sell/purchase

 There have been a few purchases that I wondered about, soon after the purchase.

 There have been many times that I regretted selling something. A Toys ‘R Us exclusive Lionel set, with giraffe car was one I wish I had kept. Some other trains and toys that I miss. But the worst was a go-kart, with a fiberglass Jeep Scrambler body on it. I had just gotten a motorcycle, and felt I needed the garage space. I have been kicking myself for 11 years over that sale.

one of my first purchases about 30 years ago when I first got into this hobby was what I thought was a 

1954 Postwar Lionel 6417-25 PRR N5C Porthole Caboose.

the dealer had $40 on it, I asked if he would take $30. He hesitated for a min and then said sure.

about a year later after I had my feet wet and was more into the hobby, after close inspection found out

that caboose was created out of a parts box, because there were two different trucks on that caboose

One of our first purchases at a train show was a Postwar steam engine from a guy touting his TCA membership via badges and patches that he said smoked great and whistled well. There wasn't a test track at the show so we purchased it and took it home. It did run except no smoke, no whistle.

Took the boiler off and the smoke pellet residue was like a rock completely to the unit top. The whistle had no brushes or springs in it. Luckily a good friend assisted in replacing and repairing items as needed to get it functioning. Still wondering to this day how those features mystically worked for him.

Popi posted:

Ya ever buy something that at a later date you wish you had not bought.

And on the other hand have you ever sold something, only to wish you had it back???

Many, many times!!

BobbyD posted: ...snip...

Still wondering to this day how those features mystically worked for him.

They did.........................when new!

Yes and yes 

  All 4 of my diesel switchers. I kinda knew myself better, but I was desperate for variety and wasn't finding anything else but switching diesels locally 

   I don't miss what I sold too bad. A sound of steam C&O 4-4-2 was no great loss.  I sold it because I was asked to. Wanting to promote O (especially with the new neighbor, I agreed as long as I had the option for a buy back at cost.

 I sent over a 50w transformer and an 3x8 oval of track a day or so later.

  A week o later it was on a dealers shelf for 3 times my selling price and the neighbor was running new HO 

  It took a while to pull that profit from his pocket again but I slowly evened the score on the "fatherless idjit" before he moved  

   I sold a Tuscan MPC GG-1... I'm not a fan of that later shade of tuscan (like a primer). My K-line is nicer. (too brown, but nicer & matches the Broadway Limiteds)

  My biggest oops was about 10 years ago with a Marx CV I thought I didn't care about.

  I traded it as part of a deal with transformer work for a DT&I SW and an AF 18b transformer. 

  A while later I was just plain bummed it was gone, and so I tried to find it. The local wheeler-dealer guy had saved it for me. He said he thought I was making a mistake. I bought it back for the same price I sold it for... so I bought another milkcar I didn't need from him  

  He always had too many milk cars back then and complained it was feast or famine on selling them...and everone was full.  But last time we talked he was calling me for parts for them; regretting the sales? (He never picked up the mech though?? ....I got my Marx back and a bonus friend so I'm glad I did it; but still... that regret stuff sure is bitter

These would be an absolute "YES!!"

Guys...had to edit and delete non-train/hobby related posts here....keep it on the intended topic....

thanks,

Are you on here 24/7?

mlavender480 posted:

Are you on here 24/7?

Thank heavens he is, what with some of the crap that gets posted!

Hot Water posted:

mlavender480 posted:

Are you on here 24/7?

Thank heavens he is, what with some of the crap that gets posted!

lol!

Sold anything I later regretted; no.  Bought something I later regretted; oh heck yeah!

Exhibit number one would be a Lionel Frisco set I picked up at a train show about 8-10 years ago.  Seemed like a great idea with a great price so I snapped it up.  I’ve never run anything other the engine and caboose and can’t recollect even having them on my layout in the past four years.  🤔

Curt

Popi posted:

Ya ever buy something train related that at a later date you wish you had not bought.

And on the other hand have you ever sold something train related, only to wish you had it back???

Yes & yes, and then I moved on since there was nothing to be done about it.

Yes & No.  Lots of stuff I regret buying.  Never regret selling because I only sell the stuff I regret buying!  I've only been in the hobby a year.  I bought a conventional engine right when I started because I thought it looked cool.  I regretted it soon thereafter.  I sold it since (and a few other things) and never regretted it.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the NASCAR train and the Jimmie Johnson add-on set, but they looked real good at half price.

Popi posted:

Ya ever buy something train related that at a later date you wish you had not bought.

And on the other hand have you ever sold something train related, only to wish you had it back???

Yes and yes.

VistaDomeScott posted:

These would be an absolute "YES!!"

 Vistadomescott, was your yes a negative or positive to the turbotrain?  I was thinking of finding a set.

When I was in college I bought a "Minty" #675 from a train store in West 45th in Manhattan.  Amazing condition for it's age... even more amazing, the black paint started to come off on my hands on the train ride home.  The "paint" smelled suspiciously like shoe polish.

Jon

When my father and I were new to the hobby we bought a bunch of random stuff that really didn't go together, even for my postwar/traditional focus.  Ended up selling a bunch of cheap cars and a couple engines some years ago as I whittled down to what I wanted.

More recently I got a set of K-line PRR interurbans. I had always wanted them, but the photos on ebay didn't show the box and nothing to scale them against.  So when I got them, I found out they were the 18" versions, not the 15" I had wanted.  While the 18" ones are nice, they're just too big for my limited size layout.  So they sit until I get around to selling them.

Some I regret selling, but I had no control over.  Again, when my father and I were young in the hobby, a friend of my uncle's asked us to help sell his childhood trains (about 6 or 8 paper boxes worth of Lionel Postwar) on ebay for a fee or we could just give him $2000 for the lot.  It would have been a gamble for us as we didn't have anything to go off of except the Greenburg guide and ebay was still relatively new, not to mention we probably didn't have the money just lying around.  So we said we'd just help him out.

Well, the first engine was the New Haven F3 AB set, a couple hundred bucks according to Greenburg.  Much to our surprise it went for over $4300 because it had the master carton.  So after that the guy thinks everything he had was gold and wouldn't let us make an offer on anything, everything had to go up for sale.  In all fairness, he did have a N&W J (missing a few cosmetics, but ran well), but other than that common stuff as I recall.  In the end he gave my dad a couple hundred bucks for his effort and I got a crane car and a 1033 transformer that wouldn't sell.  The guy ended up passing away unexpectedly 6 months later.  I did have about a month of "testing" items on my layout as we sold them, but would have liked to have bought that J.....