# Best way to sell very old HO 'stuff'??



## parandyb (Mar 3, 2014)

Does anyone out there have some experience buying or selling very old HO railroad items? I have a large plastic tub full of "used" stuff I bought while a college student in the early 70's that is mostly unfinished, unstarted, or assembled kits, both rolling stock and a few locos, that are from the 1950's and in some cases I believe the 1940's. When I bought them I was a student with little discretionary income to throw at the hobby and intended to fix these up and use them to get a head start on a serious roster for a layout. Problem was that at the time I had neither the experience, skills, or proper tools to work on them so I made little progress and quickly started buying newer stuff once I had an income.

I hadn't thought about these in a long time until MR did a piece about a year ago on how bad some of this stuff was from a scale and detail perspective compared to the modern stuff. I almost got a little insulted when I saw their picture of an old flat car that was at the moment running in the middle of one of my freight drags. It made me realize that I had finally been able to use some of that stuff but a lot of it has been in that plastic tub for 30 years or so.

This is stuff like old Varney wood and metal kits with cardstock car sides, an ancient Roundhouse Goat switcher, a John English Pacific loco, an old Ulrich wood kit for a track cleaning car, etc. etc.

I'll never do anything with most of this now and am wondering how to properly sell it. I've been buying and selling all kinds of stuff on Ebay since 1999 and have become pretty good at the selling thing but I'm wondering if Ebay is really the right venue to get a good market value for things like this. I don't have the time nor inclination to do a lot of research to try and determine what is and isn't really valuable and need a venue that I can feel confident will establish a fair value through auction or some other means without costing me a huge piece of the take. Heck the 15% or so that Ebay gets is enough.

Any thoughts??


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## Gansett (Apr 8, 2011)

I really don't know what to say. Some could be valuable, some could be junk. But and I quote:

"I don't have the time nor inclination to do a lot of research to try and determine what is and isn't really valuable and need a venue that I can feel confident will establish a fair value through auction or some other means without costing me a huge piece of the take"

If you don't want to take the time to do the research just walk it out to the nearest dumpster.
My 2¢


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## briangcc (Oct 11, 2012)

I'd take pictures of each item, list it on ebay with no reserve and let her fly. At the end, if you end up with a bunch of extras, list them again as a grouping and let her fly or toss them in as bonus items for auctions that did sell. If you're not going to put the time into the research then no reserve is your best bet. If its in good shape and appeals to someone, it'll go. 

Otherwise, is MBKlein still listing items in online/paper auctions? I know they used to...and now I'm dating myself as I have several locos I purchased that way.


If neither of these appeal to you, then I'd suggest you find a young child who's into model trains and donate them to his/her collection. You said it yourself that you have no wish to do the research so you might as well give them to someone who will appreciate them and perhaps join in this hobby.


Last option would be to contact one of the groups buying collections of model trains. The ads are/were in MR/RMC all the time. You may not get what they're worth but they'll not be yours to deal with.


Sorry if this sounds harsh but you want $$ and don't want to put the time in to research.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Speaking from a little experience, the hobby shop that I worked in took in a collection that sounds very similar to what you decribe as wanting to sell. The owner of the shop gave the guy 5 to 10 cents on the dollar for what it was originally worth (not much), and priced it and put it out to sell. That was 3 years ago....it's still sitting on the shelves, and has even been marked down a couple of times already. Nobody wants that stuff anymore.

IMHO, cut your losses and dumpster it. Or just give it away to someone who might be interested.....and let them dumpster it.....


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## wingnut163 (Jan 3, 2013)

the old 1950 wood car kits. do they look couplet? and are they HO?
the card siding ones, old Varney wood and metal kits with cardstock car sides

if you could get some pictures i may be interested in them.

and if your prices are ok.
i started in the 50's and still have some of them kits.

PM me.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Are they still kits.....or did you build them?


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

If you want to sell these items, take pics,
and post them here in the For Sale or Trade
members Forum. You need to set a price for
each item, or group of items, and if uncertain,
follow that with OR BEST OFFER. There is
no charge for this service.

Some of our members could very well be
interested in buy what you have.

Don


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Old_Hobo said:


> IMHO, cut your losses and dumpster it. Or just give it away to someone who might be interested.....and let them dumpster it.....


I wouldn't just toss it into a dumpster, one mans junk is another mans treasure.
There are places that are looking for donations, we have a few on the site.

