28 replies to this topic

[Barry Boor]

Thanks to the excellent efforts of a fellow TNF member, I no longer own a collection of sports racing cars.

 

I have retained my 1966 Le Mans set (still minus 3 cars!) but all the other have now gone - the final 150 or so to a dealer for a slightly disappointing sum. Still it was good that they have finally gone.

 

The point of my thread title is that looking on E**y I see that the bottom really has dropped out of the market.  Cars that I paid £15-£20 for back in the early years of this century are failing to sell with starting prices way below £10 and those with Buy It Now figures anywhere near £20 just don't sell.

 

I wonder why this is?

[Peter Morley]

Some of the manufacturers shot themselves in the foot.

6 months (or less sometimes) after releasing a model they would slash the price of their remaining stock.

That meant collectors started to wait for the lower price before buying - since they could buy a model for less than the dealer had bought it originally.

 

Of course the collectors missed out on some models which meant their collections weren't complete, so they then started to lose interest or became fussier about what they bought (e.g. buying less).

It also meant that shops couldn't afford to keep any stock.

 

They have also supplied models to be given away with magazines very cheaply.

 

Toy fairs/online sellers competing to offer theirs cheaper than anyone else didn't help either.

 

None of this appealed to people who thought their collections were investments.

 

Such issues have also led to dealers/collectors offloading their stock/collections at any price.

[Barry Boor]

That about sums it up I think, Peter.

[Peter Morley]

That about sums it up I think, Peter.

 

I had similar problems while distributing slot cars - discovered Spanish shops selling cars to the public for less than I was expected to pay for them made life rather difficult!

Shops I dealt with told me all sorts of stories and some interesting stuff like 'rival' makes being made in the same Chinese factories!

I heard recently that it still happens - a well known manufacturer offering cars cheap direct to the public before they've supplied all their retailers...

[fbarrett]

Good Lord! If I could buy any number of Le Mans cars for 20 quid apiece, I'd be all over them in a second!

 

And what's all this about models and slot cars, anyway?

[RCH]

There are some very strange conundrums in the model car market these days. On the one hand there are more high quality models "available" than ever before  yet on the other, where are they?   Take Spark for example. They theoretically have a phenomenal range yet it frequently seemed that the only way the dealer could get hold of any when released was to have ordered them months before Spark announced they were going to make them! Yet when you do get them they sit on the shelf because the limited number of buyers have already got them... probably from a cut price dealer on Ebay.

 

Way back in the late '90's I thought I had a good business and yet it all seemed to disappear overnight. Perhaps summed up by this little incident. I was on my way to Manchester for some reason or other and stopped at a service area on the M6; there to my utter amazement in the toy section of the shop were a selection of Quartzo Porsche 935 which I had just priced up at around £18.00 each at £3.00 a time!   Of course this was down to Vitesse dumping most of their European stock which I seem to recall happened on 3 different occasions. Couple this with the arrival of Ebay; the cheapness of Chinese production and a cynical public thinking the traditional shop dealer was out to cheat them and the whole thing fell apart.

[tokyonagaremono]

The 1/18 market appears to be all about quality (not necessarily price!) and I reckon decent models of popular car/driver subjects, especially signed, will more than hold their value in the longer term. That's if the longer term includes a recovery from the economic woes we're all experiencing right now (recoveries have always saved us in the past, but people are talking about this one being the big one, the armaggedon that sees the US, UK and Japan default, the EU collapse completely, and even sees China in meltdown due to its housing bubble - if that's the case whether our diecast hold their prices is the last of our worries). Anybody who has invested in a decent portfolio of CMC, Exoto, TSM, (most) Auto Art and/or (some) Minichamps and Spark 1/18s should be quids in when the economy picks up. I cannot see values for these suffering serious reverses unless it's discovered in a few years that a particular manufacturer's products suffer paint bubbles or they start falling apart because the glues or plastics aren't good enough. Though I personally would never pay over £150 for a model I know everyone has his or her own 'threshold' as to what constitutes value for money, and I'm sure that should the economy improve plenty of people will start splashing the cash for £200 or £250+ AA's or TSMs, whether new or secondhand.

