Large Scale Central

Do You Have An Accurate Value Of Your Stuff?

General Discussion
#1

I started talking about this in another topic, but I’m going to pull it out and start it’s own discussion.

Not being morbid, but, there may come a time when a loved one survivor may look at your collection and say “OK. What do I do with this junk?”

We had a few topics on “What Rolling Stock Do You Own?” which morphed to “What pulls it?” I participated, and then a few weeks later I realized “Oh yeah, I forgot that HLW …” So I don’t really have an accurate list. Then my wife asked “Well, if I get stuck with this stuff, how am I supposed to know what a fair value is?” Hmmmmm.

So will this make you think of doing an accurate inventory? I have meant to, but never seem to get around to it. Even after Hurricane Sandy.

I will end this post with what I told my wife to put on my tombstone:

“But I wasn’t done yet!”

#2

The only way to get a “fair” market value is to sell it yourself. Sell it all just a week before you go.

#3

I’m taking it with me…

#4

When I’m dead…My boy gets it all and he ain’t got a clue what it’s worth until he lists it on E-bay.

I need to tell him Utility can be broken down into a pipe and it needs a screen in the smokestack. I also need to tell him what’s hidden inside the Amtrash fleet as well.

#5

I don’t put a monetary value on my stuff.

For one thing, on my scratch stuff, I’d never get the $175.00 each (average) I put into each piece.

All of it is weathered and mucked up, so no one would want it anyway.

So if I precede my wife, she has been told to let my surviving Geezers fight over it. After that dust settles, she can give the rest to the local club to raffle or whatever.

#6

John Bouck said:

I don’t put a monetary value on my stuff.

For one thing, on my scratch stuff, I’d never get the $175.00 each (average) I put into each piece.

All of it is weathered and mucked up, so no one would want it anyway.

So if I precede my wife, she has been told to let my surviving Geezers fight over it. After that dust settles, she can give the rest to the local club to raffle or whatever.

What John says, only I’d be lucky to get $50 to $100 for any of my engines, and a few bucks each for the rolling stock. No one wants weathered stuff, only pristine NIB and never run stuff gets the best prices.

Quite honestly I only have two actually relatively valuable NIB engines, and I have been considering selling off one but I really doubt I’d get back what I paid for it. That’s the only reason I have held on to it.

The rest should sell off on Ebay for not too much.

#7

When Ralph Dipple passed away a few years ago, Doug Matheson and I volunteered to sell his trains for his widow. Diane wanted it to sell quickly, so we agreed on 1/3 of the retail price. Unknown to me was the size and complexity of his collection.

The American large scale equipment was easy to price, and was quickly bought by the members of our club.

None of our members were interested in the European equipment however. I did purchase an LGB 0-6-0 locomotive and some 2-axle cars as a memento of a good friend. The rest was sold on E-bay by a club member over a period of two months.

Thanks to the internet I was able to price his American HO trains, and they sold quickly to local buyers.

The British OO scale was more difficult. But because they were in their original boxes, I found prices on the Internet. There is a local chapter of the British Railway Modelers of North America here in Ottawa, so I contacted one of the members. He brought the equipment to their next meeting and sold everything before the meeting started.

He also sold Ralph’s European N scale locomotives and cars.

That left an extensive collection of American N scale equipment. Fortunately there is a large number of N scale enthusiasts in the area as well, and I knew one of them well enough to talk him into selling this equipment. It took about a month to sell it all.

None of these gentlemen would take a commission for selling the equipment as they bought a number of pieces for themselves at very reasonable prices.

After that experience, I put together a folder with a number of Excel spreadsheets listing all my large scale equipment and reasonable selling prices. I was surprised at how much stuff I have accumulated over the last twenty-two years. Now there is an icon on the opening screen of my computer that opens that folder. If anything did happen to me, at least Penny would know what I have, where it is, and what it would sell for quickly.

Most people think that they will know in advance when the big guy is going to pull their time card, but that’s not so. In 1991 at 2 in the afternoon I spoke with a friend at work. We were both in our mid-forties and in apparent good health. Two hours later she dropped dead on the sidewalk of a heart attack. That was the year I picked model railroading from my list of things I was going to do when I retired.

#8

I started a spread sheet when I bought/acquired my first trains in 1999.

I did list how much I paid for each item, but after adding metal wheels and on many, Kadee couplers, the cost is really a little higher than what I have in my spread sheet. Then came the interior lights, and now decoders for DCC plus some sound units.

So, I am the only one that knows what is in each piece of rolling stock.

When I visited a large train store in Indiana, they got collections (esp LGB) and removed all the added pieces and restored rolling stock to the original condition and then sold all the add-ons separately.

#9

There are other options, besides eBay.

In the UK, one of the societies (I think it was/is the EM gauge soc) had a formal process for handling the estate of a deceased member. All the members had to do was tell their family how to find the society.

The other way is to nominate someone to work with your family as ‘train executor’. Doesn’t have to be formal or written in the will, but do tell the guy he is nominated!

