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Selling trains yourself (as with e-Bay) is time-consuming -- photographing every piece, writing descriptive text, posting the listings on line, monitoring the auction process, packing and shipping the stuff to winning bidders, dealing with "bottom feeders" who may offer bids that are an insult to you, and handling an occasional discontented bidder or buyer.

An auction house would do all that work for you -- for a fee. Expect to get about 33% of current market value from an auction house, such as Stout Auctions. They'll drive to your location and pick it all up. After the auction sale is done, they'll send a check. Because of my medical situation, I decided to sell my entire Rock Island O-gauge collection through Stout -- to spare my wife/widow the agony of the transaction.  The Stout team sold eight pages of inventory in a weekend!

Afterwards, my medical issues cleared and (with 20/20 hindsight) my decision to sell may have been somewhat premature. But the "de-collecting" would need to be done sooner or later.

Mike Mottler   LCCA 12394
mottlerm@gmail.com

 

I am about to find out.  I have had enough disappointment in new O-gauge equipment and a lack of a commitment to have parts for the new engines.  I have been trying to get parts for new 21" passenger cars for five months.  I am going back to HO.  Of the 130 HO engines I purchased, only two did not work when I received them. One I fixed, and the other was DOA with no hope of resuscitation or resurrection.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

I will be selling on Ebay as (john.rowlen)  No hiding my name from buyers.  Ebays structure of accounting and payments is excellent in helping the seller keep sales organized.  The Ebay protection is good for buyers, offering protection from shipping damage and misrepresentation of items.  "Nobody makes money buying and selling trains today."  My personal collection was fun to create.  Selling it may take time. 

After a while without touching my trains I started a few weeks ago to pack them up.  I was thinking a garage sale for trains only.  I don't want to mail stuff and I don't want to pay eBay a fee.  They are taking up a fourth bedroom in my home and it is time to move on.  I was thinking of putting up 5 or 6 tables in my garage stacking everything on top and posting on here and other places advertising the sale.  When people come I will have a transformer and small circle to test accessories or trains.  Here is the post I started a while back - https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...train-bedroom?page=1

I found selling off my fast track [& some cars] of which I had several hundred linear feet and somewhere in the teens of switches to be ... Kinda fun. I used the ogr, eBay and online retailers to guess at a price. I did not sweat the "profits". I was more interested in finding good homes etc... I got quite good at guessing shipping and making boxes... From time to time I even would beat a flat rate box. Once or twice I cut some slack on shipping to the buyer because that's what I wanted to do... And eventually it was all gone. I tried to price it to get interest right away. The languishing ad .... languishes.


 

Last edited by Severn

That a good topic.  I have a relatively small collection that I may have put 50-60,000.00 into.  Even if my heirs could get say 10,000.00 out of it, its is still a good chunk of change.  The problem is they know nothing about trains except they are fun to watch and run.  So I have given them a list of a couple places that will come give them at least a decent amount and handle the trains for them rather then guessing at what to do and getting nothing for them.  

That's all you need to do is give them some choices to contact and explain that those places have to make money too and only will give them a third or so of what they are worth.

I once saw a neighbor's wife who had all these Century Club II sets, mint unopened, just throw them in the garbage because he had no idea they were anything but toys and did not know where to take them , so I gave her one of the hobby shop names to take them to and she got some nice change for them (she gave me a set of my choice for helping her which was nice)

Luckily I have 2 hobby shops that buy trains in my area of the country.  But give them a list in order of who they should contact in case some places are no longer around when you move on from this world.

 

 

John Rowlen posted:

I am about to find out.  I have had enough disappointment in new O-gauge equipment and a lack of a commitment to have parts for the new engines.  I have been trying to get parts for new 21" passenger cars for five months.  I am going back to HO.  Of the 130 HO engines I purchased, only two did not work when I received them. One I fixed, and the other was DOA with no hope of resuscitation or resurrection.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

I will be selling on Ebay as (john.rowlen)  No hiding my name from buyers.  Ebays structure of accounting and payments is excellent in helping the seller keep sales organized.  The Ebay protection is good for buyers, offering protection from shipping damage and misrepresentation of items.  "Nobody makes money buying and selling trains today."  My personal collection was fun to create.  Selling it may take time. 

