MrWolf

Those figures look just the job. I only need a few. Each to their own, but I often think that layouts are overpopulated and definitely too many cars, despite the fact that there were around 75000 of them on British roads by 1930.

Looks more like Danny Trejo than Uncle Adolf to me, maybe you should lengthen his moustache and make him a scale machete (roughly 11mm long) Has anyone else noticed that a lot of period male figures have inappropriately long hair? It's like watching a 1960s war film

Can anyone recommend a range of 4mm figures that look right for the 1930's early 40's btw?

Sometimes items that are technically underscale help with a sense of size and distance if carefully placed. Your HO figures won't look out of place inside the building even with OO 4mm figures on the platform because there is a scenic divide. On my previous layout, there was a dirt road that went under the line and climbed up towards the backscene, it dipped away sharply before hitting the painted hardboard to help disguise the dead end, further helped by stands of trees. I still wasn't happy with it and stood a small Austin truck on the rise in front of the backscene to further disguise things. It actually looked out of scale and emphasized the fact that the world had an "edge". I replaced it with an old HO scale plastic kit of a Ford model A pickup and that actually helped give a sense of distance. This was because it was the only thing that the eye could see that the mind could put a known size to, the trees and hillside could have been any size. If there had been a 4mm figure standing next to it, it would have been obviously under scale, but it worked better than true scale within the constraints of its immediate environment. If that makes sense?

Something that I can't replicate in the cabs of my steam engines. Jaffa cakes tend to either melt or pick up a lot of coal dust. I can vouch that smokebox jacket spuds are a culinary delight though! On topic I am really impressed with the lengths that you are going to with your buildings. I am in the midst of creating drawings for my station building, a much more modest timber affair. I wasn't going to model the interior, (only the signal cabin and locomotive shed) but this thread has changed my mind! (PS, Thanks, I hate you all...)

Is it possibly a worse crime that some of my wagons have the same number? But consider this. If every aspect of our layouts and stock were perfect, what would we do then? We would have to fill our time with 'normal' hobbies like watching tv or football (or combining the two by standing outside Dixons on a Saturday afternoon and shouting at the televisions) or worse still, taking up golf... I have been assured by SWMBO that if I do, she will be cashing in my life insurance a good deal sooner than I think.

"I swapped it for some of the junk I'm never going to use" is another useful phrase for your arsenal. This works for a whole raft of hobbies and you generally find that SWMBO doesn't actually care that much unless you start asking awkward questions about the contents of her wardrobe. In return, you must be prepared to believe dismissive statements such as: "My friend / mother gave me those boots, she never wore them" or "It's a vintage dress I got from a charity shop".

As you might have guessed SWMBO collects antique bayonets and military knives, fortunately she also likes me and old motorcycles. Her attitude is that all collectables and antiques are only worth what someone is willing or fool enough to pay for it. She bought a Japanese bayonet for £35 from a specialist dealer (also a friend of mine, but that was the price tag and we didn't bother haggling) then spotted another in an antique shop in a local tourist area, minus its scabbard for £120. Her theory is that if someone pays over the odds for an item, the perceived 'worth' goes up, so successive valuations are based upon the highest known sum paid, thereby pushing up prices and increasing demand for that which is perceived to be rare and "collectable". This isn't sustainable of course, look what happened to the classic car boom in the early nineties. It's just another get rich scheme to the detriment of the many.

I can just imagine how the conversation would go in my house if I bought any of that stuff... Miss R. Riding Hood: "Go on, do explain to me how anything sold as a limited edition collectors item can only go up in value..." Mr B. B. Wolf: "Er, well, y'see... It's, um..."

Serious question: Can anyone here explain how that price is justified?

I suspect that some people advertise items speculatively, don't really want to sell it but will if someone else is willing to pay daft money. It certainly happens regularly with old motorcycles. It's usually people who don't need the money either. If this sells, I think I will put mine up for £200, seeing as it is in 1930s livery and being brown AND cream required twice as much expenditure on paint! Any takers before I list it?

Quantity over quality. Eventually the whole lot will be cherry picked but doubtless someone will still want the price of a new car for it.

