Lessons from York - 2B What We Didn't See

A UMD Industrial Rail O-gauge hopper car. Well worth the $10 I paid for it.

The Impact of Practicality
(part 4 of a 4-part series)

There were many things Dad and I saw – and didn’t see at the recent Train Collectors Association Eastern Division toy train meet.in York, PA. In part 1 and Part 2, I talked about what we saw in abundance, and why. Part three I mentioned an item seemed to have disappeared. But there was another item that I didn’t see  for a different reason.  It was one I was actually looking for – and couldn’t find because it was too well-designed.

In the 1990’s, operating O-gauge layouts were on the rise. More people were getting into the hobby, and looking for rolling stock to put behind the new locomotives that Lionel, MTH, Atlas and others were offering. All of these companies also made freight cars, but at around $40-$50 a piece, it was difficult to put together a train of any length.

An Atlas Industrial Rail hopper car. This one was a little pricier -- $20.

Enter UMD (United Model Distributors). They came out with a line of basic, good-looking rolling stock to meet the need. Their Industrial Rail series did well – and it was eventually purchased by Atlas, who continued to put out the cars with new graphics (they even expanded the line).

Although Industrial Rail cars were great for operators, they weren’t especially valuable. While new ones sold for $30, I could usually pick up an older UMD car (in the original box) for $10-$15. It was a great way to expand my rolling stock fleet.

The UMD hopper car with original box.

Industrial Rail pieces were never plentiful at the York meet. One time a vendor had several – but that was because an operating layout had been dismantled, releasing stock back into the market. This time, though, I didn’t see any Industrial Rail pieces.

Why?

Some pieces – even older UMD stock – has been showing up on eBay, but they’ve been selling for about $30 with $10 shipping. That’s far more than I want to spend.

But the sellers are getting those prices. So are Industrial Rail pieces disappearing from York because they're selling online?

The Atlas hpper car with box. A little bit fancier,
but in essence the same.

I don’t think that's the total answer. Most of the Industrial Rail pieces on eBay have been coming from a large hobby retailer. And once an item sells, the retailer places a duplicate up for auction. In other words, they’re selling off their old stock, one piece at a time. And only certain models are sold.

I think the majority of UMD Industrial Rail pieces don’t show up because they’re still in use. Most operators that would use Industrial Rail pieces are in their 50’s and 60’s. It might be another 10 years before that group begins breaking up layouts as they move to assisted living or liquidate estates.

I’ll keep my eyes open, but I will be very surprised if I see any at the fall meet.

Part 1A - The Impact of a Specialized Product on its Core Audience


Part 1B - The Impact of an Aging Demographic

Part 2A - The Impact of Faux-Collectability

Lessons from York: What we didn't see -- old favorites

Dad and I recently returned from our semi-annual trip to the Train Collectors Association Eastern Division toy train meet in York, PA. As always, we discussed what we saw a lot of (and what we didn't) -- and why.

Last post (What we saw -- smaller scale, smaller sets) posited that the emerging trends were based on a change in demographics. If we assume that collectors are primarily interested in the toys of their youth, and the average collector is late middle-aged, then that creates a window of market demand. And it's a window that moves as the population ages.

So what didn't we see this time?

Standard gauge sets
Or indeed, much standard gauge trains at all. Lionel, Ives, American Flyer and other manufacturers offered these large tinplate trains from about 1905-1932. Highly desirable to the first generation of train collectors in the 1950's-1960's. For the current generation looking nostalgically back to the late 1960's, though, not so much.

One in a series of 13. Collect them all!

MPC Commemorative Cars
When General Mills bought Lionel in the early 1970's, they immediately recognized that the primary market for Lionel trains had shifted from children to adult collectors. And so MPC, the division that ran Lionel, churned out dozens of "collectible" series. There were Disney-decorated cars, and a boxcar for each of the 50 states, and Great Moments in Lionel History boxcars, and so on.

Are we nearing the end of the postwar dream?

Most of them sold out, bought by collectors who knew that 5-10 years later, they could flip these cars for a big profit. Only that never happened, because the demand always artificially inflated. The past few years we say tables with stacks of these collectibles with below-retail pricing. This time, almost nothing. Perhaps the vendors finally gave up.

Early postwar trains
It's a subtle thing, but for the first time I didn't see an overabundance of trains made between 1949-1955. Following my premise, this would have been near and dear to collectors born between 1939 and 1949. That population is now in their 70's, when most collectors stop purchasing because of fixed income.

