What Happened?

[Anonymous]

I started collecting toy trains in about 1985. For years my wife had ,when she asked what I wanted for Christmas, been given the answer a Lionel Train set.
Well that year she did it! I was hooked.
We werestill raising a family, so , while I bought a lot of nice stuff, I tried to do it a little at a time. Lot's of K-line, some Lionel. A very nice Williams trainmaster. I ran it on 0-27 with 42" and 54" curves.
I really wanted one of those big Lionel steamer, but, they were a lot of money.
The last year Sears had a Christmas catalog there was a "scale" Texas and Pacific in it. I could get it and strech out paying over time. Which I did. Brown bagged for two years.
Well, our kids grew up and we were empty nesters until 1997, when we started over again.
Our little girl, when a toddler, reached on to my train table and handed me one of my nicer cabooses. So, I packed everything away until this year. She's eight and understands that my trains are delicate now.
Out they came! We had moved, so I just set up a couple of loops of fast track in the basement until I figure out exactly what I want to do. (Okay, I'm married, what I can get away with).
My wife was out on Ebay, so I thought I'd see what Lionel trains were going for, after market.
WOW! The ols Sears engine I had bought years ago was at 1/2 it's retail.
There were, just two weeks ago 6 or 7 modern era "scale" Hudsons were up for bid waaaaaaay under retail. (I bought a real nice 1987, 785 for about 1/3 of it's original price, runs nicely!)
What happened since 1998? Did everyone holding a big Lionel steam engine bail at once and flood the market? Were they over priced in the first place? did innovation of the last six years make these items undesireable?
I didn't see this kind of drop in rolling stock, transformers,track, etal.
It's just I've been asleep for a while[:)]

[mersenne6]

What happened was an unbelievable influx of better, more reliable, trains from a variety of manufacturers. The competition drastically ramped up "audience expectations" with respect to detail, variety, an dependability. As a result, the infinite remakes from the late 70's through late 80's were eclipsed. This isn't to say trains from that period are junk - there are plenty of good runners from that period it's just that the newer trains offer everything the older trains did and more. As I'm sure many will tell you, the current crop of trains for the three rail market is beyond the wildest dreams of those of us who were purchasing and running trains during that period

[Anonymous]

Howdy,

The overproduction is great and the values go down.

[underworld]

The aforementioned reasons.....and the crap economy. I recently bought a prewar Marklin gauge 1 loco and tender....for under $400. It is a pretty rare item. The last one I saw sold at auction in the UK for 11,000 Pounds and it was the more common version. Take advantage of the down collectors market and BUY! Not all of the market is down and some of it is on the way back up but for right now it is definately a buyers market.

underworld

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