Went to the Franklin, Indiana train show today(its also going on tomorrow as well), 3 buildings with trains to buy and layouts to see, and a 4th small building with just a layout. Lots of every scale from Z to G, some nice brass at keen prices and lots of other stuff. I picked up an old Suydam North Shore carbody(no chassis/trucks/motor) for $20 and a nice old Soho CA&E Funeral car #109 for $125 that has never been run from the looks of it. Box is a bit tattered but its there. Ran my live steam G scale train on our groups portable layout and enjoyed a nice day and a really nice show! Hats off to the NMRA CID division for another great show and first one since the Covid lockdowns. Mike the Aspie
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Hey, these are great finds Mike. I can't wait for the shows to start-up again in our neck of the woods...
I was talking with another MR about trainshows. He says a lot of dealers are skipping them in favor of selling on ebay etc.
Thoughts anyone?
Joe Staten Island West
joe323Thoughts anyone?
I've attended two of the Cleveland, Ohio area shows for a good part of twenty years now. One is in the spring on the east side of town and the other on the west side in late fall.
I've noticed many of the same dealers, year after year, toting around the same storage bins and loading up the same, shelf-worn boxes of you-name-it and corrugated trays of "heritage" model locomotives, cars, structures and the like.
A sad reality is these folks aren't getting any younger and I've heard many lament, "I don't know how much longer I can keep traveling to these shows". Add to that the increased costs of motels, vehicle expenses and throw in the "new normal" for manufacturers to make a limited supply of "pre-ordered" models with zero inventory and you can see where the trend is headed.
One couple that was a regular at these shows used to fill five or six tables with nothing but Preiser and Noch figures. Over the years I saw his inventory get depleted and he obviously wasn't buying any new stock to sell. P-P (pre pandemic) I saw that he was down to one table, and it was sparsely covered, his wife wasn't with him for any number of reasons and there certainly wasn't much traffic around his remaining display. It occurred to me that about a third of the dealers fell into this category, recently. I saw a similar scenario at many other vendor's tables.
I believe, too, that a lot of the vendors have their own "social network" as they go around to the various venues on the show circuit. Sort of like a band of traveling minstrels. They enjoy the camaraderie and fellowship. That part of the attraction for them is probably dying off, too.
There were still several vendors with larger displays and they were selling current stock. They were pretty well invested in the show circuit with lighted displays, computerized payment terminals and such. Everything they were offering was at or above usual "street price".
Maybe things will come back a bit but I don't hold much optimism for the "mom & pop" vendors who have now edged into their autumn-years and their means of ofsetting travel expenses by selling their vintage stock is quickly dwindling.
There are exceptions, of course, this has simply been my observation during the P-P recent shows.
Regards, Ed
Central Indiana had about 6 or seven locally sponsored train shows each year before the pandemic. That's not including the national train shows like Worlds Greatest Hobby appearing once in a while. I think the Central Indiana Division of the NMRA had two and the Naptown MR club had two. I don't recall who sponsored the others.
It was fun from October to March in the Indy area. I hope that they return in full force.
- Douglas
I find lots of dealers moving away from ebay as they have jacked the fees up to horrid levels, along with some new rules on how you get paid and needing an account that ebay has access to has really put the kabosh on smaller guys/dealers. Ebay has become geared to places like Trainz and other larger dealers and less for the guy paring down his collection or small local train show dealers. More are using FB marketplace and a few other online places to sell it seems these days. From what I have heard from dealers I know at the local shows, they were really glad to see shows restart as many do not have a FB account or were having to have someone that does list stuff for them. Many are turned "off" by the fees and new rules on evilbay. One LHS in my area handles mostly estate items including brass. It will be interesting to see how things shake out as the dust of this Covid mess settles down. Several smaller shows I went to pre covid where on their death bed for attendance and were becoming not worth the gas and time to travel to them. Even the big monthly show at the Dupage Co fair grounds in Wheaton IL was becoming a "shell" of what it once was. A few years ago it was worth the 4.5 hour drive to attend, then go railfan afterwards. I went a few months before everything went on lockdown and was very disappointed. I am hoping the long lockdown, for better or worse, rekindled the hobby for many and leads to a resurgance in good quality shows and modeling again. Mike