When I was in a store in Melbourne yesterday, I took a look at boxcar prices. I couldnt believe that a P2K 50' boxcar KIT was almost $40 (Australian), and a complete car was well over $50. What price do these run at in other places? I ended up grabbing some new Bachman 40'ers (didnt want 50' to start with anyway) for under half the price and they seemed to be of very similar quality.
Herre in the states P2K kits go for about 15-20 bucks at most. Built up cars are a bit more. Wow 50 bucks!!!! Sucks being you ....Mike
50 Aus Dollars is about 35 USD, or 19.50 British Pounds. I expect to pay around 25 pounds for a good quality boxcar, so maybe it is us who are paying too much
Sheesh, you guys are paying WAY too much for toy trains. (Sorry) My life has been put into better perspective ever since I bought my 1963 Fairlane. My Engine cost me 880 dollars, and it is a near brand new engine (61 miles on it). My frontend will cost 250 dollars in parts. That car will get 20-25 miles per gallon, and it will get me places I would otherwise not think about, and get me places I want to go. I can get a set of rear leaf springs for the price of TWO new locomotives. I can get a new set of OEM 1963 seatbelts for the price of TWO of these boxcars. THINK ABOUT THAT!!!! In conclusion, I feel that any more then a meal's worth is too much for model trains...I did lay down 200 at the LHS this last month, but they were having a 50% off sale. As in, everything is 50% off...now that was well worth my money. but otherwise, there are far more places to put 50 bucks then ONE SINGLE BOXCAR. I don't care HOW good it looks!!!!
Yes, UK prices can be silly. The problem is they sometimes aren't, and even the same trader may have some silly stuff and some reasonable; which I can never quite understand. You have to shop around a bit and on larger purchases I often get different items from different suppliers. We also have 17.5% sales tax to help things along
Being a short line boxcar junkie I keep my costs under control.70% of my boxcars is the Blue Box kit while the newer Athearn RTR 5344s,5347s and Genesis account for another 15% The last 15% is other brands like Atlas,KD,IM (RTR only),Bev Bel,MDC and other such brands ...Needless to say I don't mind paying full price for the Blue Box kits, I find the best discount price that I can on the higher price cars.
I think some of that is exchange rates, they all will have their own formula for converting the invoiced amount to their price on the shelf, but the exchange rate will vary between the orders. Sometimes you can see new stuff priced less than old runs of the same thing, I think that's down to exchange rate differences.
What is the situation with tariffs? I ask because as you certainly know the big mail order retailers like TOY TRAIN HEAVEN ( which is the last still running 8-10 pp. ads in the RMC now that the internet has become prominent), as well as firms like TRAINWORLD, and so forth, sell these mass market items for very low prices. Having bought die casts from Hattons, and other stuffs from: D: CH; and CZ,- the freight rarely would be in excess of 5 euros a railcar, or a few plastic vehicles. I know that TRAINWORLD, for one, when I was at their store talking to the late proprietor, and Marie , told me that the rates per pound from their store to western Europe were less than I was paying to get goods the other way. Hattons, being the exception as it was the same. I have also got some of those great arch bar 'HO' trucks from Oz , without paying any duty here, and at low mail charges. U.S. tariffs are moderate, although I have never figured out the rate, as the charges when levied, seem to vary at random. Actually, for what it is worth, the most I ever paid was on some PLAYMOBIL trucks(i.e lorries to some of you), that were Out of Production and not obtainable from US sources. I wanted one for a grandchild, and two collectors that I met in the search here - asked me to obtain them copies. I found them at KANGAROU TOYs in Montreal , which apparently is the largest PLAYMOBIL dealer on the continent. The U.S. customs charged the price of the trucks as a duty, which made me less than happy that I found them. I never figured that out, and I am bloody sure those two women didn't think much of my as a detective either. I had thought with NAFTA, the charges would have been low or none, but PLAYMOBIL stuff was made in Europe so that might be a factor there. In any case, what is stopping you from getting on the web and ordering some of those Proto 2000 tank cars at five bucks a pop, or doodlebugs for twenty bucks?
Martyn. You are probably right; that would explain it. But it does show the rigid thinking of some shopkeepers: "I paid this for it and my markup is X, therefore it will sell for Y." Bit like people who spend months trying to sell their pre-owned items with the words "It is worth this much". Sorry dude, it's only worth what someone will pay ya for it - if you can't sell it, it's worth zip
This is a quick addendum, if you don't want to order on the web then call up the firm. The big ones all have overseas customers, and take the usual Visa and Mastercard. If you are going to pay with some money transfer instrument, you can use the web to get them to price the order and shipping. They will give you a reply with the order number reference included and if you ask for it a specific person , who will be responsible for it. Airmail them the document, and you are in business. If you go to GOOGLE and put in "date and time in( wherever) place"... the dealer is located- it will return the current date and time there. Obviously you want to call them on a business day and hour when they are open. Normally, this will coincide with a lower international calling rate from your home when you start calling trans-oceanically. So quite often , in this age of manifold telephone service providers, the rates will be lower than domestic rates. Hoping this helps, I am , PJB
The P2K kits are, without doubt, sensational models, BUT, for half the price, the bachmanns were almost as good. Since I intend repainting anyway, it could be argued that they are the same
