Of course Ebay is an obvious choice but their fee's have gone up quite a bit in the past 10 years. I used them for a while 12-14 years ago and then started advertising stuff on my RR yahoo groups and on the HOSwap and HOExchange Yahoo Groups (both HO buy/sell sites). I advertise at decent discount prices and with some patience I usually sell most of what I advertise, although sometimes it has taken 6 to 8 months before some items sold. Best thing is no-fees. You may get more on Feabay for some items but others you may end up with less after the fees. Your call.
I also buy items through that site when things come up that I need, also been a good experience. I just picked up a pair of hard to find HO Athearn Exterior Post trailers for $24 (Penn Central and Erie) and those usually would go in feebay for way more. Sure, I paid appoximately MSRP for them, but it worked out to $12 each and all the new runs of these trailers are now listing at $24.98 each! So hey, I'm happy! One of the ones in that pair is due out next May from Athearn at that new price. One less trailer I'll have to pay high price for.
Anyway, Feebay, Yahoo Groups, some forums also have classified - (TrainOrders does and I've sold a few items there too) and shows of course. I've sold a few items at Timonium but they take a 20% cut so - meh, I've just gone back to the Yahoo Groups and be patient and over time, I still sell unneeded items.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
EBay is always my first choice. If you already have a website that can be a good place too but you might have to advertise a little bit online for people to find it. And trainshows are good but they don't come around that often. I think you can sell some stuff on Amazon too but I haven't really checked it out yet.
Alot depends on what you have, if its brass and good quality HO or O scale trains, then a facebook group or ebay is the way to go, as well as a table or two at a local train show. If selling to a dealer in a lump sum, expect only 40 percent or so of retail. DO NOT go by active ebay auctions for current value. Look at completed auctions or sold items. That is your true street price for any given item. There are plenty of items on ebay that have been there for months or even well over a year with the instant buy listings instead of an auction and the prices are "wishing" type prices and not a true value of an item in todays market. If you can make up a good itemized list with prices of each item that you can "cut and paste" to several facebook sale groups like HO Yard Sale or if its brass there are groups for that to You can get a better return on the investment as you will save bundles in ebay fees(which really eat into what you make on each item) I myself am always looking for older freight and passenger car kits along with older pre 1970 production brass engines.
Mike the Aspie
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Facebook has a HO group for sales, but the posts appear in response to some algorithm. It is impossible to view them sequentially. They may appear sequential, but some posts cannot be seen and if you log in and out, you may see a different subset of posts. All this means it cannot be effectively searched, so it is a poor buying platform. If it's hard to buy, it's hard to sell.
Craigslist: Maybe some are more dedicated than I but everytime I look, there are lots of 1950's tyco train sets for sale for $200. I've never seen anything I would ever want on Craigslist.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
If it is high-end stuff, Don Black or Dan Glassure are the easiest way to liquidate it. If it is just the same old run of the mill typical stuff we all have, there is a trading post group on Yahoo that some people swear by, but I have had no luck with.
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I think Bartertown is completely no-trains now.
Craigs list is an option for a fast and easy sale, but low sell price.
Do you have a local auction house? A local resale consignment store might be interested if it looks good in a display case and will get traffic into their store. Do you have a local hobby shop that does consignments?
If there is a train show in your area soon that can bring out the buyers, but you will need to price it all to sell or you will bring it back home.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Short of the terrible search function, and outside of eBay... Where else are you folks listing your classifieds?
Helping a family liquidate an estate of model railroad kits, cars, and other items.
Evil-Bay is already planned as one avenue.
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