Model Railroading > Brass locomotives - what are they worth?

I'm not a modeler but I do own 2 brass SP steam locomotives in HO scale. One is an SP P-2 (or P-4) Pacific from Westside and has never run, except to be sure that it did when I got it. The other is a KEY MT-4 (or MT-5) class 4-8-2. Both have been painted by my long time friend and fellow engineer, John Ross. So, are they worth anything, or should I just keep them? Oh, and the Pacific is equipped with a 12,000 gallon Vanderbilt tender instead of the original 8,000 gallon rectangular tender.

JDE

Probably worth $300-500 depending on various things.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

"The price of an article is what it will fetch" attributed to the Chairman of Shell back in the 1930s when asked about the price of oil. If you need to sell, the price goes down, if you don't and someone wants what you have, the price goes up! Take a look at some of the brass locomotive sites, they will give you an idea of the price range. Note that even an unused locomotive can deteriorate - my Balboa GS-4 had rubber tubing connecting the drive shaft to the motor and it had perished. This could be embarrassing when demonstrating the loco to a prospective buyer!

Focalplane Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "The price of an article is what it will fetch"
> attributed to the Chairman of Shell back in the
> 1930s when asked about the price of oil. If you
> need to sell, the price goes down, if you don't
> and someone wants what you have, the price goes
> up! Take a look at some of the brass locomotive
> sites, they will give you an idea of the price
> range. Note that even an unused locomotive can
> deteriorate - my Balboa GS-4 had rubber tubing
> connecting the drive shaft to the motor and it
> had perished. This could be embarrassing when
> demonstrating the loco to a prospective buyer!


The Rule of selling:

Inspect it & Run it before you show it!

The rubber drive link-
An easy fix and a good time to lube things up if its been a while.

Gary

Go to BrassTrains.com

They have a tab you can click:
"brass guide".

Check it out!

The Pacific is worth from $200.00 to $300.00, it's difficult to retrieve the cost of painting when selling an engine. I have painted many years and the amount I would charge someone is NEVER what I get out of it. (Yes the paint jobs are very good)
The MT-4 is very different(I really love the Mountains, I have 12(brass)), I just paid $425.00 for a Sunset MT-4, it had many additional parts added and was painted by a well known SP steam detailer/painter in the San Joaquin scheme. The Key is a good model and some go near $900.00 but they have to be either very clean brass or painted very well. Some people will pay more for unpainted brass, some will only buy the painted engines, it all depends on what the buyer is in to.
One thing you will need to check is the idler gear on the KEY model, they are prone to cracking and the "correct" NWSL gear has to be broken-in because it is too large. When I say broken in I mean it really needs to be run with a lapping compound to wear itself in so the engine will not overheat when it's run because it is bound up.
If you can post some pictures that may help and it's always fun to see Espee engines.

Ed



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/13 14:32 by SPED.