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A little talk about Vintage

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Posted by gmpullman on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 4:43 PM

 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

 

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Posted by tstage on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 8:25 PM

And then there's the "rare vintage" = The shipping will cost you more than the item(s) is really worth.

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Posted by John-NYBW on Thursday, December 9, 2021 6:50 AM

tstage

And then there's the "rare vintage" = The shipping will cost you more than the item(s) is really worth.

 

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. 

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Posted by Track fiddler on Thursday, December 9, 2021 8:50 AM

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

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Posted by Billwiz on Thursday, December 9, 2021 9:06 AM

tstage

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 Smile

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Posted by IRONROOSTER on Thursday, December 9, 2021 9:30 AM

Vintage:  what I have on my shelves in the basement.

If you're having fun, you're doing it the right way.
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Posted by rrebell on Thursday, December 9, 2021 10:27 AM

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.

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Posted by dknelson on Thursday, December 9, 2021 10:27 AM

IRONROOSTER

Vintage:  what I have on my shelves in the basement.

 
Ultimate vintage: the guy looking at what he has on the shelves in my basement.
 
Dave Nelson
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Posted by John-NYBW on Thursday, December 9, 2021 11:17 AM

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. 

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Posted by maxman on Thursday, December 9, 2021 11:26 AM

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.

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Posted by tstage on Thursday, December 9, 2021 11:41 AM

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

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Posted by Atchee on Thursday, December 9, 2021 12:36 PM

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.

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Posted by maxman on Thursday, December 9, 2021 4:55 PM

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.

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Posted by BEAUSABRE on Thursday, December 9, 2021 8:14 PM

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"

 


 

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Posted by John-NYBW on Friday, December 10, 2021 8:25 AM

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.

 

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. 

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Posted by NittanyLion on Saturday, December 11, 2021 10:02 PM

maxman
So 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.  

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