Take pictures post them here in the for sale thread, but you have to add a price, it is the law.
Put a price then add best offer, no selling fees here.

Someone might be looking for some of your "junk".
If the price is right. :smokin:


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## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

You're not that far from Timonium, MD. There is a train show coming on the second weekend of April. You could put it on the White Elephant table and see what goes.


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## shaygetz (Sep 23, 2007)

Old_Hobo said:


> Nobody wants that stuff anymore.
> 
> IMHO, cut your losses and dumpster it. Or just give it away to someone who might be interested.....and let them dumpster it.....



Bite your tongue, dude...:laugh:

I am probably one of the few modelers in HO that actively seeks out the old stuff though. Carefully photographed and described, they do garner an interest on Ebay, it just takes a bit of work.

...or you could box it up and send it to me...I assure you I will not dumpster it. I just don't care for much of the new stuff myself...:thumbsup:


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

I guess old stuff is drawn to old stuff.......:laugh:


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## Lance Skene (Jan 6, 2014)

Im old... I like old stuff... Lol... just ship it all this way...whats your price??


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## michael cuneo (Sep 5, 2013)

*HO stuff*

I like old stuff too. I have stuff from 50' 60's and I'm interested 
Mike


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## trains galore (Jul 22, 2013)

Interesting... depends on what kind of trains they are really, in non usable condition they probably aren't worth a whole lot, but if they have a decent chassis you can re power them or even just chuck out the broken chassis and keep the shell around, you might be able to put them onto a modern chassis

Also consider parting them out, old hornby parts (the brushes, motors etc) are hard to get hold of so put them on ebay

Some of the older trains are quite well built, they just need a bit of work to get them back up to scratch so DON'T chuck them in the dumpster, someone will want them


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## parandyb (Mar 3, 2014)

*Well--can I answer all this with one reply? Here goes!*

Thanks to everyone who has responded here. First of all, this will not go to a dumpster. Most of what I sell on Ebay has been stuff I don't need anymore that I don't want to see in a landfill unless it truly is useless. I am pretty conservation minded. I would rather go to the trouble to package something and send it to someone who only paid me a dollar for it because at least it is useful to them.
Also didn't mean to imply I didn't want to put any work into this, just that I don't have time to search for venues that might be best and thought someone might know about one or two that I didn't. So far the suggestions are things I have considered except for this site. I'm new here and hadn't realized it entertained sale items. I'll keep that in mind.
Some of this stuff is untouched kits. Some were built or partially built when I got them and I never did anything with them. I'm certain some have value, just not sure how to price. I will likely do ebay searches on completed auctions and try to arrive at numbers from there. Since a number of people have shown interest I will make certain I check out the for sale section here, although that may be a mistake. Doing that usually leads to me buying more than I sell. LOL! Thanks again for all the input.


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## parandyb (Mar 3, 2014)

*Update post*

After further review--
Researching this stuff isn't as hard as I would have guessed. There is a lot more of it around yet than I would have thought. I also went through my stuff and was surprised to find I actually have made use of more than I thought and some of it is not in as good shape as I had remembered in my old addled brain. I will likely pick a few pieces and offer them in the sale forum here once I have a good idea of their value. I may even nudge a few folks who showed interest here. Will definitely update this thread if I list for sale.

Thanks again to those who responded here.


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## SRV1 (Nov 14, 2010)

It's NEVER easy selling anything unless you have something that's really good and really rare! It doesn't matter what it is. That's what you will find. Even if you had brand new SD70Aces with sound. You could list them on ebay and they could sit there for weeks (unless you undercut the competition by a lot) because everybody and their brother already have them listed. 

I found an old Marshall Faulk Jersey in a tub yesterday. I thought, this things gotta be worth $20 on ebay. Probably cost almost $100 new. So I run a little search on my phone. LOL! It was a joke. Nobody does any research. They just list, list list!! 

There's hundreds of them for sale on ebay already. Some listed at 0.99. Some people trying to get $7. My selling limit on ebay is about 40 to $50. If I can't make at least that, I will rarely waste my time listing anything. It's not worth your time listing, dealing with e-mails, shipping. It takes the same amount of gas and time to ship a $2 item as it does a $200 item. 

If it were me, I'd go through the batch and pick out what's good and what you'd like to keep. I'd offer up the rest for sale or trade here on the forum. And maybe even pick out a group to give away here for the cost of shipping. There may be a younger forum member that would love to have the stuff. 

My .02 cents fwiw.


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