What makes a "Collectible" valuable?

I read through most of the ebay Humor thread and some of the posts/listings got me thinking: what makes a collectible valuable?

I have a reason for wondering but wanted to hear everyone's thoughts. With all the limited editions and discontinued lines out there, how do you figure out if a particular piece might be worth something some day or if you should just enjoy it for what it is?

My specific reason is I'm trying to figure out what to do with a Con-Cor NMRA 50th Anniversary SW1500 set I bought on ebay a few years ago. They currently don't have a lot of value but I would hate to pull them out of the box and use them if they might be worth something some day. Opinions?

 

Being and old Micro Trains collector from the 70's I guess it's what YOU consider "collectable". With this new liberal economy, what I have found is that you can't eat plastic and it doesn't fuel your car or house....Seems like everybody has one to sell......So there certainly is value, but to whom??????

 

Other than brass and maybe some MTL stuff,I don't think N scale will ever have any REALLY desirable stuff like Lionel.Even forty year old stuff isn't worth much in N,there's just so much of it.I think the stuff is "collectable",but no more valuable than new stuff.New stuff looks and runs just so much better,most would rather spend their cash on new stuff.
I look at my RC stuff..Some of my old cars are worth a lot of money because they're either in excellent condition,were really expensive,desirable cars THEN,or are highly modified,AND in nice shape,because even cars I used weren't beat up,because I didn't wreck much.Most really early RC stuff is horribly beat up,you pay for nice, examples.Not so with trains,most are at least half decent..

 

The set "might" be worth something someday -- and that's assuming that there's anyone around who would appreciate it and pay for it when that "someday" comes.

But what's the "opportunity cost" of not enjoying it now?

It's clear to me that the market for 'collectibles' has been shrinking. The near-monopoly of paper-based auctions was broken by eBay, and the Great Recession largely finished it off. There are still some relatively scarce, desirable items (and I am saying this as someone who has a few, including the NSC/NSE Author Cars) but that list appears to be shrinking every year. I could provide examples of, ahem, severe price deflation of once dearly costly items... and I suppose most of us could.

 

Depends On Who Wants To Buy It!!!

You have asked a good question here. I have found, through doing the "Special-Run" Collector side line, that the value of a certain piece of rolling stock or engine, is in 1) What the SELLER thinks they can sell the piece for. 2) What a COLLECTOR will pay for the piece.
I was a Special-Run Collector for many years. I have almost all Special-Run Kadee/Micro-Trains Line cars made before 2000. It used to be that a Special-Run car was issued for something special, a Convention, a Club's 10-25-50 years anniversary, some companies had cars made, a SPECIAL TIME/DATE/EVENT etc. etc. And that was it. The cost of said car was usually pretty good, not too high. Clubs would use this car as a fund raiser. And the cars were ALL Kadee/MTL. This went on for years. But then others got into the Special-Run business and ran it into the ground. Like I said, Special-Run Cars were issued for something special at first, but then it got to be if somebody's baby filled a diaper, they would put out a so-called "Special-Run" for this NON-special run thing and want an arm & leg for it. You would not believe all the silly NON-special run cars produced! This blew the REAL Special-Run Car market out the door. Now the Special-Run Car market is on the floor and will most likely stay there. There don't seem to be many Collectors left and since the going Special-Run Car price is still rather high, I don't see the market opening up to more Collectors either.

I've gotten off the subject here: What makes something valuable? My answer is: Something will be more valuable, because somebody MAY want it bad enough to pay any price for it. The car (example) may be the last car they need to fill out a collection. The Collector needs to fill out their complete Rock Island (example used) roster. This could be anything, a car, engine, and/or building kit. The value is in what somebody wants to pay for an item. What may be worth $50.00 to you, may only be worth $10.00 to the next guy.


Like I said, I WAS a serious Special-Run Collector until about 2000, the market went down the tubes and I gave it up. I still have the cars, but now I run them on the INDIANA RAILWAY. You should see the Big-Time Collectors faces when they notice that the freight train that just went by, has several HIGH-VALUE, Limited Edition cars in it's line up! Comments ALWAYS follow!

