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HORNBY live steam eBay prices


mjb1961

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Ever since I bought the mallard and the flying Scotsman live steam sets a couple of years ago,I've been keeping my eye on other sets coming for sale on eBay and I'm amazed by some of the prices they can fetch,,,,especialy Papyrus,,there is one on eBay at this moment and already is at £1224.00 with 5 days left ,,,,this model has fetched high prices in the past but this is higher ,,,someone must want this model ,,,,mjb

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Although wildly off-topic - my wife used to make very complex greetings cards, using various materials including papers similar to waxed, called something like vellum, (but not that) - the name escapes me now.

These cards ended up looking like coloured lace, made with hundreds of tiny pierced holes, some snipped out with micro-scissors, to make patterns within the patterns - if you follow that.

When she was asked by someone why she didn't sell them,  she said that the materials used cost about £3, but they take about 1 to 2 hundred hours EACH to make. If I charged the going rate of £10p per hour, would you pay £1000 for one card?

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So - before you think about making engines to sell, GoWest, work out what it would cost in materials, and time, at a sensible hourly rate, and consider whether you would pay that much for a model engine.  :-)

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edit for a typo

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2e0

you are dead right if you take the cost of just a brass kit and parts would be about £270 then you need a engine to generate the parts from at about £250 so far that's £520 then it's the hours at about 60 hours may be at what £10 an hour that £600 + £520 £1120 this would be the minimum a much truer price would be closer to £2,500 

having said that I would still like to give it a go  just for fun as your a long time dead!

Ken

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@eric

Mods can’t amend text, only hide the whole post and we don’t really want to do that.

@Ken

As Guy Martin (the modern day Fred Dibnah) says ‘When You Dead - You Dead’.

Actually his dad said it but Guy used it as the title of one of his books.

Rob

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Despite being a dead technology, there is a club and reasonable following so prices remain very robust for Hornby OO scale live steam, sadly the sky high values stops a lot of people getting into the OO live steam field. This means it's very much an niche elite marketplace as a rule. The limited marketplace was one of the reasons for it's demise as a product.

 

It's a shame that the product wasn't more affordable as it would have attracted more mass market buyers and would have sold more.

 

Of course there is also the collectors aspect and lot of the models will never turn a wheel, just gathering dust in collections.

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I must admit mine are in the collecting dust mode, I donot know if you recall when they first came out there were reports how difficult they were to control.Length of time they could be run without refilling and start-up times. Also the need of the different transformer controller, and way back in 2004 that alone had a R.R.P. of £200.On top of that a loco at £325.Back then new release W.C. etc. were £95.Granted presumeably because of low demand by 2007  locos were down to £210 as was Papyrus,transformers controller down to £131.25.Both prices R.R.P. 

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These 'Live Steam' locomotives are difficult to run. I have tried a few at Warley, a few years ago. They go for a lot on eBay. Probably due to not being in production for very long and each loco was not made in large quantities, I suspect.

 

If they didn't cost as much as they did at RRP when they were in production, I think the Live Steam range may have caught on better.

 

GNR-Gordon-4

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Hi all here

when back in 1954 I was about 8 years old things were tight and we lived in a council house with dripping sandwiches and coal fires poor old dad worked on the railway, shift work we had no car just walking or bus.

i used to cut the grass at our house and the next door neighbor as he had a German bit of shrapnel in his head that could not be removed for this work by the way this was a push mower not electric or petrol dad gave me 2 shillings a week I would save up my pocket money and buy items for my railway this Triang box below for a milk tanker wagon has a pencil price of 4s 10d or about 27p how much will it cost me now to buy from Hornby? An electric steam model was 10/- or 50p now a loco is about £125 can kids buy things like this now do they have the money to build a railway as I did?

the cost of live steam might look expensive but break down the hundreds of parts in the steam model and the parts of its electric counterpart that's  why they cost more but I believe a better deal for your money.

/media/tinymce_upload/8956dfe560a5a35291df76256c89a058.JPG

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Just dug mine out to show what all the fuss is about.How sad, still in box never been removed.According to outer factory box I received it in Feb, 2006, it was manufactued 3rd. week 2006,Reciept still in box, cost £234.50 plus £6.95 special delivery.At the price these seem to be bringing this must be the must exspensive single item Hornby product ever./media/tinymce_upload/e984eaea6169fa50b60c415eef97985f.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/f6418a367b674625d76a07d13d4a97d7.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/350a0ced79aacecb4b7b83171d69d56a.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/6ac54c4fbc1b35195d07b8c976663be9.JPG

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Thanks for the images of your's, new lad on block. I suspect you must have the complete set, of the Hornby Live Steam locomotives?

 

Current bid for the Hornby Live Steam Papyrus on eBay, is £1,484.00! Somebody does really want it, despite it having a handrail broken off and is missing the screwdriver!  😆

 

GNR-Gordon-4

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Why would Hornby do that, gowest? The Live Steam range has been discontinued for about 12 years. It's long gone. Each locomotive costed by RRP, around £500.00 and this back in 2004 / 2005 we are talking about here. Can you think about how much a Live Steam locomotive would cost the buyer in 2018, if Hornby were to bring the Live Steam range back? £1,000.00 plus?! Could also be £2,000.00, by looking out how much they sell for at auction. This means the Live Steam range is sold to very few people, as not amny people can afford such an expensive locomotive. Models are sold to a very small group of people anyway, so Live Steam is sold to an even smaller amount!  😆

 

GNR-Gordon-4

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Hi ,,,,,i joined the live steam forum after buying the mallard and flying scotsman sets ,,,from what I understand one of the forum / live steam founders bought a large number of the sets ,I think in the region of 20 or 30 ,,,occasionally he sells one or two ,,,I also asked the question,,how many were made but didn't get the answer,,,,it's true that they are difficult to control and that is one of the reasons that people sell them on or just store them (,,not including,,new lad on the block ),,as for papyrus,,I'm not sure if this high price has set a new bench mark for that model ,I've watched every live steam set on eBay and there can be a big difference in sale prices from one week to the next ,I can see the seller doing cart wheels ,,,,,,my son bought the silver link set for @ £480 on eBay ,,a week later another sold for just over the £300 mark ,,,both sets were auction listings and both were equal to each other in condition ,,,I think these live steam locos are brilliant and I'm really happy to have the two I've got ,,I would love to get the rest to make up the full collection but I draw the line at a certain price ,,,,,mjb

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