Still no Industrial Rail
In my analysis of the April 2012 York meet I talked about the scarcity of Industrial Rail freight cars. These inexpensive 027 gauge cars were never designed as collectible, but rather be run on layouts.

Still looking for this Industrial Rail tank car.

I did find a few examples, but they were still quite rare, but all modestly priced (they're still not collectible). If our theory about aging is correct, then maybe we'll start seeing Industrial Rail cars appear as elderly collectors downsize and operating layouts are dismantled.

Lessons from York - We Saw It All (sort of)

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 more importantly, the reasons behind them

Since I started writing about this show in 2008, we've seen various trends cycle through the hobby. For the most part, toy collectors try to recapture their youth. So that means either replacing what they had or getting those items that Santa never brought. When Dad first joined the Train Collectors Association in the early 1970s, most of the membership was interested in toy trains of the 1910-1920s.

Over time, that focus shifted to those of the 1930s and pre-WWII. Then post-war trains increased in demand, and finally the trains of my youth -- the mid-1960s. As I've mentioned in other posts about this, time has marched on, and later eras are gaining in popularity.

Gauging the demand

But the focus has remained primarily on either standard gauge trains (popular through the early 1930s), or 0-gauge trains (slightly smaller, and popular from the 1930s-onward). S-gauge (smaller still), American Flyer's post-war choice was always a distant third. But the smaller post-war gauges -- H0, N, and Z -- weren't to be found at the show.


That's because most of the people using those gauges were considered modelers as opposed to toy train collectors.

 Off the shelf and onto the layout

With the inevitable demographic shift in the hobby, there's also been a change in focus. Lionel (or American Flyer) trains at Christmas ceased being a thing in the late 1960s. Smaller H0 and N scale trains replaced them. And increasingly, year-round layouts became the norm.

So current TCA members are more likely to be interested in running trains, rather than having them sit on shelves (as I discussed in 2014). And vintage H0 and N scale trains started to show up at the York meet.

True equilibrium?

So what did we see this show? Unlike previous shows, there wasn't one particular thing (or category of thing) that stood out. Formerly under-represented gauges were there in abundance -- American Flyer S gauge, early H0 and N scale sets of the 1960s and so on.

There were lots of examples of late pre-war trains, but nothing much earlier than 1932. Lots of vintage Lionel, but plenty from later years as well.

The hardware chain Menards has entered the toy train market in a big way.
Their products were not only on sale at their booth but at several others
throughout the halls.  

It was easy to find something to fit whatever scale layout you happened to have. But there was something missing, too.

No standouts

As mentioned, the really old pieces weren't there -- but then again, neither were their primary buyers. Mainstays like the Lionel/MPC Coke Set were missing (I only saw one this time). Ditto Industrial Rail rolling stock. While there was some of everything, there wasn't much that was very remarkable -- or that I hadn't seen many times before.

I've never seen this Industrial Rail tank car at the York meet.
This time, I didn't see any Industrial Rail tank cars at all. 

Are the (relatively) younger collectors holding on to what they have, and only releasing the less interesting (and valuable) items back into the market? Hard to say. We'll see what happen in the spring.

Lessons from York - A Skewed View 1

Dad and I are back from our semi-annual trip to the Train Collectors Association Eastern Division toy train meet in York, PA. As is our tradition, we spent a lot of time discussing what we saw a lot of (and what we didn't) -- and more importantly, the reasons behind them.

As always, although the particulars of these posts are about toy trains, that's not what they're really about. I'm convinced that the behaviors of collectors are universal. And that's what I'm interested in.

The York train show is a good place to spot trends. It's one of the biggest shows in the hobby, drawing 13,000 - 15,000 attendees, and has hundreds of tables. It also has most of the major manufacturer's exhibit as well. For a company like Lionel, York is their Consumer Electronics Show.

Most of the items for sale we see show after show -- but there are always a few items present in unusually large quantities. Why?

This time, there were three things we saw on table after table.

A Lionel Standard Gauge No. 6 Locomotive, ca. 1906

Passing of the guard

This time we saw a lot of very early Lionel locomotives (about 1906-1915). Now, these are fairly rare, to begin with, and it's remarkable just to see one or two Lionel steam locomotives from that ear at York. This time, though, we saw dozens. The prices were quite high, but (at least for this show) they were available.

Why?

There's a common theme in toy collecting -- many collectors either want the toys they had as children or the toys they didn't get as children. So part of the desirability of an item is tied to a certain generation.

Toys from the early 1900's were sought after by the generation of collectors that founded the TCA in the 1950's. At this point, most of them have either passed on or broken up housekeeping. Which means these items are coming back on the market. Perhaps this mass appearance of rare, early toys is actually marking the end of an era.

