Scalefour Forum

I see the P4 layout Maindee East is up for sale in an on-line auction.

Auction estimate is £300 to £400 which sounds low to me as some locos and rolling stock are included. I recall a lot of interest whenever the layout was at an exhibition.

There are pictures of the layout in the retrospective for Scaleforum 2011.

A bargain, I would suggest for that quantum of layout.

It seems not to include the smoke generator that exercised the minds of Leatherhead's Leisure Centre team so much in 2011!

Also, the resale vale of what look like four OO locos (they are sitting drunk in the ballast) would be close to the same........

There is also the buyer's premium on top, more than 25%!

The Auction listing for Maindee East states "Passed", which I guess is auction speak for failed to achieve reserve. Bearing in mind the estimate was £300-£400 I'd say someone missed a bargain....

It now says "bidding has ended"

I would have thought that "Passed" meant reached the reserve price.
Tony.

On RMweb someone is suggesting that the highest bid was £190

Tony Wilkins wrote:I would have thought that "Passed" meant reached the reserve price.
Tony.

From Sotheby's glossary of auction terms: "Pass/Unsold - Terms used by the auctioneer when an item fails to reach its reserve at auction."

David B wrote:There is also the buyer's premium on top, more than 25%!

And if the auction house/company is VAT registered then VAT on top of that.

Model Railways rarely sell for anything like what the materials used to create them will have cost the builder, yet alone the value of the time he or she will have spent creating them.

If you're surprised, ask yourself if you would actually be interested in buying a model railway built by someone else as their own project and how much you'd be willing to pay for it, compared with say how much you'd have to pay someone that you'd commissioned to build a model railway for you to your specification.

As I started my post quoting Tony Wilkins, consider (and I have no idea what he might charge) if I asked Tony to build a complex track formation for me I'd expect his fee to include his time and expertise which would be worth a lot more than the materials; but if it later turned out that I didn't want/need the formation, what would I be able to sell it for?

All the Best
Danny

If anyone's seriously interested in acquiring the layout, I'm sure they could approach the auctioneer to see if the vendor will sell for less than the reserve under private treaty.
Railwayana which fails to sell at auction often gets sold this way.

Thanks Tim,
And well done Pete, a very pleasing outcome for a fine piece of model art.
Steve

That is good news! Though just to clarify, it isn't me - even though the middle initial is also shared!

Oh, and I thought you had finally seen the light and gone WR

And just what are the Society supposed to do with it? They aren't set up to be a museum, so far as I know, nor, in my view, should they be. AIMREC's website doesn't show much (any?) progress, nor does https://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=1168774&subid=0; housing and running a museum and maintaining the contents is not cheap, and there does not seem to be much of a market [and not much even then] for anything except large roundy, roundy layouts [I wonder what their income projections look like?]. Also, maintaining and operating layouts take manpower, i.e. volunteers; not operating a layout seems rather pointless, apart from providing homes for spiders. In any event, the response to the auction suggests that interest in preserving Maindee East is minimal to non-existent. Perhaps an individual might take it on one day, but it was open to anyone to do what PJT has done. No-one did, despite considerable publicity.

For me the point is ... if anyone is interested, then getting the word out as wide as possible is the right thing to do. I don't think anyone is expecting any more than that. Many would not have heard it was for sale .... and of those many would not be interested in an auction .... but on the right terms, someone might be interested.

With it being P4 ... the society is a natural point of call .... if the current owner is looking for another home for the layout.