 

1/43rds are a different beast entirely. I don't believe the sub-£20 models, the Brumms and Vitesses, ever had any chance of increasing their values. Minichamps and Sparks will be touch-and-go; it will all depend on the rarity and popularity of car/driver. My bet is most will lose money in the longer term, but there will be a resurgence for prices of popular subjects when, again, the economy brightens. A lot depends on whether a new company will come along and start producing 1/43rds even cheaper and higher-quality than MC and Spark have been able to. I doubt it, I think the opening of China the 00's was the golden age of cheap diecast manufacturing and it won't ever come back (unless it's post-that armaggedon scenario, but that won't matter to us, we'll have starved in the meantime), Chinese wages have now risen and there's really nowhere left on Earth with a very low wage but educated and trained workforce left to exploit. It could be that the MCs and Sparks we were buying for £25 just seven or ten years ago will be the high water mark when it comes to the quality-to-price ratio. £50 is my limit for 1/43rds (and only that for special subjects, £30 is more common) though having already garnered most subjects I want I seldom buy any nowadays. I cannot see that there will ever be much of a market for £50+ 1/43rds (inflation-adjusted, of course) in future. As with the 1/18s, there's a point with 1/43rds where the back of the brain kicks in and says '£50+ for those little things, if I forgo just four or five of them I could buy an ipad or ps4 instead.'

 

I am very pleased with my collection, I especially like the way it's helped me learn more about the history of the sport. I do wonder what other people will do with them when they get old though - sell up, or leave them to the kids in the will?

 

What they're worth at any particular time is all to do with the state of the economy, that's the answer to Barry's musing 'I wonder why this is?' at the top of the thread. The bottom's dropped out of the whole economy, so the bottom's dropped out of the diecast market. Hold on a few years, maybe a decade, and diecast values will have risen in line with the economy (though there'll be a time lag).

Edited by tokyonagaremono, 08 October 2013 - 23:37.

[Barry Boor]

 

 

there's a point with 1/43rds where the back of the brain kicks in and says '£50+ for those little things, if I forgo just four or five of them I could buy an ipad or ps4 instead.'

This is an excellent and very perceptive comment.

[Peter Morley]

As tokyonagaremono says 1:18 seem to be focussed on quality and I agree that they have to be a better bet long term.

I've just seen a review of a 1:18 Cooper T51 by Schuco which looks great and is £200

On the same page is a 1:43 BRM by Spark for £50

I'm far more tempted by the Cooper than I would be by 4 x 1:43 models...

 

Slot cars currently have a similar variation and price range, albeit in the same scale.

There are now a lot of highly detailed, limited production, resin based models that sell for around £150 whereas the major manufacturers models are around £50 which I thought was dear until I compared them to 1:43 statics.

[Jager]

Barry, glad to hear the collection is finally sold.

 

I think the problem with many cheaper models like Brumm is the production run is not limited, so the manufacturer just keeps churning out the same models over and over. While these models were pefectly acceptable 20 years ago, they've long since been overtaken by other manufacturers. If you want to buy a 1:43 D-Type for example, aside from Brumm (@ GBP 10) you also have a superior model from Quartzo/IXO (GBP 25), an even more detailed version from Spark (GBP 40) and now the super detailed model from Autoart with openning bodywork (GBP 100).

 

In general, I think collectors are trading up in quality. They also value rarity which Minichamps (and their customers) learnt the hard way - their models were highly sought-after and many of their popular 1:43's would sell on the second hand market for three figures. That was until Minichamps got gready and started re-releasing their rarer models, killing the 'collectability' of their models and shot themselves in the foot in the process.

