Selling Model Railways

[Newportnobby]

Rest easy. I haven't popped me clogs yet
A recent post has led me to ask "Has anyone real experience of selling either their own or maybe a relation's model railway collection en masse i.e. the entire collection.
I'm not talking about the forum N'Poriums or EBay for just a few items. I'm talking about maybe the box shifters who advertise "Best prices paid for your collection" (yeah, right) and then being stunned at just how little our valued collection is worth, bearing in mind, of course, they would want a profit when they sell it on.
I think any such information could be useful as a very rough guide (everyone's collection is different), and what would be offered this week may be different next week so I emphasise the 'rough' in the rough guide.
Any recommendations or 'avoids'?

For example - I won't be around to sell my stuff and anyone who does sell it would have no knowledge whatsoever on the subject

[alypar11]

I have a friend who is involved in a group that is trying to restore the 4 Sub 3rd Rail electric train that used to run in Kent. He goes around to a lot of model railway exhibitions and Events such as Galas at preserved railways and sells merchandise for the 4Sub group (mugs, keyrings etc) and second hand model railway items such as carriages and locomotives. He is mainly interested in N gauge stuff but is happy to sell anything that is donated. He has been doing this for at least 5 years and recently the first carriage of the 4Sub was rolled out and returned to the group having been fully professionally restored. Only two trailers and the other motor end to go.
I have previously given him an exhibition standard model railway in N gauge that was not wanted by a MRC I was a member of and he raised a few hundred pounds from that. I have also put his details in my Will for all of my models and accessories to be collected, catalogued and sold on with the funds again going to 1:1 scale railway restoration..
I don't have any family that would want my collection and want to just enjoy my stuff and not worry about it being a burden ( or binned) by my executors.
Hopefully this will be a good while yet, but he's about half my age, so hopefully will still be around to sort it all out when the time comes.
Although I will not directly benefit from the sales of my model railway, I have made provision for a substantial part of my legacy to be in the form of charitable donations to causes that are important to me, and this allows me to carry on getting a few new railway items that I fancy now, knowing that they're not going in the bin when I am no longer here.
I'm sure that if someone else wants to do something like this, approaching a Heritage railway or well established restoration group would be possible, and at least with those sorts of organisations, there's people in them who have some idea of the value and saleability of your model railway collection.

[thebrighton]

I am in this position at the moment following my fathers passing in January.

He has a stack of OO with an awful lot of locos only released in the last few years and barely used. I know what they are worth but have attempted to sell them en masse to most of the usual suspects but, as you suggest, you don't get much. Sure, they need to make a profit but I feel they know a lot of people don't know the value and need to sell them so bid accordingly.

The only way to get any kind of half decent return is probably Ebay but do I really want to list a hundred or so items, deal with all the chancers then get reported to HMRC?

I am actually off to a localish model shop tomorrow who will buy whole collections, we shall see.

Harder still are cars and buses. He collected Southdown buses and has 40+ of them plus around the same amount of Oxford cars etc. They are basically worth diddly squat and no one wants them.

At the end of the day I need to get as much as I can as mum's care home fees need paying somehow.

[port perran]

I had a similar problem when my father passed a few years back.

He had a collection of some 5000 model cars, lorries, buses and a few other vehicles.

I started to sell the best ones on Ebay but VERY quickly lost the will to live as it such a time consuming task.

I ended up putting it all in the hands of a specialist auction house.

They were extremely helpful.

My father had boxes for probably ninety per cent of the vehicles but boxes and their contents were separate.

The auction house spent a day boxing everything up and collating it all into separate lots.

Ok, they took a healthy commission but I still ended up raising more than I was hoping for plus it was quite good fun watching the various lots selling in the on-line auction.

It was better than selling direct to some dealer who I'm sure would have offered a pittance for the lot.

Cheers
Martin

[Newportnobby]

@port perran
An auction house sounds an interesting alternative to a box shifter like Rails.
Did you set a reserve for the sale(s) or wing it, Martin?