>>> ... what cars a manufacturer has
the best chance of selling.
> Santa Fe has a couple of
niche cars that might sell as well
Methinks steam/transition era modelers are
running out of prototypes that were in
wide deployment, that have not yet
been produced in HO scale! Is that an accurate
statement?
We're
definitely missing one very important "niche" car -- the UTLX X-3 tank
cars! IMO that is.
Post-1960 modelers on the other hand can cite dozens
of cars for which there are either
only very poor models, or no models at
all. Yet manufacturers keep cranking out oddball
"signature" cars in
plastic that really confounds me, unless what sells is cars that are
so
obviously different than other cars that the non-RPM buyers will snap
them up just to jazz
up their freight trains. Sheer speculation on my
part.
The other day I made an overview examination of Ebay HO
auctions -- Some notes:
1. The number of Ebay HO auctions has
tripled (over 50,000 currently) from 5-6 years ago.
For
many years (about 10) the number was steadily at 18,000-20,000. And if you
look at
the "Buy It Now" stuff (I generally don't
bother) the number is astounding -- 195,000+
2. Thousands of freight
car auctions receive no bids at all. It's especially easy to find
unsold
auctions of "custom decorated" cars from Bev Bel
and many other decorators. Evidently
not many people are
interested in this stuff anymore. Has everyone gone over to the RPM
side?
Or is everyone just broke or doesn't need any more
"stuff"?
3. Not all brass sells well, but some brass holds up very
well. But in general prices are down 20-30%
compared to
10 years ago, with some exceptions: Overald brass truss bridges sell for a
premium.
I saw an Overland UP "coal turbine" that sold
for $5,000! Well painted, older high quality brass
freight
cars sell at very good (higher than MSRP) prices
-- regardless of the accuracy of the paint jobs.
Brass
passenger cars of all brands except W&R have been murdered by the
relentless onslaught of
Walthers cars. (Walthers hasn't
done any NP trains yet.) I'm watching a Wasatch passenger
car
auction that is at $50 now -- less than the price of
a Walthers plastic model.
4. Slides and negatives (especially freight
cars!) seem to sell for big money if they are of high
quality
and rare (hard to find). I don't know WHY
since no one is painting or decaling any more! :-)
I sure wouldn't want
to be in the HO scale freight car business now. I really appreciate
Tangent and
the other manufacturers who continue to bring out
excellent new products. And Microscale has been
continuing to crank
out new sets, bless them.
Tim O'Connor