 

Spark/Bizarre on the other hand seemed to have learnt from this. They make a limited edition production run and do it just once. Yes, you have to pre-order the best models 12 months in advance which can be frustrating, but typically that allows them to better judge the demand for a given model and prevents large quantities ending up in the bargain basement bin on eBay (though it does still tend to happen with non-descript LM prototype DNF's).

 

On the other hand, some of their more desirable models are jumping 3 & 4 times in price. Look at some of the following completed ebay auctions :

 

Spark 1986 Porsche 956 for GBP 170 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item2eca9a5441

 

Spark 1964 Iso Grifo for GBP 145 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item53fe5937a8

 

Spark 1994 Kremer for GBP 136 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item53fd5d478c

 

Redline 1962 Ferrari LM Winner for GBP 133 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item53fda0e17d

 

Bizarre 1970 Chevron for GBP 128 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item20d8d4398f

 

Spark 1973 Mirage for GBP 110 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item53fd5d478c

 

Bizarre 1950 Frazer Nash for GBP 82 :

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item565ad4395d

 

This is just a small selection from auctions in the last 2 months. In just my collection, I'd count at least 50 Spark/Bizarre models that now regularly sell above GBP 75, and maybe 25 that regularly sell above GBP 100. I was lucky I started collecting Le Mans cars 10 years ago, but if I was starting out collecting today there are many cars in my collection I could no longer afford.

 

 

 

 

[Jager]

....and following the post above, here's Autoart 's 'Signature Series' version of the 1955 Le Mans winning Jaguar D-Type :
 

 

New from AutoArt is this highly detailed 1/43 scale model of the 1955 LeMans winning Jaguar D-type from their Signature Series. Assembled with more than 140 parts, this gem features a detailed engine, removable tonneau cover, opening hood, boot and driver's door.

 

If a major diecast manufacturer had said 10 years ago he was going to release a highly detailed 1:43 that was going to retail for GBP 100 we'd have all said he was crazy (we still might !). Nevertheless, Autoart are confident of selling enough of these to put it in production.

 

 

...and here's a Brumm for comparison :
 

 

 

 

Edited by Jager, 19 October 2013 - 05:58.

[Barry Boor]

The question is....  is the Autoart model ten times better than the Brumm......?  Probably, but £100 for a 'toy' car is a bit steep.

 

Tears entered my eyes when I saw what that Nash Healey sold for.   

[Jager]

Tears entered my eyes when I saw what that Nash Healey sold for.   

 

I feel your pain Barry.

 

Second hand prices are a funny thing. The Bizarre 1950 Healey sold for for GBP 82, but a Bizarre 1951 Le Mans MG that i picked up from you sold for just GBP 28 :

 

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item35cce30355

 

That's a huge discrepancy in price, but there are several factors that would have had an influence :

 

1. The Healey was boxed, the MG was unboxed (a box is probably worth GBP 10).

2. The Healey was the fourth placed car, while the MG was a lowly 'DNF' non finisher (probably has the biggest influence on price/desirability).

3. The Healey was driven by Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton, who arguably better known drivers than George Phillips & Alan Rippon who drove the MG (probably a secondary factor).

 

Despite the above, its still strange to think that one is worth 3 times the price of the other when they look reltively similar sitting side by side on the shelf.

[D-Type]

Despite some of the very obscure rarities that get modelled I find it strange that no 'mainstream' (ie vaguely affordable - say under £50) models have been made of the following World Champions:

Jack Brabham, 1966, Brabham-Repco BT19 or BT20

Jackie Stewart, 1973 Tyrrell-Ford 005 or 006

Emerson Fittipaldi, 1974, McLaren-Ford M23

Mario Andretti, 1978, Lotus-Ford 79 (althouigh a 1978 Lotus 78 has been modelled)

Constructors' Champion, 1981, Williams-Ford FW07C

Constructors' Champion, 1983, Ferrari 126 C2B or C3

Ayrton Senna, 1991, McLaren-Honda MP4/6 (the original Senna series sold out and was never repeated)

Sebastian Vettel, 2012, Red Bull RB*8 (the show car has come out but not the race car yet)

I find the last surprising.  When Quartzo were still in business there used to be competition between them and Minichamps to see who could be first with the nwe cahampion.  Now Minichamps have a monopoly ...

