Aside from USRA brass steam locomotives, and Fine Scale Miniature model kits, which other formerly highly-collected and highly-prices items are coming down in price?
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I think I have everything I need for my layout now, so I probably will not be participating much in future price drops.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I loaned out my F&SM videos and never got them back (they were VHS and I don't have a player anyway). My memory is not of everything being dilapitated. He had some and maybe overdid it in places but certainly not all his structures were like that. He also had a tendency to overdetail with clutter and junk but that's modeler's license. On the whole I have always been impressed and inspired by his work and have tried to do similar things on my layout on a smaller scale. The few FSM kits I built have been outstanding and the modeler has the option of making them as detailed and weathered as he chooses. The right amount of weathering is whatever looks right to the modeler's eye.
I just chalk it up to creative license.
To best understand what I feel is overdone about the F&SM, just watch a video or two of Howard Zane's Piermont Division layout.
Howard's use of color and texture is similar to George, but with more defined colors.
Howard's building are weathered, some heavily, but few are in "disrepair". On the F&SM every third roof you see looks like it leaks...........
Howard's weathering is not uniform on all structures, making some buildings look clearly older, while others look newer.
Another example of excellent scenrey/structures is the Severna Park Model Railroad Club, published in MR a number of times. Photos of that layout can be seen on Facebook and one video on Youtube.
The differences are subtle, but there is a difference that makes these other layouts more realistic and believable.
Sheldon
Visit the Tenderloin in San Francisco, you will find what you seek and it looks 50% better than it did 10 years ago and it is nowhere near a railroad. I used to walk the rails to school as a kid, and it was bad and we were nowhere near the city.
So, out of curiosity, I had to check out this tenderloin district. Google images.
Yep, every city has it's tenderloin, or two. I won't get into Milwaukee's "tenderloins", too far off topic.
That's why I've always been a country boy, cities and me, don't agree.
Mike.
My You Tube
Hey and condos there cost $750,000.00 now. People pay $700 a month for a small room with no window (I know it is illegal).
This might or might not be OT - I'll let you decide - but at this weekend's Titletown Train Show in Green Bay WI I noticed an interesting phenomenon: a few vendors had HO plastic structure kits at very reasonable prices (the Walthers Ranch Tract House $10, the Walthers Cape Cod house $10, Walthers Four Unit Apartment House $10, the Atlas Kim's Classic American Home kit $19.75, and I probably could have bargained that one down a bit) and other than the ones I bought, the same kits were sitting at those prices when the show closed Sunday pm as I saw being sold when the show opened Saturday am.
BUT many many vendors were offering assembled structures for what struck me as very high prices, and some of those structure kits had been butchered with globs of cement. Really mediocre work. And people were buying, seemingly without regard to price or quality of construction, or the availability of the same structure as a kit for less money (or even the availability of the same structure assembled by someone else at the show for less money). In the past I have seen poorly-done assembled kits being sold for less than the kit because they usually represent an estate sale situation. Not this weekend.
OK I know (and we have much-discussed, including the OP who started this thread) that more and more people want RTR and pre built, and I accept that fact, but still, these were all plastic kits of fairly recent vintage, not hard to build, good quality. Old kits were being sold cheaply as well, including some Life-Like, IHC, Tyco, and Con Cor kits that have a certain "cult" following among kit bashers and hence are desired (or have been in recent years) often all out of proportion to their intrinsic merits. And they too seemed to be just sitting there.
I offer this up to suggest that maybe the market crash in FSM kit prices has less to do with the difficulty level, the presence of wood, the era, and a change in regard for George Sellios's style of modeling, and more to do with the simple fact that they are kits. Period.
At least for now it seems to be a good time to be a kit builder and kit basher. Kit seller? Maybe not so good.
Dave Nelson
PS Can't resist mentioning: bought an Accurail TTCX 89' TOFC flatcar kit for $1 (it was marked $2 but the show was ready to close). Reason why it was so cheap? The Accu-mate couplers (which I discard anyway) and one truck were missing.
dknelsonBUT many many vendors were offering assembled structures for what struck me as very high prices, and some of those structure kits had been butchered with globs of cement. Really mediocre work.
People seem to be willing to shell out $50-100 for those Menards "Plasticville" buildings, too! Throw about 25¢ worth of blinking/flashing LEDs on them and they fly off the shelves.
Here's a "Power Plant" built in a car wash or Jiffy-Lube?
https://www.menards.com/main/home-decor/menards-collectibles/train-stuff-from-menards/train-stuff/ho-scale-menards-reg-power-light/2795004/p-1447438921743.htm
I'll pass, thank you. Meanwhile, I have been getting new-old stock kits, both structures and rolling stock, as you point out, at pennies on the dollar.
Diff'rent strokes...
Ed
I noticed the Melards craze too, good for them.
gmpullmanPeople seem to be willing to shell out $50-100 for those Menards "Plasticville" buildings, too! Throw about 25¢ worth of blinking/flashing LEDs on them and they fly off the shelves.
Ed,This building looks fimliar but,I can't place it.
https://www.menards.com/main/home-decor/menards-collectibles/train-stuff-from-menards/train-stuff/home-decor/menards-collectibles/train-stuff-from-menards/train-stuff/ho-scale-vetter-sash-door/2795018/p-1506580368257-c-13318.htm?tid=-2402696447629443947&ipos=1
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"