I just had one of the worst mornings ever.
.
I heard about a collection of trains and a layout that was for sale. The lady who has it needs to move, and she just lost her husband. The layout must be removed so she can sell the home. She was told a minimum price by her husband to accept for the trains after his passing. The price was high, and that had me intrigued. The dscription made it sound like an impressive collection.
Well, the layout is built in a double-wide trailer in an upscale retirement park in Bonita Springs. Close by, and right up my alley. I have not removed a layout in years, but I have done this kind of thing before for widows. I have a couple of free days and some help is available.
Well... it was nothing like what I expected from the price and description.
The "layout" is built an an island about 12 by 12 in the center of the great room. It was framed on 2 by 6 lumber with 3/4 inch plywood on several tiers throughout the layout. The lowest level was about 12 inches from the floor, and the highest about six feet.
The layout consisted of about 12-14 loops going around, and through, a central 8 foot tall mountain at various levels. No turnouts. Control was just a bank of old Tyco and Model Power transformers.
The mountain, which looked like a volcano, was almost solid plaster. The whole thing might have weighed 2-3 tons! I have never seen anything so poorly made that was built to last 1,000 years! Nothing was finished. Nothing was in good condition. Most of the layout scenery was broken apart from him obviously walking on the layout to maintain it. All the track on then lower levels was destroyed.
All the equipment was train set junk from the 1970s. It was completely awful. She told me it had not run in over ten years.
I had to tell her that the whole collection was not even worth $100.00 for everything she had. I was not the first person to tell her this news. There were a lot of tears and crying. She is losing the house, the "art" also has no value, and she is in serious financial distress.
The layout needs to be removed to sell the home, and this is going to cost her a lot of money. I cannot do it in the time I have. I would not even guess where to start to remove 150 square feet of that much 2 by 6, 3/4 plywood, and SO MUCH plaster.
She has eyes, she had to know it was garbage. I felt awful.
Please do not tell your loved ones that your trains are worth 150 times what they are. Be realistic and let them know what to expect.
I have "death pacts" with a few friends. When we go, the others get all the stuff, and our wives do not need to deal with anything. My wife knows everything that says STRATTON & GILLETTE has no value.
I never want another day like I had today.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Sad story, especially considering she must have sacrificed a lot to give him that layout in the middle of the great room. A little more kindness and thoughtfulness on his part would have now helped her when she needs it most.
And age has nothing to do with it. I might die tomorrow, so thinking of my wife is something I'll do when I build my next layout, here in the near future.
- Douglas
I see it the same way Douglas does; the woman seems to have deferred to her husband over the years, and now it is costing her. He got his way, at least in the matter of the layout, spent a lot of time and money crafting his own fantasy, and now she's left with what is essentially a mess and financial trouble.
I wonder if he even left a will.
Maybe the title of the topic should be changed to "be careful who you marry" as always, and choose wisely.
It sounds like rather than making g money selling the layout, it going to cost money to have it broken down and hauled away.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I have a small 3.5x7 tabletop switching layout. If someone wants it they just have to put in the rear load bed of a pickup, folding legs included. As I have picked up a lot of swap meet rolling stock and engines over the years I am under no illusions as to their true value. I identified several items that I want my adult daughter to preserve as mementos but she is already aware that my hobby efforts have been for fun not profit. If all I get from a great grandchild upon seeing one of my preserved models is "gee, that was pretty neat of great grandpa to have made this" it will be enough for me- the rest is immaterial.
Cedarwoodron
A valid point you are making, Kevin. Not only a few model railroaders are under the illusion, that the layout they are investing into will not only hold its value, but also gain in value and that their prized collection of engines in cars is equal to a blue chip investment, leaving it to their heirs to found out the harsh truth that only in very few cases a layout can be sold at all and the return on selling the collection of engines and cars is dimes on a dollar and even less if you have to sell in a hurry.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
I have Explained to all involved ( especially my wife) that most of my modeling stuff "Aint worth Squat" !