[Jager]

Despite some of the very obscure rarities that get modelled I find it strange that no 'mainstream' (ie vaguely affordable - say under £50) models have been made of the following World Champions:

Jack Brabham, 1966, Brabham-Repco BT19 or BT20

Jackie Stewart, 1973 Tyrrell-Ford 005 or 006

Emerson Fittipaldi, 1974, McLaren-Ford M23

Mario Andretti, 1978, Lotus-Ford 79 (althouigh a 1978 Lotus 78 has been modelled)

Constructors' Champion, 1981, Williams-Ford FW07C

Constructors' Champion, 1983, Ferrari 126 C2B or C3

Ayrton Senna, 1991, McLaren-Honda MP4/6 (the original Senna series sold out and was never repeated)

Sebastian Vettel, 2012, Red Bull RB*8 (the show car has come out but not the race car yet)

I find the last surprising.  When Quartzo were still in business there used to be competition between them and Minichamps to see who could be first with the nwe cahampion.  Now Minichamps have a monopoly ...

 

D-Type, the 1973 Stewart Tyrell 006 has been modelled by Minichamps (430 730006) :

 

http://www.ebay.com....=item3a8641167b

 

Minichamps also released the 1978 Andretti Lotus 79, but its also very rare :

 

http://www.ebay.com....=item417767c5a3

 

The 1981 Alan Jones World Champion was produced by Minichamps with a removeable body :

 

http://www.ebay.com....=item3a7ff66c22

 

Obviously all the above are worth a lot more than GBP 50 these days, but if you'd bough them when new you have only paid this much or less.

 

 

There has also been a couple of 2012 Vettel racecar released, but they are regional releases celebrating speific races. The first is from Suzuka :

 

http://www.ebay.com....=item3cd6ee29ec

 

......and the second is from Hockenheim :

 

http://www.ebay.com....=item1c29758c8c

 

Far from having a monopoly, Minichamps are finding increasing competition from Spark in the F1 arena. In 2012 Spark had the licences for McLaren, Lotus, Mercedes, HRT & Marussia. FIve years from now, I predict Spark will have completely taken over the entire F1 grid from Minichamps, who will probably concentrate just on road cars, trucks & buses.

Edited by Jager, 19 October 2013 - 19:45.

[Barry Boor]

I'm sure my cousin Peter would be very happy to sell Spark the licence to produce all the Connew F.1 models.  

[D-Type]

A little confusion here methinks:

In 1980 Alan Jones was World Champion Driver and Williams won the Manufacturers' Championship

In 1981 he wasn't World Champion Driver but Williams were the Manufacturers' Champion - cars with race numbers 1 and 2 driven by Jones and Reutemann - not #27 as the 1979 car pictured.

 

The "Hockenheim" Red Bull appears to be the pre-season show car which I think was a 2011 car with 2012 livery and sponsors' logos

 

I must have missed the Tyrrell and Lotus 79 when they first came out.

 

Thanks for the information - I'll keep a look out for these ones.

Edited by D-Type, 20 October 2013 - 08:16.

[Jager]

A little confusion here methinks:

In 1980 Alan Jones was World Champion Driver and Williams won the Manufacturers' Championship

In 1981 he wasn't World Champion Driver but Williams were the Manufacturers' Champion - cars with race numbers 1 and 2 driven by Jones and Reutemann - not #27 as the 1979 car pictured.

 

Yes, sorry. It was late at night when I replied and obviously the brain was a little fuzzy !

 

At least some of the information I gave you was useful .

[Mal9444]

Tears entered my eyes when I saw what that Nash Healey sold for.   

 

You and me both, Barry... you and me both

[Mal9444]

I feel your pain Barry.

