Walthers Large Scale Reference Book (Catalog)

[Rene Schweitzer]

Bluebonnet,
I don't believe Walthers mails out large scale catalogs (unless they're small flyers) to those who've purchased large-scale items from them. The catalogs cost around $20, so you'd have to buy one. As for the company's status, I honestly don't know. You can call them at 1-800-4-TRAINS if you'd like to ask them questions.

[Anonymous]

I must have missed there meeting about sending small scale magazines to large scale people.
Now I have another question, is the company personal owned, stock, etc?

[Rene Schweitzer]

To find the answer to your question, I emailed Sermeng Tay-Konkel at Walthers. She said that yes, they will be releasing a Big Trains Reference catalog in the spring of 2005. She suggests checking their web site (www.walthers.com) in early 2005 for more information.

[Anonymous]

I have bought few large scale items from them now I get small scale catalogs. [:(]

[cacole]

I think the problem might be that so few new G-scale products are released each year, Walthers may not consider it worth the time and expense of publishing a new catalog annually. I purchase their HO-scale catalog only every-other year because even in HO, there isn't enough new stuff to justify the cost of the catalog. Besides, Model Railroader and other magazines cover new items many months before you would find out about them through a Walters catalog. As far as their pricing is concerned, I see the same thing in MR and other magazines -- the prices listed by the manufacturers are "MSRP" or "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price." As you have mentioned, the MSRP is, in some cases, nearly double what the item is actually selling for. I use a Walthers catalog only as a reference to get a stock number, and then use Google to find the best price. Luckily, I have found an Ace Hardware in Tucson that sells G-scale items cheaper than the mail order prices, even after considering the sales tax rate versus shipping and handling charges. As far as determining the scale of an item is concerned, about the only way I have found to do this is by going to the manufacturer's Web site and hope they mention it there. Too many manufacturers don't even mark their boxes. I think the best company for indicating scale is AMS, particularly since I prefer 1:20.3 scale rolling stock to go with my Bachmann narrow-gauge Consolidation.

[Anonymous]

I was just looking at the Walthers website and I noticed that they're announcing their 2005 Ref Books and they only show HO and N/Z scales. I wonder if they dropped the Large Scale book?

The 2 problems that I had with it were that for most of the products, they just generically listed it as G-Scale with no indication whether it was 1:29, 1:24, etc. I'm sure for you vets, you might know that by the mfgr, but for us new guys, that wasn't so helpful. They were at a hobby show in my area recently and I gave them that feedback.

The other problem, and this exists in all of their books is the price that they publish in the book. Its usually about 190% of what you see advertised in magazines for products. i.e. the Bachman Porter was around $140 in the Walther's catalog and goes for about $79. The 44 tonner showed around $300 where you can buy it for $170. My guess is that they inflate the price to give dealers more mark-up lattitude. i.e. when you buy it at the dealer for about 60% of the price in Walthers, you're supposed to say, "Gee, what a great bargain my hobby shop is giving me." I think it has the opposite effect. I've looked at items in Walthers and disregarded the hope of buying them because the price was soooooooo far out of my league that it was never going to work.

Just my early morning ramblings,
Dbl Stack