The very few "Collectable kit's" I have would require her to do some research to figure out what to charge for them. ( not worth the effort.)
So I instructed her to find people interested in the already built stuff, and Give them away. The kit's still in the box will go to E-Vil bay and have a minimum bid of $1.00 If she get's rich, Great ! If they only bring in $5 so what, she will be rid of them and someone will have a "Deal of a lifetime" .
As for the layout, I dont have one at the moment. But if I DO manage to build one, before I pass on to that great roundhouse in the sky , I told my wife ...
" Feel free to take a Sledghammer to it, and toss it all in the bin."
Rust...... It's a good thing !
We all sat down last Wednesday as a family and had a long discussion on our estate planning with the kids. There are options, set it up as a trust, go with a lump sum or a few other more sophisticated ways. Each has its own benefits.
What things cost, what they are worth and what you can sell them for rarely make sense to those that have not dealt with estate disbursement.
I inherited a few pieces of artwork from my mother, the most expensive piece was valued at $12,000.00 at the time of her death. My thinking was that the value of the artwork was a lot more than I wanted hanging on my walls and set about to sell it. Long story short once all the dust cleared from the sale (s) of the art I was going to be lucky to end up with 25% of the book value of the stuff. So for $3000.00 I liked it enough to keep it and all the other pieces as well. Although I gave some away to young family members just starting out in life with a new spouse and unfurnished house.
The value of my trains doesn't come close to the value of my kids time to sell the stuff, so I said phone a club and they can come and get it and do as they please with it. Use it, sell it at a train show and use the funds for the club or give it away.
I am not a guy to mince words and don't put up with any BS. As a result, I (unfortunately) am the executor for many friends and family members. Some estates I have dealt with already were of older people that were friends of my mothers. They didn't trust their own families to be able to deal with things and I would usually find out why.
Big items such as houses, money I handle myself. Property, I take those involved through the house and let them horse trade and take it away. They soon realize they get pennies on their vulture eyed dollars and may have done better giving it to an estate auction house, as it sits in their basement or garage for years before it finally goes to the dump or the thrift shop.
I had a family politely divide up about 200 figurines using book value. Total book value for the collection was about $180,000.00. The kicker was, some sold easily while others never sold. Each of the kids ended up with vastly different amounts of cash in the end which they were all fine with by the way.
In our hearts, we see what the value of things are to us. But like a memory, it is likely not worth as much to someone else.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I have already talked with my sons about this.
They will divide up trains and tools as they see fit. Keep what they want and dispose of the rest saving some for my grandson who likes trains. I have one son who is into Lionel trains, so I expect he will take the lead on it. I have made it clear that while some things have some value, no one's going to get rich selling it.
Paul
It seems as though this goes a couple of ways. There are estate sales that I have been to where tyco and other train set stuff was selling for way high prices. Another I bought a great big box of model paints for a couple of dollars. Most estate dealers have absolutely no idea what to do with model trains. Lionel they can get prices on but HO is all over the place. Same thing with antique malls. On the other hand I have heard of husbands lying about the values of things either way. I wonder how much stuff has been sold for pennies on the dollar. Jim
Jim, I am going to have to look after an estate down the road of a couple with no children. Everything is going to their nine nieces and nephews. The guy has a massive workshop with every high-end tool you can imagine and several high-end racing bikes. The wife has a huge investment in a couple of her pursuits. They were both highly paid engineers and have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of belongings.
The nieces and nephews get first crack at the belongings, however, they live all over North America, so whats it worth to them to miss work, fly here and transport the stuff back home. More than it is worth.
It will all go to auction and be sold in lots for five cents on the dollar. It is worth what it sells for on the day. Auction houses advertise the sale and list items to be sold, it is a real crap shoot as to how many show up and what they will pay for the stuff. The stuff that doesn't sell goes to the Salvation Army.
