Buy'em..sell'em; it's all good. In the 80+ year history of buying & selling used & NOS trains, they rarely brought more than the original MSRP. It was only in the late 70's thru about 2000 that the price bubble inflated for them. That was because the baby boomers who drooled over the catalogs in the 50's grew up and found out that Lionel was still making trains and that there were train shows where they could see again all the goodies they had lusted over in the catalogs when they were kids. 'Katie Bar The Door' the rush was on. 'Forget the mortgage and the new fridge; the kids new shoes can wait'. I think quite a few marriages were strained by the 'hobby' during that time. Anyway,the bubble has deflated so the guys who didn't go wild then can now pick up some nice items at affordable prices. I like to buy used excellent condition stuff on e-Bay. I don't want new in the box trains that have never been run..who knows if it even runs. Postwar, MPC, LTI and Lionel LLC up to the move to China is fair game in the hunt and an auction on e-Bay is a great place to find bargains. It's a buyers market because there have been so many trains made in the past 25 years that the market is flooded. The makers have to keep pushing the envelope on technology because if they stop they'll die. I do think the days of Postwar Reissues has run it's course, and it is long overdue. So now there has to be more 'wow' factor to a new offering or it just won't get bought. I love to see steam blasting out of a whistle as she blows but it's not worth $1200 to me so the downturn in prices for modern trains is a blessing..except for one thing. I'm gettin' too many trains. Time to quit buying but it was fun. I plan to keep 'em till I die and my last request is to put my ashes in a hopper car & run me around the layout.
Nuff Said...
