Does anyone know about a source for information on Fine Scale Miniatures?
The kits they made, when the were released, original retail prices, copies of the magazine advertisements, and any other information would be appreciated.
Thanks.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
What do you want to know? Old MR's had ads, company has been sold and the castings are now available as a separt item.
.
as I recall they were real craftsman kits needing a lot of time and determination to build. They were highly detailed and very expensive. Cost put them out of reach for most of us and quite daunting to consider building. What todays engines are to Atheran blue box they were the equivalent to buildings
No fan sites that I know of, kits can be cheap these days. Owned up to a dozen or more kits, built a few and only one on current layout, a modified icing building, wish I had room for some others.
SeeYou190The kits they made, when the were released, original retail prices, copies of the magazine advertisements, and any other information
-Matt
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
SeeYou190 rrebell What do you want to know? I would like to know if there is a fan site out there somewhere with information on the kits. I am not looking to buy anything, but with all the collector interest in these products there must be something compiled somewhere. It would be interesting to see the history of the company and all the products in one place, if it exists. I have dropped a few hundred dollars at RK Products. -Photographs by Kevin Parson I am thankful they are still producing these castings. -Kevin
rrebell What do you want to know?
I would like to know if there is a fan site out there somewhere with information on the kits. I am not looking to buy anything, but with all the collector interest in these products there must be something compiled somewhere.
It would be interesting to see the history of the company and all the products in one place, if it exists.
I have dropped a few hundred dollars at RK Products.
-Photographs by Kevin Parson
I am thankful they are still producing these castings.
Kevin,
Just curious - how clean are those castings? I already have too many castings to clean up and paint but it is interesting to see the castings for sale as separate items.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
SeeYou190I only own two FSM kits. I have R. Schramm Manufacturing and the Wifred Brimbell Company. Spelling might be incorrect.. I plan to build R.Schramm pretty much as the instructions call for. I will move the sawdust shed a little, and probably shorten the open shed. Wilfred Brambell is an interesting structure. The instructions say it was a coal distributor that went out of business, then a plumbing supply company opened in the same buiding, and it went out of business. I plan to model it as an operating coal dealer, and not include the two small sheds.
I plan to build R.Schramm pretty much as the instructions call for. I will move the sawdust shed a little, and probably shorten the open shed.
Wilfred Brambell is an interesting structure. The instructions say it was a coal distributor that went out of business, then a plumbing supply company opened in the same buiding, and it went out of business. I plan to model it as an operating coal dealer, and not include the two small sheds.
Now, the FSM Brambell coal dealer kit, eh? Not sure if you have viewed YouTube channels like asd asx (there are others). asd asx in particular has a video on his build of the kit, which was interesting IMO. He has video on other FSM kit builds as well, and is a little more restrained in overweathering the buildings as opposed to the "Jason Jensen Trains" guy who way overweathers IMO (also, I think he's mixing his SciFi Gundam interest with George Sellios's semi-cartoony Great Depression atmosphere).The asa videoes (there are a number) may be interest to you, but alas no catalog I'm afraid (maybe hunt around blogspot.com for such a FSM kit blog).
trainnut1250 SeeYou190 rrebell What do you want to know? I would like to know if there is a fan site out there somewhere with information on the kits. I am not looking to buy anything, but with all the collector interest in these products there must be something compiled somewhere. It would be interesting to see the history of the company and all the products in one place, if it exists. I have dropped a few hundred dollars at RK Products. -Photographs by Kevin Parson I am thankful they are still producing these castings. -Kevin Kevin, Just curious - how clean are those castings? I already have too many castings to clean up and paint but it is interesting to see the castings for sale as separate items. Guy
Love the FSM kits. I've built Franklin Watchworks, Dexter's Dead End, Hazen Boyd, Elijah Roth, and Houligan's Alley. Still have Skinner's Row, Barthalow Coal, Jamestown Water Stop, Westside Auto, Oatman's Mercantile, Emporium Seafood, and Roadside Delights "in the box", and hope to find a home for all of these on the layout. These are well made kits and the instructions are very detailed and rigorous and will build into a beautiful model with a little time and effort. Like anything practice makes perfect and once you build a few of these the steps are very similar and it also helps develop skills and techniques that carry over to other kit building.
