I agree with you, Corey.

Ebay, for all its faults, is a way to reach a huge number of buyers. It's very
difficult to dispose of large collections in a single market, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN.
I know people who have been buying and selling collections since the 1970's - all
that stuff at train shows comes from somewhere, after all. It's been a very steady
source of income for all of the train clubs I've belonged to.

I agree model trains are NOT an investment! And many people do seem to have crazy
ideas about the value of their toys. But if you price things reasonably, it seems
to move. Of all the items I've ever tried to sell on Ebay, I think only one item
ever failed to sell. And I sure don't make a net profit, but so what? Some one
else gets a model, and I have one less model taking up space.

Assessing the NUMBER of modelers isn't as easy as it used to be. People just used
to count the number of Model Railroader subscribers, or NMRA members. But I think
even those numbers vastly underestimated how many folks buy "toy trains". And don't
forget that many Europeans (and other non-North Americans) like American trains!
I've shipped models to Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary - just in the past year.
And of all the trains I've sold, I think maybe 3-4% are sold to people I know from
RPM meets or Yahoo groups or Facebook. In other words, more than 95% are people I
would never meet or know about without Ebay.

Tim O'Connor

P.S. I'm actually more concerned about preserving INFORMATION than models. I have
amassed huge amounts of DIGITAL files (pictures, PDF's, spreadsheets, emails and notes
and databases) and I love to share it all freely with as many people as possible. I
think if we all share (and many people have shared THOUSANDS of these files, and in
return I have shared THOUSANDS of my own photo scans and other files) then we can at
least feel that INFORMATION is being passed down to future modelers and rail buffs.
I know of at least one GIGANTIC photo collection that has disappeared recently, possibly
forever, with innumerable negatives, slides and photos than can never be replaced.

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Corey Fischer wrote

I hold out hope for younger modelers modeling transition era and earlier periods. I myself am 24 and model 1929, I know 6 other people personally around my age and they model the 1920s-1950s. I know there are a lot of people modeling the present day, I don't get it honestly, but I think more people value things they can't experience anymore or have never been able to. I started off with a branchline billboard reefer kit, and I've never looked back. Don't worry guys, the transition period is still going strong.