Boxes are getting me down

This topic comes up from time to time. I keep ALL of my boxes and store only the empty boxes in the attic in Husky trash bags. Never had a problem and they are out of the way. 

Attic certainly before basement.

Attic in trash bags.

Solves two problems:

1- space in the basement

2- hiding the empties from the CEO

Bill DeBrooke posted:

Attic certainly before basement.

I agree, Bill.  My 2026 and its accompanying cars arrived at Christmas, 1951, and between Christmases, they were all kept in my parents' attic until I reclaimed them in the mid-Seventies.  The cardboard (and the rolling stock) were all undamaged.

My parents' house was in Pennsylvania, where summer humidity can give the tropics a run for their money.

--John

Attic

I don’t have room to store all the boxes. Honestly, I don't think having  boxes for items results in easier or more profitable sales when/if you do that. I save boxes for the more expensive items (mostly engines) and pitch the rest. It’s sort of a gamble, I guess. 

I wouldn’t get hung up over saving boxes, though. If you have the room, fine; if not, let them go.  I sell stuff on Ebay and don’t notice any reluctance to purchase my offerings without boxes if the price is right.

I trash all the boxes except for engines and passenger cars.  Boxes take up space that I don't have.

Yes, I will probably get less for items without boxes when I sell them but I don't really care.  My goal is to enjoy my trains now and not to face a hoarder's rats nest of boxes every time I enter the train room.  NH Joe

What I did was to store my boxes in the three foot high space over my bed room celling. You can cut an access trap door through the celling or build cabinet doors through the sky light soffit in the bathroom, as I did.

You will need a ladder to get to them and I stored them in heavy duty builders trash bags and sealed all with duct tape. Use a marker to label each bag and record the contents along with each bags location in the celling in a log book.

Or you can just get the dumpster!   What ever is more fun.

I broke mine down and used contractor size plastic garbage bags. The really nice scale detailed cars are still in their original boxes. The rest are in plastic under-bed storage tubs.

Dave Warburton posted:

I don’t have room to store all the boxes. Honestly, I don't think having  boxes for items results in easier or more profitable sales when/if you do that. I save boxes for the more expensive items (mostly engines) and pitch the rest. It’s sort of a gamble, I guess. 

I wouldn’t get hung up over saving boxes, though. If you have the room, fine; if not, let them go.  I sell stuff on Ebay and don’t notice any reluctance to purchase my offerings without boxes if the price is right.

Having an item in its original  box - many times enhances its "sale ability".  I first learned that boxes have value the time I sold a set in separate pieces - only to have a guy offer me nice bucks for the set box I was about to trash.  Also, consider that my ex-wife once told my children that: "your dad never met a box he would not have a home for.  So, go figure!

Keep the boxes, buy a dehumidifier for your basement, good suggestions to save space from several above. Many of us have changing interests and it seems every few months I want to sell something and start searching for the box. That is why mine are on shelves in the basement, grouped by manufacturers.

How can you have so many items that the boxes would be a problem?

These O gauge and O scale items are expensive and therefore limited in amount produced.

Andrew

 

I keep ALL of my boxes and store only the empty boxes in the attic in Husky trash bags. 

I like this approach - the boxes are all packed up and conveniently ready for disposal when the time comes.

Long ago I quit saving boxes for rolling stock except for engines and quality passenger cars.  I never pay extra for an item with a box.  I think most rolling stock ships better without the original box, engines being the exception. The saved boxes are in the attic above the garage. 

I store them between the floor joist in basement above the layout.  Just cut and screw lath between joists, holds up boxes nicely.  Great for engines with shippers.

falconservice posted:

How can you have so many items that the boxes would be a problem?

These O gauge and O scale items are expensive and therefore limited in amount produced.

Andrew

You must be new to 3RO.

As to being "expensive" and "limited" - they are expensive mostly when new, and it's mostly the locos; after that, the majority are just like used autos (as it should be). They may be "limited", but that can still mean thousands of an item produced, multiplied by hundreds - thousands - of individual items produced by each company, times decades of business done....times millions (net) of customers times multiple transactions per customer over those decades....

Yeah, boxes - like locusts.

Mostly, with me, once a piece of rolling stock is out of the box, the box goes. Locos and sets, no. To the attic. I do not store equipment in the attic, just boxes.

My layout is 500 sq ft it creates a huge out of sight storage area underneath. Plenty of room to store all my boxes

We have the same problem.  Hundreds of empty boxes and no place to safely store them.  Plugging up the whole layout.  Have to move dozens every time I need to access anything under the layout. HUGE PIA. 

There is a different approach to this problem.  Everyone knows that their trains are worth more if they are in the original box when it is time to sell.  Therefore, instead of dealing with all the current problems discussed on this site involving non working, wrong paint, bad sound, I have decided to throw out the trains and keep the boxes.  Now all those guys that need boxes when they go to sell can come to my 'boxes are us' store.

Think I am joking?  Well maybe.