my neighbor died and left behind a pretty good sized setup up for model trains in the basement. His wife wants to sell this set up, but has no idea of it's worth, or how to go about it. I have taken some pictures in the hope that one or more of you guys would be willing to offer advice and counsel, or perhaps make an offer on it. We live in SW Lower Mi. The scale is HO. Thanks for looking....Joel
In my experience it is sometimes best to find a person who buys "estate collections" to resell. They do not pay what things are worth but they put a lot of work into cataloging it all and selling it. I took on the task of selling off a friend's estate for his daughter and put in many, many hours to do it. It is a lot of work. Usually you want the stock to move and not sit around for ever so you price it low. Typically a ball park figure to move freight cars is $5 to $10 depending on the model, $15to $25 for passenger cars and $60 to $70 for locomotives. Some are worth way more and some are worth less but they get sold. The estate brokers would probably buy them for less and sell them for more to cover their time and cost. These prices are for typical "out of the box" plastic models. Brass would be another thing.
Older models are probably worth less and some of the newer highly detailed models are more than the prices I gave.
Fine, but I don't get it ..Where are the pictures ? Nothing to click-on to in your thread...I think. How can we look ?....
Unless you are an unscrupulous ebayer, which then you can sell each Athearn blue box car for $500.... Oh wait - you can LIST them for $500... If you actually want to sell them, I concur with aforementioned advice. :wideeyes: Sorry for the loss of your neighbor. I've seen full layouts offered between $200 and $2000. It just depends on how many people are interested to what degree.
Looking at the layout, IF it was mine to dispose of (which it obviously isn't) I would probably dismantle it and part it out, putting up individual locomotives, cars, structures and track lots up for auction. However as has been discussed at length, that is very labor-intensive and requires some idea of exactly what it is your selling and what it is realistically worth. The deceased wife is wondering what it is worth, the answer is impossible to say. Good bet to say it's not worth the money that was put into it but beyond that, it will hinge on how badly/quickly she wants it all sold. I'd say having someone who deals with estates handle it, as suggested above, is the best advice.
Honestly, it looks like it would be pretty easy to dismantle it to part out. There seems to be a lot of Kato track or some sort of snap track which should sell very easy and quickly. There's a lot of good stuff. All the structures could be packaged and sold individually. I don't think that there is much value in it as a layout or a set. Sent from my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk.
Many of the structures appear to be cast and painted porcelain figurine types like those that are usually sold in gift shops and card stores. Not sure what the market on those would be.
All it takes is a camera, some time and a little effort. Start the initial bid price low, the market will price it as it's worth.
Doing ebay may be more effort than you want to deal with. But you would probably get the biggest return through ebay. The trains themselves we would need to see more detail such as individual photos. The locos being the most valuable depending on age and brand. The buildings are a mix of Scale plastic structures and collectors village stuff. The village stuff may nor may not be valuable, It isn't what most model railroaders prefer so as Russell stated this isn;'t the right place for that info. But if you go to ebay and search for collectible village buildings or something like that you'll be able to find what they go for. The HO scale buildings will vary in value as well. It's always a shame to see someones secret place of happiness get parted out like this.
Yes it is. You know, I sometimes wonder how my layout/collection will be 'parted out' or whatever. How a prized loco or passenger car will be arbitrarily evaluated by someone in the future who doesn't know the background. I think that's what interests me about old stuff at train shows, wondering about all the different human elements and history involved at one time or another with these old pieces.
