maxmanSo you're paying about $119 per year for Prime membership to get "free" shipping?
Depends on how you look at it.
I use Prime Video and Prime Music daily but might only use free shipping monthly. The way I see it, I get free shipping as an add-on to the video and music service that I use all the time.
maxman John-NYBW I buy a prime membership each year which allows me to make unlimited purchases without paying more for shipping when I buy something. So you're paying about $119 per year for Prime membership to get "free" shipping? Well alrighty then.
John-NYBW I buy a prime membership each year which allows me to make unlimited purchases without paying more for shipping when I buy something.
So you're paying about $119 per year for Prime membership to get "free" shipping?
Well alrighty then.
I never said it was free. I buy enough from Amazon that it more than pays for itself because I don't pay shipping on each individual purchases. I live in a rural area. It's about a 12 mile trip one way to the nearest stores. If I need an item, I can usually find what I want on Amazon and it will usually be here the next day, sometimes two days. Not only do I not pay additional shipping charges when I buy one item, I save about a gallon of gas not having to make the round trip to the nearest town. A lot of model railroad products are available on Amazon. So are everyday staples. It doesn't matter how small an item I buy. Amazon will deliver it. A few years ago they would send items through UPS or the US mail but now they do so much business in our area they use their own vans to deliver products. It's not as if they have to go out of their way to deliver a small item to me.
One of my biggest regrets is I didn't buy Amazon stock back in the 1990s. Originally they were just an online book seller but they were just starting to branch out into other areas of etailing. I considered buying a chunk of their stock but listened to all the analysts who said their P/E ratios were way too high and the stock was overpriced. Some experts. Even after the 2000 stock market bubble burst and the economic disaster later in the decade, the stock is worth many times more than I would have paid for it back in the 1990s. If only we could get a do over in life.
As the late, great Robert Heinlein put it in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, TANSTAAFL
"There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch"
I guess my point was that there is still a cost, even if something is "free". I searched the net a bit and see that Amazon had 142.5 million Prime customers in the US alone in 2020. Multiply that by $119 per year per member and I think that Amazon has a little more money to throw around for shipping and other things than the average ebay seller.
maxman John-NYBW I buy a prime membership each year which allows me to make unlimited purchases without paying more for shipping when I buy something. So you're paying about $119 per year for Prime membership to get "free" shipping?
Like anything else, you need to shop around when you buy things. I hardly watch TV, but the family does and the included programming is worth it to them. I also get music streaming, which I use once in a while. But, I order enough from Amazon every year that the Prime pays for itself and then some with that "free shipping". Plus, with the stuff I buy from them nobody seems to play games with shipping costs.
I generally opt for "FREE shipping" (without getting Prime) and still receive my items in a decent time frame - sometimes quickly, if it's at the nearby Amazon distribution center.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
John-NYBWI buy a prime membership each year which allows me to make unlimited purchases without paying more for shipping when I buy something.
Vintage generally isn't a selling point for me. Just because something is old doesn't make it valuable. For the most part, newer is better. I shop on ebay for two reasons. One is to bargain hunt and if you are discriminating, you can get some worthwhile items at a decent price. The other is to find items that were good quality but have been discontinued or the manufacturer is out of business. One of my regrets is I didn't spring for the MTH Empire State Express passenger car set when I bought their streamlined Hudson. Instead I opted to build a consist using Walthers cars which I have a very low opinion of now. The most recent asking price on ebay was over $600 for a five car set. The asking price on a single dining car is $175. I did buy the five car MTH set for the 1938 20th Century limited and they have performed flawlessly. I'm going to keep an eye out on ebay of the ESE set but I doubt I will be getting any bargains.
IRONROOSTER Vintage: what I have on my shelves in the basement.
Vintage: what I have on my shelves in the basement.
E-bay shipping started to be a proublem when they started charging their percentage of the take to include shipping to stop certain fraudsters. Also shipping has gotten way more expencive, doubled in last 10 years.
tstage And then there's the "rare vintage" = The shipping will cost you more than the item(s) is really worth.
