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Why buy brass? Beautiful HAND-MADE models that are accurate (although degree of accuracy varies) to very specific prototypes. And as others have said, while I would not go so far as to call brass an investment, my brass collection if sold today would fetch at least what I paid for it INCLUDING inflation: something I cannot say for any other part of my HO collection. If you model a prototype, especially steam-era, brass cabeese are still affordable unpainted (and are easy to paint) and add the proverbial finishing touch to any train, that no plastic caboose can come close to (there are some craftsman kits that are nearly as good if you are sufficiently skilled, but none are as accurate as good brass). Having said that, the only brass that I've bought in the past five years were a pair of Sunset M-class N&W steamers. Why? My reasons in order of priority: (a) Even though I know that over the long term, brass prices have risen pretty much in line with inflation, when the price of non-articulated models reached (and now generally exceed) $1,000 the sticker shock became too much for me. As prices still continue to go up, sticker shock becomes comparatively irrelevant and my ability to pay the price even if I wanted to becomes the issue. (b) There is a rapidly growing availability of very high quality plastic steam from Life-Like, Spectrum, Broadway (sorry folks, the Athearn line doesn't quite cut it) although the prototypes covered are still limited. The availability of that high quality plastic steam is driven by the coming together of several trends: cheap skilled labor in China, more affordable toolwork for plastic molds ... and the high price of brass models! Looking back, the Eighties were a magic period for those who wanted brass, and I feel fortunate that I was able to take advantage of it. Very high quality stuff was coming out of Korea and while not cheap, it was in "real" terms (i.e. general income levels versus brass price levels), the period of greatest affordability for brass. Quality plastic wouldn't have had much of a chance at that time. I have never heard a convincing explanation of why Korean brass became so much more expensive so rapidly. By the way, since the arrival of great mechanisms and great mold work in plastic diesels in the 80's, its always baffled me that the brass importers continue to be able to sell brass diesels.
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