Lessons from York - Part Two: Deacquisition

Dad and I recently returned from our semi-annual trip to the Train Collectors Association (TCA) Eastern Division toy train meet in York, PA. This is the largest such show in the United States and provides an interesting snapshot of the state of the hobby. 

It can also hint at the current state of collecting in general. As is our tradition, we spent a lot of time discussing what we saw a lot of (and what we didn't) -- and the reasons behind them.

Deacquisition

In part one I shared some of the positive signs of a changing hobby. We saw larger selections of newer vintage toy trains than in the past.  This suggested that another generation of collectors had entered the hobby.

Looking for a good reference book?
$10 at the York meet.

There were some negative signs as well. It appeared that another generation was leaving the hobby for good. The primary cause seemed to be simply old age.

The final sale
Last April I postulated that we were seeing the last remnants of collections coming onto the market. We had already seen toy trains of the prewar years flood the market. And then we saw the same with early postwar trains.

Life of a toy train collector
I think the lifecycle of a toy train collector is something like this. You build your collection over time, starting in late middle age. At some point, you build a place for your collection, either in the basement, above the garage, or in a dedicated structure (it does happen). The walls are lined with shelves so you can display your treasures. And there's a layout in the center of the room to run your best equipment.

This was an expensive book back in the day.
At the York meet, it was $10.

After retirement comes the need to move to a smaller home. The reason may be health-related, or having to live on a fixed income, or just not needing a home with multiple bedrooms anymore.

The smaller home has less space, and so the collection has to be thinned. You keep your best items and sell the rest. Perhaps the layout has to be dissembled (or replaced with a smaller one).

At some point, you may have to move an assisted living facility, or perhaps even share a room at a nursing home. At that point, the collection has to go. But there's probably room for a few books. And so you keep your library of reference books and train history books (or at least some of them).

In the final stage of life these, too, will need to go.

Even general history books like this
were going for just $10.

Books-a-thousands
At the April show, we saw a lot of books. But that was nothing compared to what we saw in October. There were stacks of books in virtually every aisle.

We saw a fair selection of reference books, such as Ron Hollander's "All Aboard." And we also saw some technical publications, such as Model Railroader's Train Cyclopedias. And there was even a substantial amount of general-interest train coffee table books.

What we didn't see, though, were price guides. That's not surprising. There's practically no value in a an outdated price guide. I'm sure most of those were sent straight to the recycle center.

But there was plenty of everything else. And the standard price was $10 a volume. For some books, that was close to the original price. But for volumes that originally sold for $50, $75, or more, that was a little sad.

And while there were some real bargains to be had, what we didn't see were a lot of people buying. I'm curious to see if this sea of vintage publications washes back for the April meet. 

Need a coffee table book about trains?
Yours for $10 at the York meet.