Lionel standard passenger set: (from  top to bottom):
311 passenger car, 310 baggage car, and the 312
observation car. Not rare, but quite nice.

Next round of cuts

We also saw an unusual amount of  Lionel 310, 311, and 312 Standard Gauge passenger cars. These are attractive cars, but about mid-range in terms of desirability and value. And they come from a later era than the No. 6 steam locomotive pictured above. These two-tone cars were sold as sets from 1924 through 1939 when the Standard Gauge era ended.

There are a lot of these out there, and we usually see a few sets at York. But this time we saw an unusually high number of them.

Why?

If our theory about youthful nostalgia is right, then most of the owners of these sets are now in their 70's and 80's. Some sets will come on the market through estate sales, but there's a good chance that most are being culled from collections as the owners downsize. After all, if you're moving to assisted living, and only have room for a few pieces, you're going to keep only the top-of-the-line sets (which these aren't).

A year and a half ago a lot of sets come on the market (A Setting for Sets) and I thought it was for this same reason. Perhaps these two-tone passenger cars are just part of the next round of items to get rid of?

Lionel O-gauge postwar (1949-1955) F3 diesels,
originally sold as a pair.

A new generation retires?

The third thing we saw an exceptionally high number of were Lionel O-Gauge postwar F3 diesels. After World War II, Lionel resumed toy train production with a completely new line of products. Gone were the toy-like metal locos and rolling stock (like the examples above). Instead, Lionel used injection-molded plastic to create realistic scale and semi-scale models of real trains.

The most popular locomotives were the F3 diesels. The Santa Fe livery was a huge it, and thousands were sold between 1948 and 1955. The Santa Fe F3s are actively sought after, but because there were so many made, they're always readily available (for a price).

Seeing the success of the Santa Fe F3, Lionel offered the model in different livery, with less success. The New York Central version also ran from 1948  - 1955, but didn't sell as well as the Santa Fe. Today it's a much rarer locomotive, and I seldom see more than few at any York meet. Until this time. Everyone seemed to have them, and -- curiously -- not just the originals, but also the reproductions made by Williams and MTH as well.

Why?

Collectors who were kids in the early 50's are now hitting retirement age. Perhaps this is the beginning of the downsizing process for them. Why are the reproductions coming on the market? it's not for the reason you might think. Williams and MTH products are clearly marked, so there's little chance of them being sold as originals.

Rather, I think it has to do with a common practice among collectors who operate layouts. Often, a collector will keep the original item on the shelf for display, and run a reproduction on the layout. It keeps the value of the original high because moving parts don't get worn further, less chance for accidents that can chip paint or break delicate plastic parts and so on. Also, the reproductions are usually more reliable for operation.

My guess is that some of these collectors are moving into smaller homes, and taking down their operating layouts. And with neither shelf space nor layout, they no longer need the originals or the reproductions.

Something to support my assumption: in April I remarked on the scarcity of Industrial Rail pieces (What We Didn't See). These pieces have virtually no collectible value but are great for operating layouts. This time we saw a good deal of Industrial Rail rolling stock for sale -- all going for around $10 a piece. Another sign of layouts being disassembled?

Next: Lessons from York - A Skewed View 2; what we didn't see

eBay -- Knowing when to quit

Oh well, better luck next time.

I just walked away from an eBay item I was bidding on. And it was very hard.

In my post eBay Reality I talked about the importance (at least for me) of knowing the total cost of an item. I ran across this Industrial Rail work caboose that I thought would be a nice addition to my O Gauge Zen Garden. (the actual item doesn't matter for the point I'm making)

The opening bid was $0.99, which seemed a like a good deal. Shipping was $9.49. Now we're not talking about an especially rare or collectible item here. The Industrial Rail rolling stock isn't on par with Lionel for desirability. Mostly they're wanted by operators who want to add cars to their trains (that's actually why the line was produced).

The Industrial Rail pieces I've accumulated have all come from the big toy train meets in York, PA. Most of them I purchased for $10 - $15, which is a fair price.

Throughout most of the auction, I was the only bidder, so it looked like the $0.99 offer would hold. But in my mind, I wasn't offering $0.99, I was offering $10.48 which included the shipping cost. It was the total amount I was obliged to pay. I had even set my max bid to $10.00, or $19.99 total. It was a little higher than I was used to paying, but not too much higher.

The current bid is $10.50, which topped my bid. It was tempting to go to $11.00. After all, I was used to paying up to $15 for these things. But with shipping, that would have pushed it to $20.99, and that's over my limit. So rather than up it to $11.00, then $11.50, and then who knows what, I'm not responding.