There is a web site you can find if you do a somewhat intuitive Google search (not sure if I can say the name here) that gives a list of the FSM kits, when they were released and the number produced, and the original price, in chronological order. Early kits ('68!) went for $10. The later kits (the final kit "I M Dunn" was released in 2016) went for $280. Some sellers on EBay think they can get $400-500 and up for some of these, and perhaps they can. If you keep an eye out you can get a decent deal on some of these - I think I got Roadside Delights for $180 and Emporium Seafood for a little north of $200, money well spent IMHO.
What the heck might as well post pics of a few of these:
Fish store from Houligan's Alley:
Also from Houligans:
Dexter's Dead End:
Front building from Houligan's, Watchworks in background:
Thanks for taking the time to take and post the photo. Interesting how many of these castings I have in my detail box but didn't know they were FSM. Hard to tell from a photo, but they look to be better than acceptable in terms of flash and registration/detail - I agree that I have seen much worse castings from various sources and some that are better...Looks like lots of hours of painting ahead of you..
ndbprr as I recall they were real craftsman kits needing a lot of time and determination to build. They were highly detailed and very expensive. Cost put them out of reach for most of us and quite daunting to consider building. What todays engines are to Atheran blue box they were the equivalent to buildings
I built one FSM kit that had multiple structures and I didn't find them difficult to build as opposed to a few other craftsman kits I built. The instructions were very well written and easy to follow. I have the FSM version of John Allen's 2 stall engine house that I hope to get around to building when the cold weather comes and the golf clubs go to the garage.
The thing that made FSM stand out was the step by step detailed instructions including painting or staining.
I can't remember what I paid on ebay for the John Allen enginehouse but I know it was no where near $400. I'm thinking it was under $200. At the time there were a number of offerings. Maybe there are fewer now and that has driven up the price.
The recently released Menard's enginehouse looks like an inexpensive copy of that enginehouse.
UPDATE: There are two FSM enginehouse kits being offered on ebay for the Buy It Now price of $132 plus $45 shipping from Japan.
Some of the other FSM kits I see are outrageously priced but most are Buy It Now rather than auctions. I doubt they would get anywhere near the asking price at auction.
I just checked out the FSM offerings on ebay and found page after page of items with two things in common. All are outrageously priced and all have 0 bids. There are a few that are listed as Buy It Now but they don't seem to be getting much action either. I get that when a company goes out of business, the price on their merchandise will get a boost. It's supply and demand and with the company no longer making the product supply is very limited. However, that doesn't boost the demand for these items. Maybe if these sellers continue to list these items indefinitely they will eventually get their asking price, but I wouldn't count on it.
John-NYBW I just checked out the FSM offerings on ebay and found page after page of items with two things in common. All are outrageously priced and all have 0 bids. There are a few that are listed as Buy It Now but they don't seem to be getting much action either. I get that when a company goes out of business, the price on their merchandise will get a boost. It's supply and demand and with the company no longer making the product supply is very limited. However, that doesn't boost the demand for these items. Maybe if these sellers continue to list these items indefinitely they will eventually get their asking price, but I wouldn't count on it.
This is not just for FSM kits. Just like everything else on EBay there are two types of sellers - those that think they should get a certain price for their priceless "collectables" and those who actually want to sell something. The former is probably about 90% of the sellers - look at most of the model railroad items "ending soonest" - perhaps 10% even have a single bid. A couple weeks back there was a collection of FSM kits put up with starting bids at $15 - these all sold easily at prices between $150-300 with multiple bids (I lost out on a couple of these auctions).
I sold my share of FSM kits in the 70's when I worked in the train store. They are very nicely done kits.
Personally I was never attracted to any of them. I am not a fan of that style of modeling.
While George Sellios is an exceptional modeler and a creative mind of the highest order, his "depressing fantasy" view of the world is not my thing.
Glad you were able to find that web site Kevin. I had it bookmarked at one point and lost it. I looked for it to post you a link but others helped before I had time.
A few buildings in less than perfect condition is one thing, F&SM depresson fantasy is another.
A dear friend and fellow modeler who has since passed was craftsman kit builder of the highest order. His layout, perserved by his family, features many FSM kits. And while he modeled the 30's, his "style" was much more realistic. His FSM kits look like buildings that are not perfect, but are in reasonable condition, and actually have paint on them.......
