Brass Ones


H

HaggisKennedy

Coal Shoveler
No, it's not what you think.

Recently, we had a thread about why buy brass locos when there were so many good plastic ones out there. And, I said that for some modellers, like us GN ones, brass steamers is the only way to go.

Over the weekend, I packed up some steamers to send to my vendor to have DCC decoders installed. I sent a Sunset 0-8-0 and my Challenger 2-6-8-0 (both GN). But, I also did an inventory of the other 'brass ones' I have stored away:

Steam: GN O8 2-8-2, F-2 2-8-0, E15 4-6-0, E6 4-6-0, Q2 2-10-2, N2 2-8-8-0, R3 2-8-8-2. I also have an NP 4-8-4, the ex-Timkin 4 Aces, and a SPS A-3/4 4-8-4, and one other NP 4-8-4.

Electrics: GN Y-1, Z-1, and Y1a. Do not have the W-1s, the only one I've seen at a reasonable price was kinda beat up.

Diesel: GN E7 (pair, from Challenger), two OMI GP35s, OMI LMX B40-8.

I normally wouldn't buy brass diesels, but the latter was off of eBay (from an acquaintance, actually, it turned out), and the E7s were from a dealer on special. Only problem with those is that one of the E7s is a duplicate number to two other E7s I have. One is from BLI and the other is P2K.

The only other diesels I'd be interested in buying would be a Alco Century 636 in SP&S (they had 10, out of a production run of 34 total), and the GE C39-8, the one with the big hump back. The latter shows up on ebay every so often, but I've not managed to win one yet.

Most of the steam are eBay also, but a couple came from either a train show or from an online dealer.

BTW, some are factory painted, but most aren't....

:D

Kennedy
 
There is a bit of a "prestige factor" as well with brass which is kinda cool. I love the E3-E6 era and saw a beautiful E7 on EBay recently - really is tempting...

A related question - do most brass owners here prefer painted or unpainted? Which is generally considered more "valuable"? Or maybe "desirable" is a better term to use?

Mark
 
Mark,
A lot depends on the individual model. I'd guess that over half the brass models purchased remain unpainted. There are some factory painted brass models that are worth much more than the unpainted version because the quality of the paint and decals is so good. Then there are the guys who fancy themselves to be good painters and take a $1200 model and absolutely ruin it. I've seen some models reduced in value by more than half because of poorly applied painted job by the owner. When I was a member of a large club, we had one guy with way more money than talent. This was back in the 70's and he would buy brass models, mostly steam, for $300 to $400 almost every week. That was big money for a model back then. He'd then paint them for his custom layout scheme. Not only was the scheme itself awful, his workmanship was even worse - I don't think he ever applied a decal straight. :) He's bring them to the club to show them off and it was all we could do to remain polite and tell him he had a "nice engine" without ever mentioning the paint and decals.
 
The collectors prefer unpainted. I prefer painted because I run my locomotives. They're not for 'display' in the collection.

The first brass steamer I bought was the O-8 Mike from Caboose Hobbies. It got a bunch of dings because it had foam marks and red stains all over it. Because of that, it couldn't be sold at a premium price to collectors for display.

I, on the other hand, don't give a ****. I'm having it painted and a decoder installed anyway, and I don't care if it has a foot of tarnish on it. It needs to be prepped for painting anyway, so it's just one step to clean it off.

Kennedy
 
I second that HK.;) and i have painted several of mine an though not absoluty perfect i'm sure not ashamed of'em
 
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Nice! I like the 12-wheeler. Who made that?

Most of my brass are Sunset or Oriental. I think I only have one or two Tenshodos; some of the ones I've seen are somewhat crude by comparison. But, it coulda been the crappy paint job; they seem to be better unpainted.

When I go on layout tours that are GN-themed; I see fleets of GN steamers, and I know they're almost all brass, since I know there's not much in plastic. Lots of $$$ tied up there.... But then again, I think I paid just under $400 for the Sunset O-8 that had all the foam stains on it. Compare that with the R-2 2-8-8-2 I bought that set me back $2000.00.

Here's one from Sam Parfitt's GN layout, from the '05 NMRA:

http://www.pbase.com/haggiskennedy/image/46331230

I don't have the '07 pics added yet, I went to three GN layouts, which were impressive in their steam fleets....

:D

Kennedy
 
The 4-8-0 is a Class G3 by Samhongsa Imported by PFM I think in 78' the 4-6-2 is a Westside H7.
Here's picture of my R2 I picked upped at a swap meet a number of years ago,n.o.b and i needed to replace a set of drivers and repainted it....but the price was right....$275.
And that GN. layout niiice!!
 
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