sorry to hear you had to cut up your equipment to recoup, but I think those potential "buyers" were blowing smoke your way.

Too late for that but would have been more expedient for you to have posted here first even tho it was about non railroad equipment, its just as historical.

Value is in the mind.

Educating about steam I doubt we're going to throw a face on 614. In a way I am glad about Thomas the steam engine but then it sends the wrong signals, but it is educating, and maybe we get some real railroaders out of it.

I had fun with steam traction engines when I attended the local Steam Threshers reunion near Ft Wayne years ago, help steam, clean flues etc, I hung around.

The steam engine isn't common everyday on the railroads so that makes it more difficult to educate, the flee to diesels threw steam development out the window in lieu of many experiments by the railroads. Ross Rowland here worked on the ACE project to try to bring steam back and coal use, but the idea of a black smoke belching engine isnt in the concept, it was to produce a clean exhaust.

But a good fireman could get his engine to burn efficient and have very little smoke.

As far as the general public goes you have to attract their interest somehow, and there are many levels to go after for that, you just keep plugging and there ya goes.

Len alert!!

Last year I got my first "Colorado Narrow Gauge" experience, riding the Cumbres & Toltec from Chama to Osier and back. When we arrived at Osier, I went up to the fireman and complimented him on keeping a "clean stack", even when going up the 4% grade. He replied that "This is a good engine. It's not hard to make it run right." And I commented, "Oh, it's what the computer people call 'user friendly.'" "Yep, you got it."

Yeah, and that's the way it goes... a lot. Spoken in black, thought balloons in color.

Seller: Got these nice items for sale. (you all love steam, you all should pay top dollar.)
Canny buyer: What's your price?
Seller: (I have no idea what market values are, I know what I'd love, but don't know if it's realistic.) You set a price.
Canny buyer: (I don't know either. You're putting me on the spot. I'm wild-guessing you'll spend $600 getting $2000 worth of scrap if you cut it up.) $1400 (as a starting point, just to tease a real price out of you and we'll go from there.)
Seller: (I am personally insulted, and now would sooner die than sell to you.) Get off my property, thief.

Unrealistic buyer: What's your price?
Seller: Make me an offer.
Unrealistic buyer: (I got $4000 in the bank.) $4000.
Seller: Hrmph. And how will you move it and where to?
Unrealistic buyer: Um... you'll deliver it to ... my apartment?

Broke buyer: What's your price?
Seller: (dammit, I'm sick of being lowballed. How about I highball and see how they like it.) $14,000.
Broke Buyer: Not even remotely possible. (Wow, for some reason I thought they were worth $4000. I guess I was just really naive about what these things actually cost. Well, I'll give up the pipe dream of ever owning one of those.)

Experienced buyer: What's your price?
Seller: $14,000.
Experienced buyer: This market is small enough that this sort of thing doesn't trade often, so it's hard to gage a fair market price. However, for me, I would spend $14,000 on other things honestly. $4000 would get my attention.
Seller: (you just insulted my price! Die in a fire. God I hate negotiating.) Well then good luck with that. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
Experienced buyer: I'll try not to. (@#$%^& amateur. what a miserable guy to work with, never call him again.).