When I parents went into a nursing home we had to auction off the contents and the house. It was really sad what some stuff like his books went for but I saved all of his railroad books. Other stuff brought more. I really regretted selling all of his cameras. A year ago though I ran into one of his cameras selling on ebay and got it!!!! Jim
My Dad developed Alzheimer's and went into a home. I was the only one he ever recognized, neither my Mom or sister meant anything to him, they were just strangers.
I started buying him all sorts of big picture books of trains and he spent hours looking at them. He didn't watch TV or interact with the fellow inmates as he would call them. But all those train pic's brought him back into the world to a certain extent.
I should probably do some planning myself - it's tough to think about such things though. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that my collection of models is going to make anyone rich.
The question is always where to take it and whom do you trust. I have a pre-war Lionel set that was given to me by a friend because when she took it to a guy to get a value and maybe sell it, she got a bad vibe. Good thing, too - the guy tried telling her it was a post-war set and not worth much at all. I'm no Lionel expert, but I know the difference between a pre- and post-war set. One of these days I will fix it all up (lots of worn wiring, mostly) but as I am not a collector I don't care to get all vintage wire to replace the worn stuff, I just want it to run (it sort of runs now, just not well). The dealer was going to give her like $100 for the whole lot. Just the locomotive alone, in its present poor condition, is actually going for more than that.
And I recently went through the whole junk or keep thing, cleaningout my Mom's house. My sister took what she wanted, i took what I wanted, things in good shapre that neither of us wanted were donated to the church to sell at their rummage sale (my Mom was an avid reader, I can't tell you how many boxes of books there were). A couple of nicer pieces of furniture we sold. The rest - two of those Bagster dumpsters worth. That included an N scale layout I built when I was 12/13. It was probably recoverable, but I no longer have any N scale equipment to run on it, nor do I have space to set it up. And it would have been a long ride in my truck - it would fit, the layout was 3x6. I saved a tunnel portal that I found on the basement floor after we trashed the layout. About the only thing I regret trashing is the old tube receiver, preamp, and amplifier that my Dad built. It wasn't working, years ago I tried to get it working but only the receiver worked and I actually used it for a number of years. Now I have the skills to actually fix it, plus I discovered that the preamp in non-working form fetches close to $300 on ebay - multiple completed auctions, so it wasn't a fluke. Oh well. In the end, I didn't simply move the clutter to my house, but I do have the things with some usefulness and/or sentimental value, like a lot of my Dad's and Grandfather's tools, and their Navy memorabilia, and all the old slides my Dad took, which I went through and scanned into the computer to share with other family members. It was tough going through some of the stuff - my Mom NEVER through anything away, stored away was every paper and project my sister and I ever brought home from school. We had some good laughs reading some of it 40+ years later.
Bottom line, you have to be realistic. I've gotten pretty good at rejecting things that would just stick around packed in boxes to be handled by the next generation in a never-ending cycle. I don't suspect my boys will be any different, they tend to be less sentimental than I am. Train related, Ihave very little if anything that deserves the trash bin, so I'd like to see some use come out of it - local clubs are probably the best bet and that would be my suggestion to them, but if they want to spend the time trying to sell things, it's not like I will be around to care.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
We did our wills years ago. Since we have no children, my trains are going to my nephew. He loves the trains, even at 18 and as of a couple weeks ago told me under no uncertain terms when he gets his first house, he will build a train layout. By that time, I hope I'm around as it all goes to him...
Plan it now, it should give you a piece of mind, as well as any family members, that whatever you don't pass on to a next of kin or designated person, they can do what they please with it.
Neal
I am going through this whole what to do with it with my wife and sister in law in terms of getting rid of stuff from my late mother in law who passed last year. The bottom line is you can’t keep everything or your house will look like a certain TV show.
Anyhow I left specific insructions that our cousin Wayne and his son Adam are free to peruse my train collection and layout take what they want (they both have Lionel and some HO) and the rest they are to dispose of as they see fit even if that means the dumpster.
