General Discussion (Model Railroader)

Hi Red Horse,

you said that you received 300 people and 150 telephone poles as well as an assortment of other accessories beside the locomotives and cars.  Considering the prices charged for the accessories, specially people you might not have come away that bad.  Yes the rolling stock is not of very good quality but while at the local farmers market a vendor there was selling packs of 100 people at the price of 100 dollars for the pack.  Mind you these were new in the box from a well known manufacturer.  So when you add the the price of the figures onto the other items you can take the rolling stock out of the equation and you might still break even.

Frank

Red Horse wrote:

Yesterday I drove 100 miles one way to do an Indian trade with my Brother from another Tribe. After a meal and a meeting together and some 4 hours of bartering I later ended up taking home the HO scale Locomotives in the pics below. I traded about $350.00 worth of Native American instruments for these, and my question is HOW DID I DO? I'm brand spaking new to HO model Rail roading so I don't know if I did  him a good trade  or not, I hope so?

Be careful who you call brother.

Know what you're buying. While someone's junk can be someone else's treasure, often junk is  junk.

Don't judge the hobby by the stuff you got.

Think of it this way:  the other fellow received items which can be treasured for generations, and you gained a bit of wisdom.

Mark

OK rude wasnt right but Still could have been a little less tacky? Like maybe say something like they arent that great of trains and I believe in my experience that you have gotten rook and hope you can get your instruments back? just more tasteful of a way.

No.  I answered him properly.  If I used that mild responce (albeit with better grammar), then the point would have been diluted.   

David B

loathar wrote:

It sounds like you will have more fun with this than some cheap Indian instrument trinkets.. Might want to back peddle on that statement. Have you seen the pictures of the Indian crafts he makes? Some pretty good looking stuff.

I didnt mean his highly skilled craftsmanship Indian instruments....

..is that paint I just cornered myself into... I do whistle while I work....

if you got a lot of track and other stuff along with the equipment that sounds like reasonable deal, consider what you might pay for that when new. really sounds like a fair trade for no money changing hands.

and btw, my cheap indian instrument trinkets is my usual comedic sense...but you knew that already...

-dinwitty slips silently and whiskly out the door...- 

basementdweller wrote:

Steamfreak mentioned a good point, the military items seem to consistantly bring $15 - $20 per car, my son loves the Model Power military rolling stock, and I am always cringing at how much they cost.

Yeah, but I just noticed he bought those separately on eBay, so I get a for not reading all the way through.

Red Horse,

Even if it was a bad deal or trade, let it roll off your shoulders. Who knows, maybe a really great deal will fall into your lap when you least expect it. We all make some mistakes, that's a given in life.

Somewhere down the rails, you'll find great deal! Hang in there our new friend!

Just to prove a point, about 5 years ago, a friend of mine passed away as the result of an airplane accident.It hurt very much to lose him, he was great guy and a fellow model builder ( airplanes and full scale airplanes).

 Later his widow called myself and another mutually close buddy of his and mine. She asked us to look over his modelling inventory( he was  a major hobby shop distributor) in the area. We looked at his inventory ( all paid for by him, and was soon to be resold to local hobby shops)

We approximated the total value at about $6,000.00

She asked each of us to give her $300.00 apiece and load it up and get it out of her sight!!!!

But Mrs B, it's worth much more than $600.

 I DON'T CARE, JUST GET IT OUT OF HERE  so I can have the moveving company load up my household goods and move away from here, I don't have time to mess with an auction, or a garage sale! 

I am moving Tuesday, today is Saturday, and the new folks are moving in Thursday, it HAS TO GO and GO NOW!!! 

We bought everything for TEN CENTS on the DOLLAR!!! 

By the way, she owned an insurance company and was independently wealthy by herself, so she didn't mind the loss of his hobby shop stuff.

The really ironic thing about it is , 3 weeks later, a tornado hit the storage building dead center and totally destroyed it, and did not even bother anything on the house, left it totally unscathed! No broken windows, not even a scratch or a shingle loose, but the storage building was TOTALLY WASTED!!!!

And it was a nice building, fairly new, 30 feet by 60 feet all steel and aluminum 

Had that stuff still been in there, it would have been scattered across the countryside! 

TheK4Kid

Working on the Pennsy 

Well I do call this man my Brother and because he thought they were good , he was coming to a barter that we both thought was good at the time, he is by no means a pro at this HO thing either, he has an N scale lay out that fits on top of his office desk and he thinks that is great so I do not think he set out to cheat me in any way, two Natives are not going to get hung up in the "cost" of the trade but focus more on the use of such items in the barter.

he needed to expand his flute collection (I'm the guy who taught him to play the things and got him hooked on them in the first place) and I told him that I was excited about starting my HO collection and he mentioned that he had a few boxes of the stuff but didn't know a whole lot about the value, so we were both looking at our "Fun factors", and my fun quota was filled for that trade.

If it sounds like I'm defending him, I am, no one here knows the history between this man and I and no little train trade will effect that, he has brought more to our life here than any human could, he was there when I lost my Mother a short while ago and returned from a trip to be with us, he traveled 800 miles to be there for us, I could fill this forum with the things he has done for others.

the trade was an excuse for me to spend my money on gas and to see him and his wife again, so sure, if I measure the "value' of the trade than I still made out because we had a great afternoon together.

