... One thing I have noticed in the Standard Gauge world, is there seem to be more people getting into it. ...
And a segment of us coming into Standard Gauge nowadays has lived through the rise-and-fall of 1980's/1990's O-Gauge "collecting". Nearly EVERYTHING O-Gauge that was once valued dearly at premiums can be had today for pennies on the dollar... of course, due in large part, to a continuing treadmill of newer trains being offered year after year.
Point being... the mentality of watching formerly "prized" pieces now fetch ho-hum values today makes this group of enthusiasts much less inclined to care about highly prized pieces (or variations) in ANY part of this hobby. I could be 100% wrong on this hunch. But based on the small number of folks I've talked with about this subject, we feel the same. While we appreciate the fact that some folks have enjoyed building huge museum-caliber collections of toy trains and their many variations over the years/decades, there's only a significantly small number of enthusiasts who are willing to pay premiums for "rare variations" in these collections. And I don't see the size of that group increasing at all. In fact, it's not even staying steady... It's declining. Generally speaking, most new entrants don't care... or perhaps more accurately speaking, just aren't "in the hobby" to purely collect (at least not in the tradition sense of the word) but rather operate. So huge collections and variations of similar locomotives and rolling stock have become much less relevant.
Admittedly, we're hearing two sides of the story here. Namely, some folks who have no intention of paying premium prices for original tinplate trains... and then other folks saying demand and prices continue to be high for original Standard Gauge tinplate in excellent condition. 
Could it be possible that we're simply developing very small niches of Standard Gauge interest in what was already very much a niche market to begin with?
David
