Storage Units

Our Empire and Eastern Div modular layout is stored between shows in a storage unit, its clean about 100. per month and keeps the clubs RR and equipment centrally located and puts no burden on membership to store all or part of the club layout, access is only thru club officers only.

Am I missing something or are we not making proper use of storage units? Or are we keeping it too close to our homes in basements and attics?

 

Mike Maurice

Probably the latter as the monthly storage fee and the threat of non payment with the confiscation of your stuff can get really high really fast!

IT's a hobby. If one has to rent a storage unit to store your model rr stuff [other than a club] than you probably it's sign that you have too much stuff!

Reportedly those storage unit auctions are salted for the shows.

At any rate, the auctions are for abandoned storage units.

What train nut would abandon their trains?

I am not sure why no one has ever come accross a stash of trains. But as said before we would never want to leave them unattended or in that type of envioroment. But I once was given the chance to buy some contnets of a storage locker auction. It was a large one 15x30 or somthing like that. They had slot cars, a few trains and 1000,s of hot wheels. New and old. If I had to guess there was 10,000 hot wheels at least. My guess it was someone that was a dealer and just got behind. But there was a lot of money there. But I cant see paying storage to store a collectable unless in temporay. But seeing some of the stuff people put away I cant believe they didnt come back for it..

When we moved 8 years ago we put most of our household items in a storage unit till the sale was final but....My train stuff never left my site and was the last of our STUFF to get moved out of the old house and straight into the new place!

I always wanted to know why the owners of the storage lots never cherry pick the lockers before turning them over to be auctioned? Or maybe they do, leaving just enough to entice would be moguls to buy up the leftovers. I met with Marty from Ma&Pa a couple times at his storage locker to pick up a purchase but we know his inventory was auctioned off at an auction house not at the storage lot so maybe it depends on the situation like who you owe to and how much of a hassle it would be for the owners to cherry pick and sell of the cream of the crop so to speak.

I always wondered how PO'ed someone would be to get into a bidding war over a locker full of train boxes only to find out they were empty, not that I would ever do something like that.... Would make for an interesting episode of Storage Wars!

Jerry

Jerry

Jerry,

And how! With that last observation. I bet you could do a spin off on that issue alone!

Mike Maurice

All my box's (empty) are kept in a storage unit because of no room at home. I also keep all my Christmas decorations that are there also. 

David I could just see it now, they cut your locker open and everyone starts talking about all the trains there are and how much these things could be worth. They get into a frenzied bidding war and:

Dave Hester..........Is sitting comfortably with a $2300 profit on his living room locker

Barry Weiss...........Pockects $1800 on his billiards set

Brandy and Jarrod..Didn't find a locker they liked

And Daryll Sheets....Get's derailed by a bunch of empty boxes to the tune of

-$10000

Jerry

The bulk of my Lionel collection is stacked to the ceiling, mostly in numbered foot lockers, in a 5x10 alarmed, climate-controlled storage unit.  Started as a temporary measure during a heavy accumulation phase (hate living in clutter, attic gets too hot, don't have a basement and don't like backyard storage buildings).  Dragged it all out and brought it home once, but my wife encouraged me to put it back, so I made an inventory map to facilitate retrieval and complied with her wish.  Ten years and counting, but I religiously pay the rent annually, for a discount but also out of fear I might forget and make someone else very happy.  It's still a royal pain when what I want is not at the front of the storage unit.  Swore to myself I was going to get rid of it all, but adult offspring said they wanted it.  Still waiting for them to take it. 

Hi All,

My 30 year collection is spread out over 3 climate controlled storage units. I, like hobby-go-lucky have no basement or attic and no train room at the moment. When I started collecting O Scale I created a spread sheet with documenting item number, manufacture, description and cost. My storage units are set up on an auto draft payment with 1 specific credit card to track when payment is made. I also receive a discount for paying 1 year at a time. I update my spread sheets with every purchase and email a copy to my attorney to keep on file. If anything ever happens to me his directions are to contact my son with all of the info. My son knows the location of the units. We are in the process of finalizing drawings to add a 20' by 40' addition onto our home which would give me a 20' by 60' train room on the second floor. After the addition is complete I plan on constructing an around the wall layout with a center peninsula and moving the majority of my collection back to our home. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Mark A Zeigler

A long time ago I spent an entire day at a storage locker auction hoping to win a Lionel GG-1. At this particular auction, they were selling the contents as either individual items, or small lots. Everything could be inspected. Not at all like the auctions they show on T.V.

I didn't win.

I briefly had most of my trains in air conditioned storage lockers twice.

Once was when we moved. I did not want the movers handling my trains and a few other difficult to replace items like the head of my pinball machine. (break the backglass and what do you have?) My wife put some stuff in the unit too.

The second time was when we remodeled our kitchen.

My trains were in an area where then contractors needed to work, so I moved them to a storage unit.

Standard gage, G gage and HO trains have been found in the storage unit shows, but not very often. I also saw Buddy-L trains once.

Like Bill (ogaugenut) my wife and I have plans of selling the house and travelling when I retire (eight more years!). 

In our case, we hope to spend a couple of months living in Europe then fulltime in an RV across the U.S. until we get tired of doing so. 

We have decided that all of my trains, her craft stuff, and some other things that are important to us will go into climate controlled storage until we are ready to buy a brick & stick house again.  While I will miss my trains, I won't miss spending my weekends working on the house!