hobbies in Jupiter FL on Indiantown Road.
The other "sad part" is all the people who see these, and assume the rusty junk in their attic is worth these big bucks. I go to many flea markets and antique shops, and have been AMAZED at the prices being asked for this rusty/broken stuff. Joe
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