 

A car's value is what someone is willing to pay for it on the day that you are selling, same as anything else. Collectable is an adjective that somehow purports to indicate that an item is worth more than average at some time in the future to someone other than the original buyer. I have seen a lot of run of the mill cars bring more than the unsold purported collectables simply because two bidders wanted that run of the mill car, at that exact moment, while literally hundreds of supposedly highly collectable cars go repeatedly unsold in certain venues, at starting prices much lower than the original purchaser expected - when originally collecting them. In today's depressed market, a collectable car is frankly a car that two persons want at the same time, in the same venue generally regardless of scarcity.

Of course there are a lot of folks who will claim otherwise, that need to justify their original purchase prices and have not kept up with the current marketplace, and there are those who in certain venues continue to try to "make a market", but with the advent of current market prices available to the general buying public, that was not available just a decade ago, I strongly proffer that the price differential between "collectables" and non collectables has become almost nominal.

Cheers,
Bill

 

I have little interest in a "collectible" that has been manufactured specifically to be a "collectible."

 

Gotta agree with 'ya

You can almost bet that something 'hyped' originally as a collectable... will almost certainly make it less likely to become a 'VALUABLE' collectable.

If you look back at anything which became valuable and "TRUELY COLLECTABLE"... they generally were ordinary items which were used (or abused) and would rarely be in mint condition soon after being purchased. When something is sold as a collectable now-a-days... the item is stored in vaults never to see the light of day. What ends up happening is that a thousand copies of the item is in mint condition... making it pretty much an ordinary valued 'collectable'.

ANYTHING can be a collectable... but most people view collectables as something with potential future value in excess of the original purchase price. There are untold numbers of items which could end up being more valuable than our beloved model trains... and most of them are not currently considered collectable.

 

Price is driven by supply and demand, period. I think the new collectible is more of a valued added sort of thing. What I mean is, take a standard locomotive, fix what is wrong, super detail so that it is virtually a one of a kind thing. This becomes something sought after. Remember Hien Nguyen (tin1197)and his post on turning a Kato SD70ACe into a custom SD70M-2? Here is the thread:

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?114051-Customized-SD70ACe-to-SD70M-2&highlight=

There are many customizers that put out really nice custom locomotives and rolling stock. I call this value added because it starts with a core product like the Kato SD70ACe and morphed into the SD70M-2.

There are many custom paint jobs that make things more valuable. I saw a Kato NW2 repainted in ATSF Zebra scheme and super detailed get a lot of bids before it was sold for about $300. So that follows my idea about collectible value becoming the value added concept. I have several locomotives where the cabs on Kato C44-9W's were not correct that were outfitted with the correct cabs and then super detailed that have a much greater value than the original locomotive.

Just another way to think about this.

 

To me, "collectable" means you're buying it to keep it in a drawer, box, sealed with factory air, on display instead of running it, etc. That's a crapshoot at best. The great equalizer of perceived unavailability driving up price is Ebay. You can usually find three of everything.

But.... do some things increase in value over time due to pure demand/scarcity in N? Oh, HECK YES. If you don't believe me, check out the price of Atlas Shays. And some books. And I don't really see that changing. For one reason or another, really good products don't get made past a certain point, and when offered, they will get bid up. Things you can no longer get, and when they do show up....wham! Can you predict that in advance? Rarely. But I don't see a 'black tulip' market in N, there are collectors that want a wall of every XXXX made by ZZZZ, but it's not big enough to drive an actual market.

The last thing that I 'bit on' almost as a pure collectible was the Kato Pacific Parlor offered on the Amtrak website. Snapped one up, almost bought more purely as speculation. And, as soon as they ran out, more appeared. And more..... Yeah, well, I like the car. Good thing, because future generations will likely wonder what I was ever thinking. At least I don't have six in a drawer.