I have seen quite a few empty boxes for locos, coaches and wagons on eBay, such as a Hornby Dean Goods box for £25. I was just thinking that if I sell the box from mine, the loco owes me £12... It's nice to have locomotives in their boxes though, if only to keep the dust off. I don't know about the rest of you, but I find it about as much fun as defusing a landmine getting them in or out of the packaging!

Don't buy it unless the seller has put the word RARE!! in the title.... Then it's obviously worth millions.

Someone who doesn't do his homework and only looks at the price thinking that they have a bargain may think £50 is a no brainer. I imagine that the seller has had to cancel a sale or two!

It certainly is weird. There are loads of bogus plates and other items about. The automobilia world has been awash with deliberately aged repros for years. Any field where the "Got to have it all no matter the price" brigade invade a hobby you will get fakes and overpriced junk. I'm sure the seller is trying to warn the unwary, but this isn't exactly news.

Good greif. Don't Dapol still make that? Must be because it is vintage and boxed. I once met someone who collected vintage kits of all kinds. He had them stacked up all over the house. Hundreds of the things, bored me to death telling me what they were "worth". All I wanted to do was buy his VW for my then girlfriend and get as far away as possible. I feel the same way about people who have dozens of vintage motorcycles and never ride them. Would you marry a hot Hollywood actress and then sleep on the couch?

What I find inexplicable, is the price differences for common items. I would like to think it's just people not doing their homework rather than being blatant chancers. Take something as simple as a plastic wagon kit. A basic box van, mass produced and not obsolete (those I know can attract some wild prices at times) Private seller has this item up for sale, box opened but nothing missing for £12 plus £3.95 post. Dealer / model railway shop has the same item, brand new and sealed for £8.50 plus £1.99 post. There are literally dozens of such instances. If a private individual has the same thing starting at 99p on bids, I bid up to the cheapest BIN price less say, 50p inc post. If I don't win, is just hit the cheapest BIN. I often wonder if any of the stuff that is dearer than new ever sells. These will be the people who complain about tight ass punters on eBay I suspect!

Bizarre. 'Nuf said.

I'm seriously considering going modern image, ripping up my branch line, putting in a cul de sac where the level crossing was and filling the yard with bogus late Georgian farmhouses and calling it Station Mews... I will then run a wildly overpriced bus service at erratic and inconvenient times, that struggles to get past the selfishly parked Chelsea tractors outside the school and shops. I am only struggling for a name based around Take it or leave it, or You asked for it"

I was asked what I was sniggering about and have just been informed by Miss Riding Hood that any attempt to "Pro weather" HER My little pony and stick it on ebay for a laugh will result (in ascending order of pain) in her: 1: Chasing me round the garden with a sword. 2: Forcing me to wear a Harley Davidson T shirt. 3: Sticking First Great Western logos on all my nice green painted steam engines. Sometimes she really knows how to just stick the knife in and then break it off...

That actually looks pretty nice. Even if it comes from an inferior railway company You could probably get away with swapping out the gramophone motor and bacon slicer wheels and have a good model very cheaply.

I certainly think so. It would save you a fortune in stock. An EFE bus is much cheaper than the latest Bachmann multiple unit! Very handy if you're on a budget. In fact, modern image modellers are at a distinct advantage in this respect. Save a fortune on track, just a single line dead ending at a plastic bus shelter, a goods yard can be replaced with a car park that isn't used. ( no need to buy lots of scale cars) the MPD can be replaced with a retail park (cornflake boxes painted grey) which in turn will give you the money to spend on a dcc sound system for the sound of the buses ticking over and a chavvy mummy shouting at her darling children (invariably their names are Get here! and Shut it!) or you can go for award winning realism with a scale smackhead "Got any spare change mate?" Go for it!

Good point, I picked up a white metal Dean goods with an elderly rtr chassis at a local model railway exhibition for £15, was shown it running too. Add to that a fiver to get in, another fiver for petrol in the bike and three quid for a pint on the way home. A good day out and I am still up a few quid. The loco is in the queue for surgery, though as it runs fine I will probably ignore its faults for a while!

Definitely out of gauge, especially with the chimney mounted atop the steam chest instead of the smokebox. There are also some interesting (!) buses weathered in a style more befitting a WD or 9F in Barry scrapyard. If you see e "professionally weathered" Darth Vader or My little Pony for sale on eBay for about £60 starting bid, that will be me, taking the p#ss...