@Prr7688 posted:Some things I am curious about:
- Did you attend as a TCA member or a guest?
- I attended my first York as a guest of a friend. Joined TCA shortly thereafter.
- Are used items priced better than they are on ebay/stout/etc.?
- In general, yes, if only because you are already there and don't have to pay shipping. Of course, you may be paying for gas, lodging, meals that you would not be if you shopped ebay.
- How well are modern Lionel/MTH/Atlas items represented in the show?
- Oodles.
- Do bandit meets present better/different/special deals... or are they just an opportunity for people to sell stuff without having a table in the York meet itself?
- I would say the bandit meets, even today, compare favorably to most train shows, just not to the TCA York show. Would I stay an extra night in a hotel just to go to them? No, but I would happily burn a day getting there and back. The bandit meets do seem to have a higher concentration of really nice postwar and prewar than the main show, and less of the newest stuff.
- Which day presents the best deals?
- Each day is different. Being there in time for the National Anthem on Thursday gets you first crack at the tables with motivated sellers. Being there late in the afternoon on Friday gives you some leverage as a buyer, since dealers know there will be fewer in attendance on Saturday. I have never attended Saturday, but was always told that you can make a sweet deal then...assuming the thing you want isn't already packed up.
- Is everything picked-over by the time Saturday comes around?
- Does anyone come with a "shopping list" of specific things that you are looking for?
- Definitely. My first few trips, I wrote everything down that I wanted to be sure to find, but ended up buying lots not on the list
- How diverse/ wide-ranging are the items that are being sold? - Are they more common items or are they items that are not regularly seen on the second hand market?
- Anything and everything. "Rarity" is a strange concept at York. I remember, one year, I was looking high and low for a particular caboose... modern production, somewhat limited, but certainly not rare. I ended up buying one thru the OGR for-sale forum because I couldn't find one at York. Another year, I decided I needed a certain club boxcar, according to Greenberg's super rare and impossible to locate. I saw four of them in one day, and purchased one for a very, very reasonable price. Truthfully, I think it is impossible to handicap the likelihood of seeing something: it has to do with which hall you happen to start in, how good your eyes are, whether or not you remembered that you were supposed to be looking for it at the time you were staring right at the thing... It always ends up being a surprise, and that's one of the best things about the experience.
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