 

Second hand prices are a funny thing. The Bizarre 1950 Healey sold for for GBP 82, but a Bizarre 1951 Le Mans MG that i picked up from you sold for just GBP 28 :

 

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item35cce30355

 

That's a huge discrepancy in price, but there are several factors that would have had an influence :

 

1. The Healey was boxed, the MG was unboxed (a box is probably worth GBP 10).

2. The Healey was the fourth placed car, while the MG was a lowly 'DNF' non finisher (probably has the biggest influence on price/desirability).

3. The Healey was driven by Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton, who arguably better known drivers than George Phillips & Alan Rippon who drove the MG (probably a secondary factor).

 

Despite the above, its still strange to think that one is worth 3 times the price of the other when they look reltively similar sitting side by side on the shelf.

 

Having been the TNFer who tried and so dismally failed to get Barry decent prices on eBay (some of the models we had to part with for just over a Fiver - and that before deducting eBay and PayPal fees, and the best price was £30.00) I too wince at the price won for the Bizarre Healey (for which we had the box).  I notice that it and the MG appear to be listed on a French eBay site, whereas we were using eBay UK. Was I trying to sell them in the wrong place?

[RCH]

There isn't any rhyme or reason for prices on Ebay, you just need two people with an interest and the price can rocket. I recently sold a tatty old USSR made Moskvitch toy for over £70.00. Such models were ten a penny when I started back in the early '90's and the Berlin wall hadn't long come down. I've sold quite a few of those Corgi made Daytona winning Jaguars which came free with a can of Castrol over the years. Usually well played with, usually a pound or two a time. I even struggled to get a fiver for one just as it would have come off the can, packaging and all. Then recently I was told that a very tatty one I had was worth much more than the pound I had on it. Why? Because the very early ones were made with the wrong number on them. That might make it rare but does it really make it valuable? The wrong number is worth much more than the right one?   Clearly the reason I have never made a living...  

[Jager]

Having been the TNFer who tried and so dismally failed to get Barry decent prices on eBay (some of the models we had to part with for just over a Fiver - and that before deducting eBay and PayPal fees, and the best price was £30.00) I too wince at the price won for the Bizarre Healey (for which we had the box).  I notice that it and the MG appear to be listed on a French eBay site, whereas we were using eBay UK. Was I trying to sell them in the wrong place?

 

I don't think there was anything wrong with listing the cars on eBay UK, provide the auctions were made available to 'Worldwide' buyers and not just UK buyers. 

 

While some collectors will pay big money for Minichamps, Spark or Bizarre moels because htye are prioduced in limited numbers, it seems a fiver is about the going rate for a Brumm model. Searching for "Brumm 43" under the completed auctions function of eBay, it indicates there were more than ~7,500 Brumm models offered i nthe last 3 months, but only~2,500 of those aucrtions sold. Of those, ~1,500 were sold for less than £10.

 

My experience is that as a general rule

 

~ 10% of the models I buy appreciate substantially in value.

~ 60% of the models will more or less hold their value.

~ 30% of models will loose a significant proportion of their value.

 

IXO for example make some nice models, but you almost always find them discounted at 50% off 6 month after release because they over-produce them. I've subsequently stopped buying them new when first released because nothing is more dishearting than seeing a model being offered for half what you just paid for it.

[RCH]

IXO for example make some nice models, but you almost always find them discounted at 50% off 6 month after release because they over-produce them. I've subsequently stopped buying them new when first released because nothing is more dishearting than seeing a model being offered for half what you just paid for it.

Such dumping was a sad fact, a result of production in China being so much cheaper than in Europe but most manufacturers have striven to overcome the over production problem by restricting numbers made but have then gone on to produce more different models. The net result being that the average collector cannot afford to buy all he would like to when they arrive on the market and since the numbers produced are much smaller he is struggling to find them later, hence high prices for certain "second hand" models. To be honest I'm not aware of too much dumping these days, certainly not via the recognised UK wholesalers, it's a mystery how some ebay traders can sell at the prices they do. So far as IXO are concerned there does seem to have been a glut of quantities of certain models at bargain prices but by no means all. I suspect this may have been due to erratic release dates. I ordered fairly large quantities of Le Mans cars one year but most of them took so long to arrive that I ended up cancelling a fair chunk of my order. Nothing is so old hat as last year's race cars. I guess I wasn't alone.

