I guess it depends on the quantity manufactured and how desirable it is for it to hold its value or even increase in value. A quantity of 10 certainly puts it in a potential rare category since there will hardly ever be any available on the secondary market.

So called collectible rolling stock from the national Train Clubs such as the LCCA is a farce. Go to auction sites such as Trainz and you can pick up these pieces for 50 to 70 percent less than what the club was selling them for.

Bill

 

Interesting post. I missed you during your brief "other life's to-dos take priority" period of not being so active. You have a good point - or what I really mean is that I was thinking about the same thing, exactly, and your discussion helped clarify a few things for me. I saw Pats Trains' and Sidetrack's offerings as was intrigued (and tempted in one case).

I don't think this is another golden age of "collectibles." I surely hope not. We have enough franklin Mints as it is. They fill that niche fine.

I do think maybe we are entering an age of automated customization, in which computerized whatever - call it Cam/Cad or smart manufacturing, can churn out small lots or unique versions of standard products as we want. We have Menards with every car individually numbered, and small lots being offered by retailers. pats Trains also offers the Black Bonnett locos he is sponsoring in small lots, 54 of this or 54 of that, etc. A savvy retailer will recognize that people will buy customized/nearly customized pieces.

Toward that end, I wonder about a machine I would think would exist, or should exist by now, a 3D 2-D printer: it would print or spit tiny paint dots onto 2D surfaces, like a laser or dot-matrix printer does on paper, but be able to do so onto a 3-D surface, using much the same technologies as 3D printers do. I imagine - I have no actually information on this - that something like this capability, perhaps lesser but a step in automated production like this, is enabling MTH's manufacturer to do this.

--------------------
Edit:
By the way, I was struck by your phrase "other life's to dos . . . " From reading past postings you have done, I believe it was intentionally phrased just like that with purpose, since you often seem to chose words carefully and exactly. Many people would have written "life's other to-dos," but your phrasing changes the meaning to to an interesting concept: we have one life the revolves around model trains, and another(s) that revolve or orbit around other realities and obligations and interests, and sometimes a person can't orbit all of those planets at once, to mix in another metaphor. Cool.

 

All I know is that Pat's Trains have been offering some special runs with the Black Bonnet which I love. I'm now waiting for two 44 Tonners due in August. (Hopefully)

 

I believe we will see more of the "special runs", particularly when they address popular interests like the Black Warbonnet theme.

The run quality has a direct bearing on the price. The higher the ticket, the lower the production number (in most cases).

Very interesting thread, David. Not surprising as you put a lot of thought into your posts.

 

In the case of the Berks offered by Pat and Steve, I think its just an effort to offer something to modelers who model lesser known roads, not necessarily aimed at collectors who buy stuff due to perceived rarity.
Tinplate or other non prototypical paint schemes are probably aimed at collectors or folks who just like colorful schemes regardless if they ever existed.
That said I believe anyone who has more trains than they can fit on the layout are collectors which I believe most all here qualify.

Pete

 

"Collectible?" yes. Will they appreciate in value? I have my doubts. Look at all the "collectible" and "Limited Edition" trains that are already on the market, and for the most part people can't give them away. For example, take a look on ebay, and there's almost always a Williams TCA 25th Anniversary Ltd. for sale, and it usually isn't for much $$.

 

I have a thing about collectibles - seems so silly to me. Some people will buy anything if you tell them it is collectible.

Years ago, on April 1, I made up a very real looking ad as if for the Franklin Mint, offered a subscription, one per quarter from the collectible series "Great Mushroom Clouds of the 20th Century" - 1:24,000 scale, glow-in-the-dark models of Trinity, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Joe-1, Bikini Atoll, etc., and put it up on the break-room bulletin board at work.

Someone actually took it down, called, and tried to order the set . . . he was very upset when he found out it was a joke.

I collect model locos just because I keep running into locos I want to have, not because I want to "collect" them.

 

I have a thing about collectibles - seems so silly to me. Some people will buy anything if you tell them it is collectible.

There's a very simple rule of thumb here.

Anything labeled as "collectable" isn't!

 

Great feedback so far guys... and I agree with much of what's been said. The predictability of collectibles has always been a wild-card so-to-speak. The stuff that's intended to be collectible seldom is. And the stuff that becomes highly collectible seems to just work out that way by happenstance.

The point I was really trying to make though was at 10 units... if you really want something, you'll need to pre-order it since 10 units will surely go fast during a pre-order window. In O-Gauge, that number might need to be up'd to 20-25 or so, which gives us a little more leeway to think about things. But 10 leaves no wiggle room to wait.

Whether the price appreciates quickly or not isn't as pertinent as actually being able to own the item at all. And with such a low production quantity, tracking re-sales would be an enormous challenge since there might not even be any re-sales on the secondary market for years or decades (unless somebody buys a second or third unit on-spec).

It's always funny to look at recent items that have remained in high demand on the O-Gauge market, such as Lionel VisionLine black Hudsons, Lionel diecast ES44 locomotives, and Lionel VisionLine Tankers w/FreightSounds. In all these cases, prices have appreciated well above the normal street-price when the products first hit the market.

I haven't been as close to the Standard Gauge market over time -- just the past couple of years or so. And the only train set I own that might be considered truly collectible is the Goliath Brute w/3 large showroom cars... all done in magnificent black. Only 50 sets were produced by the LCCA a few years ago, and I think it would sell fairly quickly at a good price. But I'm not planning to sell it any time soon. Imagine if they only produced 10 though?

David

 

It's quite possible the 20-25 units may be becoming the only way a manufacturer/importer will be able to sell a locomotive.

Using a scale Berk. as an example, the manufacturer may have a 500-unit minimum, but the importer can't sell 500 (pick a roadname), or even 100 (pick a roadname), so for a price premium, the importer may decide to paint 20 different roadnames on the side of essentially a black steam engine, sell it as a limited offer, and be able to sell the production run out.

The whole reason for the BTO system is to sell out of the production run. Using older tooling, they're competing with themselves excluding electronic upgrades. More roadnames equals more customers in a somewhat diminishing market.

Diesels with complex paint schemes will be more difficult, though using the black bonnet as an example, using the same production run as the standard red and silver only requires a different color paint. Even the masks are the same. That loco. was probably a win-win for everyone involved.

On a little bit of a side note, it's unfortunate that the technology we have today wasn't available in the 1990s-2000s when the O-gauge market was on fire. Think of what the importers could have come up with just considering 3d printing... Bachmann On30 offers some of their locomotives with optional headlights, fuel loads, and smokestacks in the box. If the 3-rail importers would have done that in the 90s, the customer would be used to it by now, and not turned off by the idea that they would have to change those options themselves.

 

I try not to view anything as collectible .If I like it and want it I buy it. My wife had a booth in an Antique Mall for several years I believe she did more for the thrill of going to auctions than profit margin.The one thing we learned for sure is that when it comes to selling timing is everything and it's only worth what someone is willing to pay.