Taking into account the total cost has saved me from many Pyrrhic bidding victory.

Lessons from York - What we didn't see: depth

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 more importantly, the reasons behind them. 

In What We Saw I mentioned that there was a general leavening of toy trains. Both Lionel and American Flyer (the majors) were well-represented, as were the more prominent minor companies, like Marx. There were trains from both the prewar and postwar era, plus examples from the 1970s and later. But there was no depth to any of it.

What does that mean?

Last time I mentioned all the Lionel F3s that were available -- but only of certain road names. And they were almost exclusively offered individually -- not as part of the sets they were sold with. This time there were virtually no examples of Lionel's space and military toys to be found (previously a hot commodity).

You'll find all of Lionel's postwar F3s in this book
-- but we didn't find them all at the show!

American Flyer post-war trains were in abundance, but not their pre-war offerings. Some Marx trains from the 60's were available, but little else -- and not in the quantity available in previous years. It was possible to find the non plus ultras of prewar standard gauge trains -- Lionel State sets and Blue Comet sets -- but mot the mid- and low-end offerings of the same era.

Conclusion

When I first started making the trip to York with my dad, you could pretty much find anything in the seven exhibit halls. If it was unusual, there might be only one or two available, but the possibility at least was always there. This time it seemed like the variety wasn't there. Table after table had the same basic things -- almost as if there was a top 40 for toy trains.

Does that mean vendors are focusing only on what moves the quickest to maximize their profit? Or does it mean that more unusual items have all found homes, and won't be seen again until those collections are broken up? The spring, 2016 meet should be interesting.

One thing more

I continue to search for Industrial Rail rolling stock, and it's still hard to find -- at least the few pieces I'm interested in. But there's been a disturbing trend. When I first started buying this "off brand," the cars were selling for $10-15 (see: The Impact of Practicality from 2012). In 2014 I noted that the price range was $15-$20 (What We Didn't See). This time, Industrial Rail pieces were selling for $20-$30 each. And I still can't find the car I want -- at any price.

Have you seen this tank car?

Lessons from York - What We Didn't See: Old Favorites

The Lionel 1938 catalog. Apparently, this is no longer
the book of dreams.

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 always, we discussed what we saw a lot of (and what we didn't) -- and why. Last post I shared what we saw -- and what it meant (Minors and evergreens). Here's what was missing.

Six months ago when I shared our observations from the show, I titled this post "What We Didn't See -- Old Favorites." In a sense, that's still true as the demographics of collectors continues to shift. But so does the meaning of the word.

In October 2013 what I meant by old favorites were the items we saw show after show, year in and year out. Specifically, standard gauge train sets, MPC/Lionel product from the 1970's, and classic post-war Lionel trains from the late 1940's-early 1950's.

The Lionel 1962 catalog. This is no longer a book of
dreams, either.

What I meant this time is that we didn't see the old favorites -- the trains of our youth. For my dad, that's the late 1930's. For me, it's the early 1960's. We saw almost no pre-war 0-gauge trains, either in sets or individual pieces. No rolling stock, no accessories, no locomotives.

Why?

Two reasons, I think.

First, the value on most of those items has always been somewhat low compared to the premium sets, which still command top dollar (see: What We Saw: Minors and Evergreens).

Second, the primary market for these items were collectors looking to either replace or add to the toys of their youth. And with preteens of the late 1930's now in their eighties, that's a rapidly shrinking market.

And unfortunately, it's the same with toys from my own youth. The extremely rare and desirable items retain their value (although we didn't see many for sale). But the commonplace trains of the early 1960's are no longer in demand.
Children of the sixties who are collecting now are looking to upgrade to the good stuff Santa forgot to bring them -- or if they have operating layouts, are more interested in the current products offered by modern manufacturers such as Lionel, MTH, or Atlas.

An industrious change

In reports of past shows, I've noted the almost complete absence of Industrial Rail products. This was a line of inexpensive 0-scale rolling stock designed to fill out freight trains on operating layouts. There's never been any real collecting appeal to these practical products, and I've always had a hard time finding them at the shows.

This modest line of rolling stock may have
finally, come into its own.

But when I did, the price was always between $10-$20. This time, I found at least one Industrial Rail piece in every exhibit hall (there are seven in all). Not a lot of variety, but far more quantity then I've ever seen. And the prices ranged from $15-$20.

Why? I think because more people want inexpensive rolling stock for their operating layouts. So demand has picked up -- but I think that will continue only as long as the price remains flat.