And then there's the "rare vintage" = The shipping will cost you more than the item(s) is really worth.
Rare, vintage in original box! Now that is the ultimate!
Sorry I missed out on the vintage Tyco couplers
I getcha Dawg! I get irritated as well as it seems to be getting quite a bit more prevalent on eBay.
Ebay isn't even any fun anymore if you ask me. Most everything seems to be overpriced now with unrealistic shipping added to it. Many used items have a higher price tag than when they were new.
It used to be that you'd see "Vintage" or "Rare" once in awhile and it usually was, or at least close to correct. I would have to agree with others here that now it has just become a selling tactic to try to justify how an item is overpriced.
Just the other day I was looking through portals and saw a timber portal that was labeled vintage. Yeah, the prototypical timber portals of the 1800s were Vintage but the hunk of plastic that Chooch stamped out Aren't! I also seen one of my favorite GN circus boxcars labeled rare. Being that I have four of them, they can't be that rare.
Yes, it's a bit irritating.
TF
I've never understood the practice of charging extra for shipping. The total cost of anything is the stated price PLUS the shipping. Recently you see TV ads and informercials offering free shipping as if that is some kind of a bargain. They are charging you for shipping. It's just included in the purchase price. When you buy something at a store, they are charging you for their shipping costs as well. They just don't act as if they are giving you a bargain because of it. I think the reason the direct marketers charge shipping as an add on is because if you return the item, they just refund the purchase price. You eat what they charged you for shipping plus what it cost to ship the item back to them.
I like how Amazon does business. I buy a prime membership each year which allows me to make unlimited purchases without paying more for shipping when I buy something. If I have to return something, they provided a free return shipping label which I print off and then take the item to a UPS drop off center.
1944 ... busy railroads! by James Vaughan, on Flickr
I have a few railroad paint and lettering diagrams where the "emblem" is refered to as a monogram. Generally a monogram consists of linked or specially designed letters. A herald is more related to "ceremonial splendor" and military ranking or a coat of arms.
Logo is short for logotype which was originally a special piece of hand-set type with several, usually separate elements, combined. A logogram is a symbol used to represent a word ($ = dollar)
Trade Mark is an officially registered symbol.
Semantics.
Regards, Ed
Walthers made wood-and-metal "craftsman kit" passenger cars - including as I recall a 'doodlebug' - from maybe the 1930s to at least the late seventies / early eighties. Looks like that's what the Ebayer was selling and describing. That someone assumed they meant the more recent Walthers plastic doodlebug isn't the seller's fault.
NittanyLionA herald is a logo. Railroad logos are referred to as heralds, but that doesn't make them not logos.
However, the symbols railroads use have been called 'heralds' for maybe a century or more. It's only been the last decade or so that people (mostly younger/new-to-the-hobby people) have called them 'logos'.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
BEAUSABRE When you say, "metal" do you mean brass or something like zamac? I know Suydam imported a Brill Gas-Electric in the Paleolithic Age of The Hobby and Hallmark imported one in the Neolithic Era. Sounds like it really is "Vintage". Could you post a picture so we may marvel at this beast from a by gone time? "It's like a relic from a different age, Could be, Oooh-eee" "
When you say, "metal" do you mean brass or something like zamac? I know Suydam imported a Brill Gas-Electric in the Paleolithic Age of The Hobby and Hallmark imported one in the Neolithic Era. Sounds like it really is "Vintage". Could you post a picture so we may marvel at this beast from a by gone time?
"It's like a relic from a different age, Could be, Oooh-eee"
"
walthers doodlebug vintage in Toys and Hobbies | eBay
My purchase is the one on November 22. Definitely not brass. Looks to be the type of metal used on those small Woodland Scenics structures if you are familiar with those. It is somewhat flexible in that I can squeeze the sides but not malleable like lead.