I now have a lot of stuff to put together a layout my two grand sons can enjoy and if they break the stuff, so what, it was not "collector grade" anyway.....no big deal.

I had someone make a distinction between "trains and Toys" well, if the trains can't be played with by a couple of over excited Grandsons then I'll take the toys anytime.

I'm not offended by any of the Indian remarks because some folks just don't know any better and I've been around too long to fall into that snake pit...LOL!

For the most part the folks here are nice, some may be a little rough around the edges but that's alright, some of my friends are the same way.

I will continue to hang around here because I need to learn a lot but I have no aspirations to build a million dollar layout that can't be handled by the kids, I came here to learn how to hook them up and hopefully make a layout the kids will enjoy "Hands on".

Some of the layouts here should be in museums, some are a labor of love and some should be played with, when I get to the point of wanting to pay $500.00 for a locomotive only than I'm hanging it up, this is a "hobby" too me not an investment.

And as far as the comment about Manhattan and the beads, nope, sorry, wrong tribe, my people would not have tried to sell what was not ours, we never OWNED the lands, we were just care takers of it while we were given the chance to live on it, soooooo, the tribe that took the beads (actually 200 lbs of glass beads) for Manhattan were screwing the Anglos because they sold what was not theirs and after much pressure to do so.

Well I'm off to glue a tiny head on to some poor little plastic white boy for my train set, sure I could just toss him in the trash but hey, I've got both pieces so why junk him?

I asked a question here in hopes that I didn't screw my brother over and now I'm happy because I've learned here that I had not!!!

Be well, keep building and Happy Rails!

RH:

If you're happy, then there's no problem. Essentially the flutes were a gift, but as you said, you can make more. 

But seriously, some of the responses here...well.."cheap trinkets?" "Indian giver?" Come on, folks.  I thought that kind of talk was dead, gone, and unlamented years ago.  Fun is fun, but disrespect is not fun.

Now, as for your locomotives - they are usable.  The two diesels are indeed by Tyco, but have the better of Tyco's truck drives, the MU-2, and since they are earlier models, they can be made to run well.  Clean the wheels very well, add a speck of oil to each motor bearing, and perhaps make sure the brushes are all right.  I actually like the sound of the MU-2. It doesn't sound like a real diesel, but it has a hollow drone that sounds like a demented food mixer.  These MU-2 Tycos were the "Athearn Blue Box" of their day, believe it or not, and they do run well if cleaned and tuned up.  Motor demagnetization is sometimes a problem; the notable Bud has retrofit some of these with NdFeB magnets with good effect:

www.geocities.com/budb3

The 0-4-0 is either Model Power or Lifelike.  It's basic and not really worth upgrading, but it does run.  Again, make sure the wheels are clean.  In my college days, I rebuilt the quasi-oldtime version of this unit into a 2-4-0 loosely based on an old Baldwin narrow gauge engine (scaled up, of course, to standard gauge).  The boiler was dowel wrapped in card.  I still have the tender with its hand-split wood load. :)

The 2-8-0 is, as others have said, a questionable runner, but as you have said, it does look pretty nice.  In fact, it was a good enough design that IHC designed a new drive for the body shell to come up with the 2-8-0 they sell today.  It also puffs smoke.  The best way to deal with this engine, I think, would be to make a kitbashed long-haul tender from an Athearn SW7 mech and any old tender shell you could find, and let that push the loco instead of the Powertorque drive. 

Actually, the best thing you could do for any of these locos is to clean the wheels, oil the bearings sparingly, and get a high-quality DC power pack.  A good pack will make even a trainset loco work fairly well. 

I'm glad you're staying around here.  Your outlook on the hobby is definitely unique and somewhat refreshing, as is your ability to ignore net.foolishness. :)

Red Horse,

There is no price that can be put on the relationship between you and your brother.  You stated that he came to the table with a good heart, and so did you.  It's that fact that would be my focus.

As for the trade itself.......I think you may not have done too badly.  I think the problem here may be that the perceived value in the deal was on the wrong items.  The trains themselves aren't worth a lot as far as monitary value goes.  But they do have value in that they were passed on from a close relation to you and it was done with the best intentions.  Also, if they run, get your use out of them.  If not, tinker with them and learn from them.  No harm done, right?  I mean, they can't get any more screwed up, right?  Whatever the case, you actually did OK on the other stuff in the deal.  The people and scenery stuff are the kinds of things that tend to chew away it your MRRing budget, but thats not such a big concern for you now.  You can now focus your funds on rolling stock, loco's, trees, and structures.  And the track is a nice bonus.

As others have already pointed out, you have gained knowledge through all of this, and what price can you put on that?

If I were you, I'd thank you brother warmly for his generous heart.  He saw your interest and was genuinely trying to help you with that.  He is a good friend to you.

For the future, come here to the forum and ask questions.  We welcome them.  When you ask a question and several answers come pouring in, we all learn from each other.

Now go run some trains and be happy!

simon1966 wrote:

Great post Red Horse, an eloquent reminder of what true value really is.  It puts this hobby into perspective.

And Red Horse, I'll add that if you did not glue the head on that figure yet try gluing it on backwards......see how long it takes for people to notice......

I agree with pcarrell wholeheartedly!

TheK4Kid