Museum: Would you consider a donation?
Seller: (you mean just GIVE IT TO YOU? That's worse than the scrap offer.) Not really.
Museum: No seriously. You can get a tax write-off for the fair market value of the thing. (like dude. You're in a 35% Federal bracket, an 8% state bracket and your $10,000 valued donation will result in a $4500 tax refund next year. You know all this right? You understand tax accounting right? You must since you're rich.)
Seller: Probably not, after the IRS disallows it. (I asked my accountant about wrapping my hobby in a 501C3 and calling it a "museum", but he said that was a bad idea and the IRS would disallow it. He didn't say why. [actual answer: you don't have the personality to run a nonprofit, relinquish control to a board of other people, and let the public in.] Anyway anytime some jackass claims to be a 501C3, I assume they are stupider than me.)
Museum: No, no, we are totally legit, accredited, been here 40 years, we're good at this. (And your stuff will survive. A nonprofit museum is 10 times more likely to survive than a private entity, just count the tourist railway/private collector failures in your state compared with museums. This is obvious to all, right? We're just so awesome. Hard as you've worked to collect it, that's gotta mean something to you.)
Seller: OH RIGHT! I have heard of you. You're legit but I'm rather unimpressed. (you have a bunch of broken down rusting junk that no one has had the interest to fix in 40 years. This is completely different than the broken down rusting junk sitting in my backyard for 40 years, because **I** have harbored the interest to fix it. Just didn't. That's OK for me, but not for you. Museums suck.)
Museum: Well no donation, how much then?
Seller: $14,000.
Museum: Wow, we're a penniless museum, cut us some slack here. How about $6000.
Seller: (whoa, that's actually the first legitimate offer I've heard.) $10,000.
Museum: $6000, and a tax writeoff for the difference between that and fair market value.
Seller: Oh! That can work. $6 it is. Pleasure doing business.
Museum: Thank God. That was our top end. I'll take it back to our Board for approval and we'll start fundraising.
Seller: WHAT? You showed up here and don't even have the authority seal a deal?? (I KNEW this was too good to be true!)
Museum: Yeah, that's how things work with nonprofits. (if you didn't know that, why talk to us?) Don't worry, it'll happen.
Seller: Nope. Too many strings and maybes. (lotsa luck with that dreamers. Just another empty wallet jackass with big dreams. Never work with another nonprofit again!)

I've been involved in some of these deals where neither person is a professional deal broker. They are rife with miscommunication and inflated egos. This -- This is why FSBO home sales do not work. And of course, the egos are even greater here. This sort of thing has spawned endless tragedy in preservation.

You think about a guy trying to sell some steam equipment, who is so exasperated with the process that he cuts the stuff up just to say "frack you" to he marketplace. And years later all he can think about is how he punished the marketplace by removing valuable things from it. The loss to history doesn't even enter his mind today.

I think this is also back to the Great Divide between the private collectors and the railroad museums, which is much too big to talk about here.

Welcome to RYPN. Please read the archives, I think you will see that there are many opinions on the subject you are talking about, and maybe there is another way of seeing things. I doubt too many people on this board are willing to have anyones views "imposed" on us. We are willing to discuss it, and you are more than welcome to have your opinion. We may disagree and you should be able to accept that. Also please read the board's guidelines.

For starters, I suggest this series of threads about steam's actual purchase value and perceived prices:
MILW 261
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28366

The fair value of steam
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27565

Milwaukee Road 261/News From Sandberg & Co.
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28566

Friends of the 261 - Update
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28695

#261 sale fell through
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28918

Milwaukee #261 for sale - again!
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29306

NRM Sells 261 to Friends
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29369

Mr Steam is no longer with us. This is the fifth or sixth identity he's had here, and is no longer welcome.

Hmm. You really think it's a troll? Troll-ish to be sure, but I see the viewpoint as plausible.
Just look at D&M 466 and the sheer arrogance of some private collector, who didn't merely decline it, but went to lengths to explain to the seller why no one else would want it either. The seller gave up marketing it to historic groups, and viewed all subsequent offers with high skepticism.

Doug, Thank You, for your efforts to keep the board running smoothly!

Mike Tillger

I had some firsthand experience with in-experienced query in buying a steam whistle just today... A well established local whistle collector in my area stopped by with a very nice 6 chime, just to show me and see if we could mount on the engine for a couple days, when a non-railroad coworker walked by and saw the "nice horn". When he asked what the asking price was, he immediately scoffed at the quote and retorted with "Yeah, maybe when there was a demand for these things." I was taken back with the presumptuous notion that you could just pay a small amount for a very rare collectors item, even if he did have a minute sincere interest, though ignorant. That same assumption and ignorance in others have probably hurt the ability for many of us to save significant items in the past, and will continue to do so.

Reading some of the posts here by the experiences of museum and railroad operators in their efforts to acquire items of interest from private individuals have been interesting, especially in circumstances where that individual did not want to be bothered or low balled by people driving by and noticing something on the property. Fortunately today a few minutes after the above conversation took place, the same person came back with a phone number of a friend who had some whistles in a barn that he wanted someone to identify.