John, sad to see you sell yours; if you have any sealed Big Boys, I would be interested in one: RickM46@live.com

I recently read an article about a train collection owned by a gentleman named Dennis Chandler who had amassed the largest Lionel collection perhaps in the world.  To make a long story short it was purchased by a museum in Painesville, Ohio.  They will build a museum to handle and display it.  They apparently purchased it for about one fifth the estimated value.  I suspect that was because he wanted the collection to remain together.  I also remember reading about someone several years ago that wanted to donate his collection to a train museum if they would promise to keep it together.  They declined.

My point here.  Enjoy your trains.  If I could take them with me I would.  However my instructions to the family are to put me in the nearest dumpster when I die because at that point I don't care.

I collect.  I don't have time to build a layout, maybe later.  I have, in my mind, built a very nice collection of Weaver, Williams and MTH.  Compared to the amount of product out there it is not important and with enough money and a little effort I could duplicate it within a few months.  At least one of my sons will want the trains and that is fine with me.  There is other stuff for the other kids.  Anyone want a collection of three to four hundred electric shavers?  Or, maybe you are curious just how many little hand held TV's were produced before they were made obsolete by cell phones.  Trust me, a lot!

If the end goal is the wind up with the most money and ones time spent is not important then ebay is the only real answer.  The largest number of possible buyers will see the product and determine just how special your years of fun is worth.

Mike H Mottler posted:

Selling trains yourself (as with e-Bay) is time-consuming -- photographing every piece, writing descriptive text, posting the listings on line, monitoring the auction process, packing and shipping the stuff to winning bidders, dealing with "bottom feeders" who may offer bids that are an insult to you, and handling an occasional discontented bidder or buyer.

An auction house would do all that work for you -- for a fee. Expect to get about 33% of current market value from an auction house, such as Stout Auctions. They'll drive to your location and pick it all up. After the auction sale is done, they'll send a check. Because of my medical situation, I decided to sell my entire Rock Island O-gauge collection through Stout -- to spare my wife/widow the agony of the transaction.  The Stout team sold eight pages of inventory in a weekend!

Afterwards, my medical issues cleared and (with 20/20 hindsight) my decision to sell may have been somewhat premature. But the "de-collecting" would need to be done sooner or later.

Mike Mottler   LCCA 12394
mottlerm@gmail.com

 

Good breakdown Mike.

So you get about 25% of purchase price. If it was bought for $1,000 new and now it is worth $750 a third is $250. Guessing local stores would give you only between 10% and 15% IF you could get them to purchase them?

Wow!

Who would leave a complicated mess for their loved ones to sort out and deal with?

If one’s trains could bring income to our families giving them some guidance on how to make that happen is the least we should do. 

Why advise having a widow become a train expert and list them on eBay, would you do the same if she were a doll collector, or had antique sewing machines? I doubt it. Yes, there is more money to be made but in your wife’s grief is this how you think she should mourn your passing — dealing with identifying, pricing, selling, and shipping your trains. 

There are auction houses who will take care of this, leave an inventory and the contact data in with your estate plans. Easy. 

Also, seriously, don’t be a self centered arse when it comes to what happens when you die, have a plan, have all the insurance, banking, and relevant paperwork in a place known to your loved ones. It takes very little time and your family will be spared the trouble of sorting it out while also enduring the pain of your loss. 

We’ve been through this twice in the past few years, let me say my final memories of one family member are forever going to be negative because of the months it took us to deal with the entirety unnecessary mess they left behind. I venture none of us truly want our wives or children to remember us as having caused them pain and suffering from the grave. 

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