I get emails from Maurail (Maurer Auctions) in the Train Collector territory of PA. They are always auctioning estate collections, and will travel and price your stuff.

I don’t have a spreadsheet, for the simple reason that I live in a condo and therefore I am seriously cramped for space. Something new arrives, something old goes!

#10

Would one of you list just one page of the spreadsheet you use, blank preferred, not required? Then we could use that as a template and have one less excuse for doing it!

#11

Pete Thornton said:

In the UK, one of the societies (I think it was/is the EM gauge soc) had a formal process for handling the estate of a deceased member. All the members had to do was tell their family how to find the society.

What a great idea! Having been asked to sell of a collection of R/C stuff more than once it can be a daunting task. The spouse may have a completely erroneous idea as to the value of the collection. I have seen piles of junk deemed to be a retirement fund by the survivors, and gold-mines treated like trash. I think it’s a good reminder to talk to those we care about before “that day”.

I hope I have a fair amount of time but regardless I have been making a real effort to trim down the “trash” and even cut down on the over-all amount. Having a ton of specialized hobby stuff to re-home can be a burden.

#12

Determining a value would be most difficult in my case, it’s extremely rare that anything remains in the condition it was in out of the box, most rolling stock gets painted, re-lettered and weathered as a minimum and oft times modified. Locomotives are even more violated usually being gutted of on board electronics and smokers, modified, painted and lettered and weathered. while they might have value to scratch builders for pieces parts, selling them for anything close to market value would most likely be problematic.

Since I have only one close living relative, my Brother, and there is no guarantee that he will out live me it is probably most likely that most everything will end up in the hands of an estate seller or auction house and what becomes of it will no longer be any of my concern.

#13

Just Will it all to me…I’m gonna live forever!

#14

Haven’t seen any mention of books. I have collected almost as many RR books as rolling stock. Books may be easier to price and sell.

#15

To me my trains and asseccories are priceless and each has its own story of “the deal I got” or “I was there when I found this one” etc… To my wife they are refferred to as “the collection that takes up a lot of space”
Too many times have I seen trains that were loved by their owners then he passes and all the kids wanna do is sell em off. Pretty sad.
I was in a dealers shop years ago and he told me a story where a customer would come in often to buy trains and not wanting the wife to know how much he spent he had the dealer put a new much lower priced tag on the box. The collector died and the widow brought the trains back and the dealer was more than happy to give her the money for the price on the box. What a guy!

I’m in my 40’s so hopefully won’t have to worry about who to leave the trains to for many years but if we had to move now that is a real concern.

I say love your trains and run the the wheels off them while you can.

#16

Bill Hunteman said:

Haven’t seen any mention of books. I have collected almost as many RR books as rolling stock. Books may be easier to price and sell.

The local Train Store gets my library to sell, keep a commission , and give my wife the rest.

I have quite a library as well. Most are NG or logging specific. No general RR books.

#17

My Locomotive Spreadsheet includes the following column headers: (data examples in brackets)

Manufacturer (Aristo-Craft)

Road Name (CN)

Locomotive (Dash 9)

Road Number (2529)

Price New ($330)

Receiver (Revolution)

Price New ($85)

Battery (Lithium-Ion)

Price New ($60)

Sound Board (P8)

Price New ($170)

Total Price ($645)

Club Price ($215)

My Rolling Stock Spreadsheet includes the following headers: (data examples in brackets)

Manufacturer (Aristo-Craft)

Road Name (CN)

Car Length (53 Foot)

Car Type (Boxcar)

Road Number (235091)

Price New ($65)

Kadee Couplers ($10)

Metal Wheels ($26)

Total Price ($101)

Club Price ($35)

I no longer retain what I read, so I sold all my books except five:

British Columbia Railway by JF Garden (450 pages of great pictures)

Nicholas Morant’s Canadian Pacific by JF Garden (450 pages of great pictures)

Signatures in Steel by Greg McDonnell (200 pages of great pictures of Canadian Railways)

Passing Trains by Greg McDonnell (160 pages of good stories and pictures of Canadian Railways)

Ottawa’s Streetcars by Bill McKeown (250 pages of pictures of the History of Electric Railway Transit in Canada’s Capital City)

Be still my heart!

Found inside the cover is a colour brochure of 1967 BSA motorcycles that I thought I had lost.

That just makes my day!

#18

Bart Salmons said:

Just Will it all to me…I’m gonna live forever!

We used to get a call once a year from a person selling burial plots. We informed them of our plans for live forever and this didn’t seem to be an option on their call script.

#19

Ill be dead so it wont matter to me. Knowing my wife she will either give my stuff to my son, if he wants them or throw them to the side of the road lol. Honestly I don’t look at things for there value, I buy what I like and have fun with it.

#20

Lou Luczu said:

Would one of you list just one page of the spreadsheet you use, blank preferred, not required? Then we could use that as a template and have one less excuse for doing it!

There are websites dedicated to helping you keep records of your collection. The advantage is that they don’t get lost when your computer crashes, or when someone gives your computer away when you die without realizing the spreadsheet is important!