One other thing, you are a better man than me if you can watch any of those model train videos on YouTube.....
Sheldon
PennsyLou John-NYBW I just checked out the FSM offerings on ebay and found page after page of items with two things in common. All are outrageously priced and all have 0 bids. There are a few that are listed as Buy It Now but they don't seem to be getting much action either. I get that when a company goes out of business, the price on their merchandise will get a boost. It's supply and demand and with the company no longer making the product supply is very limited. However, that doesn't boost the demand for these items. Maybe if these sellers continue to list these items indefinitely they will eventually get their asking price, but I wouldn't count on it. This is not just for FSM kits. Just like everything else on EBay there are two types of sellers - those that think they should get a certain price for their priceless "collectables" and those who actually want to sell something. The former is probably about 90% of the sellers - look at most of the model railroad items "ending soonest" - perhaps 10% even have a single bid. A couple weeks back there was a collection of FSM kits put up with starting bids at $15 - these all sold easily at prices between $150-300 with multiple bids (I lost out on a couple of these auctions).
I was watching an old episode of Pawn Stars. I forget what the guy was selling but the Old Man (RIP) only offered him $300 apiece for them. The guy said he had paid $1000 each for them. The Old Man responded, "That's not my problem.". Buyers don't care what a seller paid for an item or what a seller thinks he needs to get for his item. Neither makes the item more valuable to a buyer and isn't going to cause the pool of prospective buyers to pay more for it then they otherwise would have.
I have a 30 year old Rivarossi/Concor set of New York Central's Cardinal Train. It was issued in both HO and N. All Rivarossi did on the HO set was take their generic Hudson loco and heavyweight passenger cars and make them in Cardinal Red with gold trim. I think I paid around $300 for the set at the time but have found little use for it. I've considered selling it on ebay. I've seen several others doing the same the last couple of years. Several were sold in the $300-400 range. I used to the same set with an asking price north of $900. Now I'm seeing one offered for $500. I don't know if it is the same seller who has come down in price but he's still up against a couple sellers offering theirs for $300. Just because something is old doesn't make it more valuable. What drives up price is when there is high demand and low supply. There is a limited supply of this trainset but there seems to be an equally low demand.
SeeYou190 ATLANTIC CENTRAL One other thing, you are a better man than me if you can watch any of those model train videos on YouTube. I have a very hard time with YouTube model railroading videos. There are a couple of good ones out there. The guy that goes by "asd asx" has some good watchable videos. I watched quite a few of his craftman kit builds after a suggestion in this thread. Our own Harrison also does a very good job making watchable videos. 99% of model railroading videos (and all YouTube videos for that matter) I find completely unwatchable. Editing is important, and most people do not seem to understand that. -Kevin
ATLANTIC CENTRAL One other thing, you are a better man than me if you can watch any of those model train videos on YouTube.
I have a very hard time with YouTube model railroading videos. There are a couple of good ones out there.
The guy that goes by "asd asx" has some good watchable videos. I watched quite a few of his craftman kit builds after a suggestion in this thread.
Our own Harrison also does a very good job making watchable videos.
99% of model railroading videos (and all YouTube videos for that matter) I find completely unwatchable.
Editing is important, and most people do not seem to understand that.
I don't know if it is 99% but there are lot of why-bother videos posted. I have seen a few very interesting ones but most aren't. Too many are of some guy who just bought a new loco and plopped it onto his partially scenicked layout and run it a short distance just to show it off. Snoozer.
While looking at FSM kits on ebay, I see quite a few FOS kits. All the ones I've come across are very small structures similar in style to the old FSM kits. Did FOS buy out FSM's castings when George Selios retired? I'm trying to figure out why their products would come up in a search for FSM kits.
As far a rarity goes, I beleive the new owner aquired full rights to the company (I know he got parts and peices of kits and the molds for the castings) which means he could reproduce something similar if not an exact copy of the kits.
But in genewral there are not as many interested in kits period and the more complex the kit, the less intrest in gerneral. I used to be a kit builder only, but for my current layout I needed a signal tower, had a broken one that I used for a standin but had the same as a kit I picked up somewhere. Built it and weathered it and liked it so much I will never build a kit for that spot. It looks just as good as aq kit, but then I built it as fairly well maintained, might have been different if I wanted a realy weathered or derelict.