You are certainly not alone in waiting for a new release to be discounted, nothing is more disheartening than having a nice selection of new releases sitting on the shelf which no one will buy because they are waiting for the cut price merchants to get their hands on the dumped ones. And people wonder what happened to the High St. model store.

Edited by RCH, 07 January 2014 - 00:30.

[D-Type]

Ironically, I believe it was IXO's predecessor Onyx/Quartzo/Vitesse that started the rot when they bypassed their UK agent and dumped a load of stock on the market.  We had a collecting bonanza for a while but afterwards ....

Edited by D-Type, 07 January 2014 - 16:30.

[RCH]

Tell me about it! One of the defining moments of my business career falling about me in tatters! There were actually three occasions. First of all, so I was told by someone who should have known, a "European Distributor" allegedly attempted to cancel a vey large order on the Vitesse Group. The reasons for this were highly political and best not repeated on a public forum. Vitesse refused and so the distributor attempted to sell them to the trade, outside of their distribution area at a knock down price. I received a fax with the listings, as did Mike Combe  and I guess many others. However they actually ended up allegedly selling them to an unknown wholesaler in the UK who then sold them out at an even more knocked down price outside of the usual retailers.

 

Secondly when Vitesse transferred all production to China they sold off the entire contents of their Portuguese warehouse to the same wholesaler to make way for the incoming Chinese production and thirdly they decided to import via Amsterdam rather than Lisbon and again sold off the entire warehouse.

 

All of this put their official UK importer ModelTime into an embarrassing position and probably led to their decision to close. ModelTime were a great company, always helpful and kept massive stocks, unlike every other wholesaler in the game.  When they decided to close they offered their stock, again at cut price, to the retailers, I bought several thousands worth, however the bulk was eventually bought by a well known dealer who to the best of my knowledge still has some of it! ModelTime had made a concerted effort to ensure that there would not be excessive discounting on any of their lines but this of course went completely out of the window. The net result was that retailers were being accused of making excess profit because so much product was appearing at way low prices and to be honest it was another nail in the coffin of the High St. shop.   

[Jager]

So far as IXO are concerned there does seem to have been a glut of quantities of certain models at bargain prices but by no means all. I suspect this may have been due to erratic release dates. I ordered fairly large quantities of Le Mans cars one year but most of them took so long to arrive that I ended up cancelling a fair chunk of my order. Nothing is so old hat as last year's race cars. I guess I wasn't alone.

 

So true. In December 2013, IXO finally released the 2006 Le Mans Spykers and 2008 Le Mans Corvettes. Why bother - anyone who wanted these cars in their collection bought the Spark versions a long time ago. If IXO can't release cars in timely manner, it may as well not bother at all as all its doing is lumbering its dealers with unwanted stock..

[bob433]

I find it puzzling why no model manufacturer will make a 1/18 scale model of Jack Brabham's BT19. I see Spark are making the Alan Jones Williams FW07.

[zepunishment]

I find it puzzling why no model manufacturer will make a 1/18 scale model of Jack Brabham's BT19. I see Spark are making the Alan Jones Williams FW07.

I think that it won't be too long before spark make the BT19 in 1/18, they're starting to realise there's demand for good quality classic 1/18 f1 cars.

[jj2728]

I think it's a boom time for us collectors of small scale cars. I've been collecting 1/43rd scale for more than 50 years and some of the cars now being made available I never thought I'd see. SPARK appears to be leading the way. They are coming out with a wonderful selection of Indy 500 cars from years' past. Both winning and non winning cars. Here's a few examples.

 

 

 

 

Edited by jj2728, 15 June 2014 - 14:00.