I got fooled on ebay and I have no one to blame but myself. I failed to read the listing closely. I was looking for the Walthers doodlebug that was discontinued a few years ago. I saw a number of listings and opted for one that was selling one complete bug and one shell. I figured it might be good for spare parts. When I opened the box my first thought was it was the Bachmann bug which is much longer than the Walthers bug. On closer inspection I could tell it was much heavier than the Bachmann bug. The body is made of metal. I went back to ebay to check out the listing and it had the word VINTAGE plain as day. I don't know how old these are but I don't remember seeing Walthers offer this doodlebug so I'm guessing it's pre-1980, maybe older. They weren't terribly expensive so it was a fairly cheap lesson. From now on I'm going to read the ebay listings much more carefully.
Marketing people.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Snake oil remedies, Madison Avenue "spin doctors".
Remember, only Certs has Retsin! (why? because we made up the name retsin).
1946 ... smoking tastes of doctors! by James Vaughan, on Flickr
Hype sells.
[edit] I just finished an article about people who spent $825 on a Chanel "Limited Edition" Advent calendar with goodies behind each compartment. Oh Boy! Stickers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q98aB2tRl3A
Definition creep seems to have also infected lumber. Luan used to refer to plywood made from tropocal wood from the Philippines. Then the name started to applied to many tropical wood plywoods. Now the term seems be used for any 1/4 inch plywood.
A herald is a logo. Railroad logos are referred to as heralds, but that doesn't make them not logos.
Trying to find any common definition for terms like antique and vintage is a fool's errand. You know it when you see it and, as much as it reminds us of our own aging, it is a rolling window. A 1976 Corvette Stringray is an antique, as far as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is concerned, for instance.
BEAUSABRENot restricting myself to model railroading People who call a railroad herald a "logo"
That one bugs me too.
In TV news stories, 21st century diesels go "chugging" through town while "blowing the whistle"...often pulling a train of "flatbed cars" and "tanker cars".
I like this explanation. I am 35 years from being an antique and 45 years into vintage.
What exactly is vintage?
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Yeah "vintage" is misused for sure but it is partly the word's fault, or rather it has come to be used for something it does not mean.
Speaking as a model railroader and as a wine drinker (and being unquestionably more skilled at the wine drinking), if I buy a bottle of Veuve Cliquot from 1934 that is unquestionably vintage wine. Agreed? But a wine made this last March and bottled in June is also a vintage wine. Vintage 2021.
The word vintage just means the year produced, so yes all those new-ish trains are "vintage." In common parlance, including in the wine world, vintage has come to mean rare or valuable, with the implication that great age is what gives it rarity and value. But again turning to the wine world, if a wine made in a really great season has come to have value it is "vintage" in the secondary meaning of rarity and value. 2020 is said to be a great year for wine so now 2020 is a precious vintage for collectors.
But age has nothing to do with it.
Sometimes change more than age makes for vintage. High fashion clothes become vintage rather quickly. When Lionel introduced plastic trains around 1946, the older metal ones became vintage immediately. Athearn switched from metal kits to plastic in the 1950s, and I wouldn't quibble over the use of vintage to describe the metal kits almost as soon as the switchover happened. The space of just a couple of years made all the difference.
Dave Nelson
rrebell Accually many old items have gone down in value, seems antiques have lost their luster as more and more thing pop out of the woodwork. Brass model trains have dropped in value by half or more for a lot of older stuff, FSM kits are way cheaper than they used to be.
Accually many old items have gone down in value, seems antiques have lost their luster as more and more thing pop out of the woodwork. Brass model trains have dropped in value by half or more for a lot of older stuff, FSM kits are way cheaper than they used to be.
This is true, but for the "non-model train world" the perception is still "old trains = big bucks". My brother-in-law showed me a box of old trains, I said I would sell on Ebay. Gave him $100.00 (and just about broke even). He, however, thinks I make a fortune. The box included first generation Bachman N, an Athearn Blue Box with a bad motor and some other misc. old stuff.
One of my favorites on E-Bay was 10 Tyco Couplers for $39.95!
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!