The reason for this thread is I was reading about the Front Range fraud on this forum. There are a lot of scams that have been done by varius people and companys and I would like to know more. One I know of is Paige who made molds of castings in FSM kits and produced his own kits, he was sued and put out of buisness but you can still find his kits on e-bay and at swap meets. Another is Cheap Trains whos owner went to a fed pen for mail fraud (I was part of this lawsuit but never got my money back).
Canadian Model Trains was considered to be a highly reputable dealer for many years, selling both brass and new plastic. They attended many train shows in the U.S. However, they did reach a point in time where they were taking reservations for Overland Models products and requiring a significant up front deposit (Overland Models did not require deposits for reservations to the best of my knowledge). Canadian Model Trains/Tom Tomblin (and I forget the other guys' name) accumulated a significant cash value of "deposit" money for brass models reputedly into 6 figures. They took the deposit money and shut down their business, leaving customers hanging with alleged orders that were in some cases never placed with Overland Models.
This all occurred at a time when the brass market was going through significant change. Overland Models was trying to shift production to their factory, Cheyenne Industries, in China. Overland's costs to deliver new models were quickly skyrocketing. The resulting situation with Canadian Model Trains, specifically Tom Tomblin, stealing customers' money reflected negatively on Overland Models, despite Overland Models having no involvement in the issue. Where Overland was able to accommodate customers who had lost reservations, they did so either through other dealers or else directly, but the buyers lost out on their alleged "deposits" with Tom Tomblin/Canadian Model Trains that were never paid to Overland Models. Some people never got their models, since the orders were never placed with Overland.
I cannot say to what degree, if any, the Canadian Model Trains scandal contributed to the end of Overland Models importing any brass, but based upon the timing, it seems to me there was likely some impact on Overland's sales and particularly reservations due to customer trust issues. Also there was a huge caboose project that Overland was developing at about the same time, because brass cabooses were selling very well for them, and it moved through 3 different builders due to factory closures or other issues. Ultimately it was scrapped when it became apparent that Overland would never be able to deliver the cabooses at a price anywhere near what had been quoted to customers (which was in the $350 to $400 price range, if I recall.) I am one of the customers who never saw the brass caboose...
The next thing we knew Overland Models, who had made so many fine models, especially the late blue box diesels, was finished, despite their website seemingly leaving the door open for something to happen in a future day.
John
Back in the 1960s to 1980s, when there was an enormous amount of buying and selling of stuff in the MR classified ads -- much more than there is now -- from time to time there would be reports of particular individuals who would offer to buy brass but would not pay once the brass was shipped (there were no controlled ways to pay back then such as PayPal and each transaction was a sort of game of chicken: pay me first, no ship the stuff first, no pay me first, and so on. You really had to be ready to make a leap of faith when using the classified ads. Sometimes the US Attorney's Office would be involved, since this would be classic mail fraud, but even back then you needed a certain dollar amount involved to get the attention of the authorities. MR would publish letters about this, or run announcements saying "we understand this person is at it again" and such. But the volume of classified ad commerce was huge then.
More recently there was much talk in this forum about a guy very openly offering castings which were his own kitbashes of commercial parts, which was a slightly gray area -- he was not selling mere duplicates of someone else's property, but he was using unauthorized copies of bits and pieces to make something unique that nobody else was offering. There are certainly legal theories under which that (that is, the selling to others of such things) is prohibited, but maybe harder to prove just whose original part was being utilized, and more importantly, harder to interest law enforcement and prosecutors to get active on such a case. Even trial lawyers suing for civil damages shy away from small-beer cases with specialized facts that would make a juror's eyes glaze over.
This is quite apart from the common situation of buying and selling stuff at a swap meet where who knows if you are buying (or re-selling) stolen goods or not. And while clearly unlawful, I have also seen evidence of people selling copies they've made of old Kalmbach or RMC articles or old prototype drawings.
Dave Nelson
There have been a few mail order firms that were like that. Back in the 80's Hobbies for men (they had another alias- SMC?) ripped a lot of people when they went out. Another one was Crazy Charlie's Discount trains- they got me for about $60. Most recently Caboose outside Denver (not to be confused with the original downtown that they bought the name from) owed a bunch of suppliers a lot of money when they went under- at the same time they were buying a real caboose for their parking lot and hiring some sort of social coordinator.
On the other hand there was another company that went under as a victim of a scam. Holgate and Renolds that used to make a lot of plastic sheets for scratch-building supplies. They had a crook break in- steal all their tooling and sell it for scrap. The company went under.
Jim
PSSSSsssst.... Wana buy a brass loco?
In the early 1980s our club was contacted to see if we were interested in buying some brass models from a hobby store that had gone out of business. No one knew of any local hobby store that had gone out of business at that time. Nor had we heard of any thefts of collections. We went.
Sure enough brass locos of all kinds. Very low prices. We kept whispering together, "do you think this is legit?". Anyway most of us ended up getting some things. A friend snagged the D&RGW L105! I think I bought two for right around $100. I figured if we found out it was stolen I could return it and not be out too much. We watched for announcements of anything that would reveil where this stuff had come from. Never figured it out.