Joe Staten Island West
What an awful story, Kevin. Thank you for sharing-- certainly makes even a young(ish) modeler think more carefully about mindfulness and leaving a plan.
drgwcs On the other hand I have heard of husbands lying about the values of things either way. I wonder how much stuff has been sold for pennies on the dollar. Jim
On the other hand I have heard of husbands lying about the values of things either way. I wonder how much stuff has been sold for pennies on the dollar. Jim
I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but if this individual set such a high minimum price for his collection, do you think he was deluded in knowing how much it was worth? Honesty is only part of the equation; maybe he was being truthful but horribly misinformed. If so, I wonder how much was bought for dollars on the penny...
Phil
My wife already knows the trains are only worth pennies on the dollar, and my will leaves them to my son.
He can do with them what he likes, I won't need them at that point.
And respectfully, if my wife needs the money, then her and I did something wrong along the way. Because the trains were bought with money others typically use for vacations, dining out, and other things one can never recoup.
We don't take expensive vacations, we eat out a lot, but not high end, we skip a lot of stuff others find "necessary", so we can have/do other things many do not understand.
Sheldon
I am under no illusion about the market value of my layout, and I have told my daughter to keep what she wants (which will not be much) and then hire a couple of guys to take an axe to it. Hopefully, before that happens, I will have the opportunity to allow members of my club to cannabilize whatever they want from it.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
I'm getting a divorce. My soon to be ex-wife is claiming my layout is worth $35,000. My retail cost was under ten thousand, and I got about $6000 when I did a spreadsheet of estimated values.
Where people get these inflated values I'll never know. Scenery is not worth anything, and glued, ballasted track isn't worth the trouble to re-use it.
I like building a layout myself. A layout that's already built has little value to me.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasley...My soon to be ex-wife is claiming my layout is worth $35,000....
Well, why not offer her the layout as part of the settlement? Let her try to get the $35,000.00 out of it!
Wayne
doctorwayne MisterBeasley ...My soon to be ex-wife is claiming my layout is worth $35,000.... Well, why not offer her the layout as part of the settlement? Let her try to get the $35,000.00 out of it! Wayne
MisterBeasley ...My soon to be ex-wife is claiming my layout is worth $35,000....
Yep. I would give her the whole thing and that would tilt the balance sheet in your favour.
doctorwayneWell, why not offer her the layout as part of the settlement? Let her try to get the $35,000.00 out of it! Devil
Wayne, red wine coming out my nose, really hurts.
I have a handful of beer steins my mother claimed were really valuable, from my grandmother. She took a cruise to Europe, but had to get off the ship before it docked in Germany, because she was Jewish and Hitler hadn't quite started WW2. Not sure why she should have had steins at all as she was Latvian, not German. They neither look well made nor especially collectable to me, I'll have to ask Ulrich.
My point is when someone you trust (maybe misplaced trust) tells you something is valuable, you naturally believe it.
The other point is that peoples' standards vary. We have all seen pics in this forum where there are kinks at every turnout, or there is a big wad of solder and feeder wire that can't help but derail any train that passes by. I try to be helpful if I comment at all on those posts.
There are some spectacularly talented modelers in this forum. I won't mention any names, because I might miss someone. I am not in the category, but maybe my self opinion of being average is over inflated. I guess I should go downstairs and see if any lava is coming out of my volcano mountains?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
The value of objects changes over time. The beer steins that GIs brought back from Germany in the '50s and '60s were mostly mass-produced copies of steins that actually had been valuable at one point. These days, only hard-core collectors have any interest in steins.
Diecast British toy cars (Dinky, Corgi and others) peaked in value in the late '80s and early '90s. Now a model has to be mint and boxed to break $10 in most cases, and they're a slow sell.
MisterBeasley I'm getting a divorce. My soon to be ex-wife is claiming my layout is worth $35,000. My retail cost was under ten thousand, and I got about $6000 when I did a spreadsheet of estimated values.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
What a sad, albeit notable, topic to discuss with family and/or friends. You guys further validate the value of not going "lone wolf" in building a layout. There are plenty of nearby clubs, hobby stores, or donation places that can probably use old stuff should you have no use. Simply waiting to pass before worrying about them is a plan for disaster.
