How To Sell Your Electric Trains

There are a number of ways to sell your train collection. You have to determine which way is best for you depending upon your circumstances and time frame. Here are some ideas for you to consider. I am trying to give you some options of ways you can sell your collection with as much unbiased information as possible. I am now retired and not buying any longer but you still have many options.

Train City, Inc. Buy form ** Very helpful in organizing your train collection for sale!!
Our Free On-line Price Guide
On-Line Auctions
Auction Houses
Local Dealers
Garage Sales
Piece By Piece at shows or by mail
Consignment
Contact Information

Train City Inventory List Form.pdf This is a line item list that you can download and use to organize the information needed to give you a quote. Don't send it to us but you can send to others. Hopefully this will help. Helpful Inventory Form Download

Our Free On-line Price Guide We base our buy prices on these guides. We are constantly updating the data. Even if you don't do business with us, I hope these guides come in handy. You can find them by clicking This will give you information on pricing. Please feel free to use our free Price Guide.

On-Line Auctions Theoretically you will realize more money if you auction your trains. Of course there is always a catch with the higher price, which is your time. It can be time consuming to upload the auction information and pictures, then do administration work in notifying winners, collecting money, and shipping the trains. This can become very time consuming especially with a medium to large train collection. However, as I said, you will realize more money for your trains this way. The bottom line is, the more work you put into selling your trains, the more money you will realize.

Auction Houses Auctions are a great way to sell your collection, especially if it is large. Be extremely careful who you deal with though. Recently I was supposed to purchase a collection from an individual who had committed his train collection to an auction house. He decided to pull out after he was dissatisfied with the way the auction house was handling his trains. Not only had the auction house had his trains for months in preparation for the auctions they had planned, but when the individual informed the company that he didn't like the way they were handling his trains and that he wanted out of the deal, the auction company charged him 10,000.00 to get out of the deal. And then in spite, even after he had agreed to pay, they held his trains for months until they were forced by the legal system to give the trains back. And then when he got them back, they were not in the same condition as when he had committed them. It has taken the individual months there after to organize the trains in order to sell them to me. Over the years since I originally wrote this I have heard feedback from several potential sellers that went the auction house way. Around half the time they actually did realize more than my original offer. But the time they waited for their final check was painful in every conversation I've had with people who went this way.

On the positive side, if you find a good auction house, they usually do a good job, and I believe the fee is 15%, which is better than you will realize selling to an individual. However you will be risking your collection as you have to hand them over to the auction house usually months before they are sold so they can be cataloged. Make absolute certain that the auction house has a good insurance policy against theft, fire, or other damage that could be incurred while in their possession. This is very important and why I am leery for you to use an auction house to sell your trains.

I recommend Stout Auctions.

Dealers If you are lucky and have an established train dealer near you, this is the easiest way to sell your trains. However you have to be very careful whom you are dealing with. I have purchased many collections around the country where the seller told me that their local bids were substantially lower than mine. If you are exploring the possibility of selling to a local dealer, you should also get a quote from a non-local dealer for comparison. If your local dealer is small with a low volume operation, chances are he will not be competitive with a more substantial dealer who does higher volume, mainly because the larger dealer usually has a constant need to replace his inventory.

Regardless make sure before making a deal with any dealer that thay will make full payment at pick-up. This is very important. Once they take your collection, if you haven't received the full amount there are too many things that can go wrong. Don't leave yourself open for a bad experience.

Avoid part time dealers, antique dealers, and dealers who have no established place of business. Avoid like the plague fast talkers, or people who talk everything you have down. I have dealt with such dealers in the past, and before you know it they have you believing that they are doing you a favor for taking your trains off your hands, while they are actually stealing them. If you feel uncomfortable with a dealer or individual, do not hesitate to ask them to leave, or pull back from the deal and maybe re-evaluate what you are getting yourself into. It is your choice, they are your trains, don't ever let a person force or talk you into selling to them. Explore all of your options, or you could be out some serious cash. Of course if this is the case, you won't know how much you are losing, but wouldn't it be better to stay away from this type of situation and realize as much money as possible?

Garage Sales and Flea Markets I once purchased a collection the day before it was going to turn into a garage sale. I can't tell you how grateful the people who sold me the collection were when they realized how many problems they probably would have run into, and how much less money they would have realized. Unless it is just a very small amount of trains, I don't recommend selling train collections this way. You want to deal more with people who are knowledgeable in trains so that you will realize a fair value. Not that people who attend garage sales and flea markets couldn't be knowledgeable, however I believe that most people in that buying atmosphere are looking for bargains, which is not in your best interest.

Selling Piece By Piece There are a number of ways you can sell your train collection piece by piece, if you have the time and patience in doing so. Probably the best way is using an on-line auction as mentioned above, however if you want to set fixed pricing and are member of the Lionel Collectors Club of America, they publish a great bimonthly journal called the Interchange Track where you can list individual items. I believe you can list up to 25 pieces per issue. They are mailed to the entire membership, and get great readership. I've never used it, but am told as long as you keep your prices reasonable, you will get results.

Train shows are also a great way to sell trains, however don't expect to sell everything unless you offer the whole table for a very cheap price. I don't care what you take with you, if you keep your prices near retail, you will go home with plenty of trains as I always did in my train show days. (Thank goodness they are over!)

You can also advertise in magazines such as Classic Toy Trains, however your initial cost will be great, and you had better have some good merchandise to sell to make up for the ad fees.

Consignment Did you notice that this is the last option I list? There is a reason for that.

I've seen more problems come about by consignment than any other method. Whether it be a friend or a dealer, this is not a good situation for either party. I've seen friendships go a muck, and legal battles waged mainly because of consignment agreements or lack of!

The biggest mistake sellers make is not having a formal contract written up specifying terms and prices expected. Let's say that you have a 300 piece collection of trains that you give to a friend who is going to sell the trains at shows for a 10% commission. The biggest problem is it is going to take them forever to sell your collection unless they offer the trains at give away prices. At that point, you would have been better off to sell the entire collection outright to one party. You would have had your money immediately so you could collect interest. By the time you factor in the interest realized, the commission, and the give away prices, how much different would the price be than had you sold the collection to one party say 6 months or a year earlier?

I have never talked with someone who took this route who was happy with the results. And in two cases good friendships ended in an awkward way, one through a legal battle.

I view this method of selling as the worst way you could go. But if you insist on doing so, like auction houses make sure the seller has an insurance policy that would protect you in case of theft, fire, or other losses.

I hope these tips are of some help to you in selling your collection. Please contact me by e-mail if you have questions. I am retired now and will have some time on my hands!