Yes, I bought some brass engines, they came right off of the boat. They made me an offer that I could not refuse. Made a lot of money from selling those engines.
10 to 15 years ago there was hobby cirlce out of florida selling ebay. Then there was the website b rought up here that was a fake site. Probably many oither online places around the holidays.
Shane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Back in the early '80s, I was ordering lots of stuff from Hobbies For Men. The prices were very affordable and the selection of stuff was overwhelming. Not long after that, my wife and I, along with her sister and the sister's husband, decided to drive down to New York City for a short get-away. It was a fun trip, and Hobbies For Men was definitely on our itinerary. My brother-in-law (not a model railroader) was buying all sorts of locos and rolling stock, (as was I, plus several books, to which I still refer).Our intention was to also go over to Staten Island and visit SMC, too, but we got lost and ended-up at One World Trade Center.A few minutes ago, I dug out an old issue of RMC, and in it was an 8 page ad for Hobbies For Men. I never had any problems when dealing with them, whether in-person or on the 'phone or by mail.
I recall nothing of their demise.
Wayne
Some companys were legit till near their end, some scamed then because they were bought or were going broke, and then there were those who were scamers from the get go.
To be factually correct, and this may upset some people, the sales of brass models to this day involve actions that are akin to "scams". If you just enjoy the models for what they are, read on. If they are an investment to you, which they should not be, don't read the rest of this.
One poster above said he bought brass engines right off the boat. John Glaab explained in his book, I believe, that sometimes the builders in SE Asia are not very ethical. If Importer A contracts for 200 models of a given locomotive, once that production run is finished, do you think the builder stops there? Not always. They will make more than that and sell them over there, and eventually some of those models get here and get sold FOTB fresh off the boat. Sometimes they even sold the same model to Importer B (though that is less common, it has happened).
One kind of scam is continuing to this day: Boo Rim builds excellent models in South Korea. Many of the steam engines are serial numbered. The box indicates the model is number ___ of ___. However, for many of the runs that allegedly were only available serial numbered in the online brass listings and notes (brasstrains.com keeps an online database of everything new that comes out and most that were ever made) Boo Rim (or rather Precision Scale) actually sold "extra" un-serial-numbered models. Most people who just love the models wouldn't really care, but for the few collectors who are interested in the rarity, not knowing the totals of what was actually made could result in lower values. Some of the Boo Rim models have appreciated quickly and doubled their value in a few years. Specific Boo Rim models that I know for a fact were available in non-serial-numbered editions, in the very same box that serial numbered versions were also available, include the Rock Island 2-8-2's (multiple different versions) and the Texas and Pacific 4-8-2's. I am sure there are others; I only know those versions for sure because I once owned both un-serial-numbered and serial numbered versions of them. To be clear, the un-serial-numbered versions are not supposed to exist.
Even with PFM Crowns, once considered highly collectable, the record keeping in Japan was very bad or else intentional. Howard Zane shared with me that he has owned two engines of the same model that had the exact same serial number plate on the model. So he knows that this fraud regarding serial numbering has been going on for a very long time. Importer imports 300, but sales are so strong they can sell an extra 100 later. You can easily end up with two model #275's of 300.
Most people would not care; but it has happened.
Nothing really has value except food or other things to keep you alive, everything else is an illusion.
The brass locomotives that I purchased were top quality straight from Japan. They were factory painted GN 4-8-4s' in their origninal boxes just as when they left japan. Back in the 60's the mob controlled the docks in New York. When a ship came in they knew which ones were going to have valuable cargo aboard. These items would disapper and they would resell them. If you knew the right people you could get in on the action. They made a lot of money from all sorts of items stolen from the docks.
In brass, sometimes demonstration or "pre-production" models hit the market. I have two Santa Fe 900 class 2-10-2, road# 900, imported by Division Point. The brass construction and the drivetrain are completely identical. One is the factory-painted model, the other has some flaws in the paint job: the window sunshades are black (not khaki, as in the FP model), and the road# on the tender is not in the correct position. As Division Point never sold an unpainted version, the true origin of this version is a mystery. The good part: I got it on eBay for $700, while the FP versions usually go for $1100 or more.
JW
It has been over fifty years and these conversations peaked my interest so I went looking to see if I could find out exactly which engines I purchased. They were the PFM Tenshodo Crown GN S2 4-8-4s'. Hindsite is 20/20, but I should have kept one, they are selling for $595 and up on various web sites. I paid $75.00 each for ones that I purchased.
Yes, I forgot in my post above that there are pilot models that get sold without serial numbering. However, I was referring to production engines that are clearly not pilot models, that got produced as "extra" models over and above the serial numbered versions. They are identical to the serial numbered versions, do not have decals but painted logos and lettering, lights, cab interiors, etc. fully complete production versions. The boxes are identical to the serial numbered boxes, but just do not include the "number ___ of___".
You also forget that a number of models show up because the final production design was still being worked on. I have seen things in the past that never made it to production being they were prototypes.