While I have plenty of years before retirement, I don't want to ever leave this Earth with my layout as a burden. Ever. That said, please discuss this topic with someone to avoid putting others in a difficult situation. Sorry if this is too much to ask. You guys are a community that continues to help me enjoy model train, so pls allow me to assist you in doing research on where you can donate unwanted (unneeded) stuff. In exchange, pls continue to provide me assistance. Deal?!
I might have been a bit misleading.
1) When I said "Double-Wide", yes it is a trailer home, but it is in an exclusive gated retirement park in Bonita Springs. Value in excess of $250,000.00.
2) The Great Room is not the living room. It is an extra, or bonus, room off of the main floorplan. These are included in many retirement trailer homes as extra space to do with what you want. No need to have 4-5 bedrooms like most double wide floor plans.
3) These people have not lived a poor life. I think they just out-lived their money. She is in her early 90s. I do not know how old he was.
4) The mountain really did look like a volcano from a 3rd graders science fair project. It stood about seven feet from base to top, and the top was flattened off. It cleared the ceiling by about 3-4 inches. I am guessing the sides were about 30 degrees off of vertical.
The whole point was that you are truly doing your loved ones a terrible deed to let them think the trains are valuable, unless they really are. Like someone said above, your loved ones will trust you.
I had a terrible Monday, and I am glad to read the comments and replies. Thanks to everyone that contributed.
kasskaboose What a sad, albeit notable, topic to discuss with family and/or friends. You guys further validate the value of not going "lone wolf" in building a layout. There are plenty of nearby clubs, hobby stores, or donation places that can probably use old stuff should you have no use. Simply waiting to pass before worrying about them is a plan for disaster. While I have plenty of years before retirement, I don't want to ever leave this Earth with my layout as a burden. Ever. That said, please discuss this topic with someone to avoid putting others in a difficult situation. Sorry if this is too much to ask. You guys are a community that continues to help me enjoy model train, so pls allow me to assist you in doing research on where you can donate unwanted (unneeded) stuff. In exchange, pls continue to provide me assistance. Deal?!
Sorry if I'm not really into the spirit of this conversation, but let me get this right.
It is bad to leave your model trains as a "burden" to your family when you die?
What about all the rest of your personal junk possessions you are going to leave them to sort out when you die?
What makes the trains such a special problem?
I explained earlier that mine are already delt with - my son gets them, even before my wife dies if I go first. If he does not want them, she can do what she wants with them, or they can sit there. She's not going to need the basement for anything......
Dumpsters are filled every day with stuff from the estates of those no longer with us - some of it is really cool stuff, some of it is trash......one man's trash, another man's treasure......
The rest of you can do what you like, but I'm not going to give away all my stuff and wait around in front of the TV to die.
Our wills already read "being of sound mind and body we spent it all" so if the wife and I get hit by a bus tomorrow, the kids will have to sell the old house, the new house, the rental properties, the two relatively new expensive cars, the model trains, the collector china, the diamond engagement ring, the rest of her expensive jewelery, the 1700 vinyl records, the high end HiFi equipment, the guns, the $10,000 garden tractor, the tools (way more money there than in the model trains...), the antique furniture, and the books........
Somehow the trains seem just a small part of that task......
And if one of you goes first, who says you have to get rid of anything? Leave it for the kids to sort out when you are both gone, or when they put you in a home.
After everything we did for them, it's the least they can do.
You are only as old as you act.........or as old as your thought process......
Well, since this discussion has transformed into last wills and testaments... here is what the daughters are instructed to do:
My house is kind of a special circumstance. My property is worth the same with or without the house. The actual structure has zero value.
So, it will most likely be demolished by the next owner and another ugly 5,000 square foot monstrosity will be built in its place. Oh well, there goes the neighborhood.
So... they have been told to auction off the house "as-is, where-is, all cash, no contingencies". Let the model railroad layout fall victim to inevitable excavator that will be brought in to knock the house down. Split the cash three ways.
No problem.