 

Only thing worth their salt are Brass steam. And the UP turbines.
Brass diesels ain't worth even the headache, yet people ask $100 and above for something that more often than not won't run to save its life.

 

I have an MT box car that is misprint on one side , I am keeping it in a drawer , opened it only once and saw the difference .
I doubt it will ever go to high level , but you never know !

 

As they say on the reality TV shows (either pawn inspired or picking inspired), if it was made to be 'collectable', it probably isn't.

Quality, rareness, and an abundance of people wanting the item (demand) determines somethings value. In N scale, this usually means MT or brass. Just because something is old doesn't make it collectable and this is especially true in N scale. Most old N scale runs terrible and looks terrible...no quality and no demand. Old MT cars are the exception because they look good and run good. Problem there is that MT reruns old cars with new numbers limiting the demand somewhat.

Look at me...I'm old, I'm rare, but is there enough demand to make me desirable (other than to my SO) and qualify as 'collectable'?

 

...and you let the factory air all out! 1/2ed the value...

 

A couple of years ago, I got $75 for an unrun blue label Kadee/MT GN boxcar with Rocky missing from one side. I got it from a guy who bought out the N scale stock of a hobby shop around Baltimore probably about 1980. The guy who won the auction wrote me glowing feedback so he must have been happy. I listed it at $25 so guess the market decided.

 

The absolute oddest thing I've seen lately was a Micro-trains produced K&CE 'retirement car' for one of their own employees, probably as a gift for party attendants. No part number. No idea how many were made. Original box, never run. Got asked 'so, what do you think that's worth????'. But even that is on Ebay, one didn't sell for $34.95.

Only time I've seen something go certifiably 'nuts' was a 100-car special run a friend of mine did with Micro-Trains, 100 identical B&O offset-side hoppers, in black, lettered for B&O, back about 1976. Unique car number for his 100 order. The wonderful memory I have is all 100 of those cars rolling around his basement-sized layout behind a Rivarossi 2-8-8-2. He sold a few at auction (pre-Ebay, in the 90's) to see what they'd get and they went crazy. He died a couple years later; the first couple cars we sold out of the estate went for $75 and up; those were for very used cars, but in original boxes. By the time it was over, we were barely making stock sticker price on the car. If there really was a 'collectors' market out there for MT anymore, you'd think those would have done better. There's a lot of 'special runs' out there,

 

The bottom fell out of the Micro-trains 'collectability' market over 20 yrs. ago. When Micro-Trains moved their production to Talent Oregon and they could manufacture several thousands of models per month versus a few hundreds from their original factory in Medford Oregon. The 'perception' of scarcity was fueling part of the frenzy of buying their model on the few select auctions held every month. The major blow to value came when eBay and other on-line sites dispelled the rumored scarcity for most items produced after the mid- 1980's. We found that the models were being hoarded and NOT being run... therefore there were hundreds of 'mint' condition cars available. N scale is a very small market of the model railroading genre... and most collectors were N scalers themselves... as opposed to general collectors of model trains. Micro-trains also caved-in to demand that popular models be re-run periodically; though not as much a factor, it also created the opportunity for modelers that wanted a particular road name they missed in the 1970's thru 1980's to get the model they wanted without having to outbid someone in an auction.

 

"Collectibles" are only worth what people will pay for them.

I told that to my cousins, who had a home business selling collectible items (like cookie jars) online. They laughed in my face. Their basement is now lined with their unsold "collectible" merchandise they never managed to move...

As someone said previously, it is supply and demand. If nobody wants what you have, it is worthless. People read these collector's magazines that give prices lists and think that is the value of their item, and it's all BS. Go try to sell your stuff for that price and see what you actually get. This is different from when a manufacturer announces a "limited run", which seeks to balance demand with supply in the initial offering to the primary market. Collectible sales are secondary market.

My elderly parents have a lot of old "collectible" things and I have been trying to cushion their blow from the reality punch, but they too are learning that just because some item may be valued at a certain amount does in no way mean you can turn around and sell it for that.