Found this fluff piece on FB. Was ready to laugh since I thought they mean the builder's plate. No, they mean "collectors plate", a la "Limited Edition (only 1 million made) Legends of NASCAR plate set" you see from Bradford Exchange and the like. I've always gotten the impression they're worth whatever you can get some kid to pay at the swap meet, maybe a buck on a good day?

Rail fan unites historic engine with rare collector's plate
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/1 ... te/?ref=nt



Gold gilded or not, is this plate rare? Is this something that museums should be paying attention to? I'm guessing most operations would be unhappy to get it as a donation and quickly relegate it to the yard sale box along with back issues of magazines.

Is this one unique? Do any of them have value? (I'm talking solely about "collectors plates", I'm well aware that actual railroad china can indeed be rare and quite valuable.)

Slow. News. Day.

Right, obviously. Now, back to the question. Are these plates rare or valuable at all?

Some of these plates can be very valuable... although who, or how, the valuation is standardized may be open to discussion or interpretation. There almost certainly isn't enough 'bullion' value in the gilding to add anything to the value -- it's all collector appeal, kinda like Beanie Babies, and subject perhaps to the same wild swings in market valuation...

Not all collector plates are the 'limited to 15 firing days' variety -- and even some of the ones with technically high production numbers were limited in demand or sales by their subject material. That may result in demand from railfans for a particular issue that is far higher than what the 'general market' even among plate collectors might be.

It would be nice if you could go by, say, eBay valuation, but most collector plates have a reserve or -buy-it-now' that is artificially set high, either to try to establish a "market price" for the unwary, or to get some gain from impulse or fan buying. As an example: I bought a series of rather nice relief-cast pewter railroad plates for about $10 apiece at a hobby shop. The eBay prices on the ones I saw offered were considerably higher -- and I never did see one successfully sold.

If this was the Royal Worcester Great Northern Railway plate, one sold in January for ... 7 pounds. That might in itself answer the question for you. ;-}

Now, I have little doubt that this English plate

I find that the word "rare" is the most overused word on ebay. Some items are so rare that there are literally thousands of them around to be had.

Circa 1972 our gift shop manager bought an order of commemorative plates featuring images of cars in the collection. I think the minimum order was 1000. 40 years later we still have inventory. Much to my surprise one of the plates showed up on eBay as a "collectors item" and sold for at least twice the current retail price.

Wesley

Shows you that to move them you need to occasionally drop one into Ebay at a high price. May you prosper and eliminate the slow moving merchandise!

dave

Not to get OT, but I have a box or two of coffe cups left over from a couple of tourist operations I was involved in......anybody interested in "star clipper" cups?
I'll start off at $5 a cup!!.....plus shipping.....
Any takers?