Brass Price Guides?

Study eBay.  Prices are about half on older 2-rail brass.

This site has a guide of currect prices.   It does not cover everything ever made, but is pretty broad on both old and new brass.   

 

http://www.brasstrains.com/brassguide

 

I find ebay alone to be misleading.    The first time an item comes up it may command a high price because 2 or 3 people want it.   Then a few weeks later a second one will come up and get no bids or very low ones.    

 

I think a better indicator is to attend a few O Scale shows and study the prices for what you are interested in.     Generally the prices from show to show tend to be consistent.    They do go down or up as time goes on based on current market and popularity.

Unfortunately, other than following ebay or large brass retailers like Brasstrains or going to shows it's not easy to gauge worth of trains.

 

BUT if you're selling any Pacific Limited NYC steel boxcars I'm paying top dollar...

I find ebay alone to be misleading.    The first time an item comes up it may command a high price because 2 or 3 people want it.   Then a few weeks later a second one will come up and get no bids or very low ones.    

 

 Yeah - don't just watch one auction and assume the price is set.  Watch about ten of them and you will get an idea.  Train shows are good, but since they are typically two days, you need to know the market before you go - unless you are just going to study the market.  Even then, you need to watch the sales - often the tagged price is not the sale price.

Bob, it looks like you called it. Judging by the bay and Brasstrains prices are about half of what these cost new and that is just the dollar amount not figuring inflation which makes more like a quarter of what they cost. 

 

Pete

You can watch stuff on eBay and see prices all over the map.  You can go to shows & meets religiously and find that the prices vary from day to day and from aisle to aisle - a $120 car is $50 the next aisle over and the $120 car on Fri is $60 on Sun.  There is no authoritative price guide other than your own efforts to be an educated consumer and follow the markets in all ways available over time.

 

Otherwise, trying to establish a "guide" is akin to trying to throw a watermelon through the open doors of a boxcar moving at 60 mph parallel to you from 50 yards away expecting it to arrive safely on the other side.....

Pete,

pare there particular models you are seeking pricing on?

Brad, the stuff I was thinking of selling is all Southern Pacific HO brass steam. Most all was offered from the '50s to early '80s. I have found a few of the exact items but have seen enough of the pricing to know where I stand with these. I may offer them on the forum at some point but right now just planning to take them to a local show.

 

Pete

Well, if you are a seller, my experience is that eBay brings the best prices on average.  I start with $1.99, and before they rearranged the O Scale categories, I got embarrassingly high prices for what I considered junk.

 

If I wanted to buy stuff for cheap, I would go to a show.

 

If you want to sell here, you have to fix a price.  I tried it once, thinking I could entertain offers, and made some serious enemies.  My fault, for not reading the rules.

I'm trying to help Brass Trains-been sending pictures for the models without them in their catalog.

 

It's a big help when I'm searching for a model to see it in their Brass Guide, at least to me!

 

My collection is small but I know the pictures will help others.

86t,

 

i too too have sent numerous images and corrections to dan glasure and staff.    They provide great service, excellent images and a helpful resource with their guide.

That is interesting. Brasstrains never replies to my inquiry or submissions. They end up in the blackhole of Internet universe. But then my images kind of suck. That's likely the reason.

HO is somewhat of a different animal versus O.

I too have a smallish HO brass collection of better freight cars and cabins to sell and have been trying to find current pricing.    It takes a lot of googling since HO has much more of a base.  Some of the items have held value quite well but there are so many more sellers of HO brass that you pretty much need to catalog as many recent sale values from the net or shows and go from there. 

 

If it were SP and you live in the are where there are local SP themed shows I would go to modelers/historical society shows and see what the models fetch there.

Well, I haven't heard back either, so maybe they chose not to use them.  Who knows...

 

Erik, I doubt it's the quality of your pictures! 

I call and ask for Dan---