2017 Fall Train Show Calendar For Upstate New York

Sometimes it's a matter of knowing your market. Items that didn't sell in Binghamton for $10 I easily sold for $20 in Albany. A $2 item I bought on Sunday in Hamburg, sold for $10 in Albany. I bought a box of stuff for $20 at the end of Albany that I'll probably turn $40 or $60 out of between RIT and Utica. Another piece I paid $10 for, a guy is trying to get $57 out of one on eBay, so I'll probably run mine for $40. It's all part of the game.

But it is true the primary modeling market is getting older, and of course eventually passing on. My guess is there will be a short boom period where it will be easy to buy estates and turn them, then it will all collapse to where there's more models available than modelers who want them. The trend already has shifted to where modern era modeling is now more popular than any other era, although the Penn Central era is also pretty hot.

Albany's show (GTE) has a nice mix of new and used stuff. However, the Polish Train Show two weeks before the GTE is mostly used stuff, and that show has been gaining traction over the past couple of years. Vendors who sell used stuff primarily might not do as well at the GTE because some of their customer base already got things at the Polish train show.

This was easily the strangest GTE show I have ever done. My new HO items sat on the shelf, even at discounted prices. My used locomotive inventory did OK, but not as well as it should have given the quality of items that I had. Amazingly I sold five starter sets: one HO and four Lionel (two used, two new) and all but one of those went to first time train buying families. I usually will only sell one or two sets. I bring them mostly to promote what I carry in my store and they are handy for getting someone interested at the show, but getting them to then come "take another look" at the shop. For the third year in a row I sold a half dozen new Walthers Reference Books. All in all my sales were down a third from last year (last year was the best ever for me) which matches the crowed. I was floored to find out at the end of the day that over two thirds of my sales were credit cards.

I did the show at the Polish center once, the March one, and was disappointed in it. I came out ahead a little but not that much. That year there happened to be an extra weekend in March and they had to adjust the date because the guys who run it sell at the Greenberg show in Edison NJ and they needed to be able to go to that.

Usually the fall one is opposite Hamburg and the spring one is opposite Binghamton, so I don't do the fall because Hamburg is a bigger show, and I'll be at GTE a few weeks later, and Binghamton is an hour closer to home so it costs half as much to go down there.

FWIW, I have most of the dates confirmed for the spring 2018 schedule, with flyers for Amsterdam and Fishkill from GTE's flyer table. About the only question marks are the Funtrak Ilion show and what the TCS is doing in Elmira or anything much past February. Eastwood is still a question mark also (CNY NMRA does have a date for it posted in their meeting schedule though).


Yes, I was shocked to find a mint AHM C628 toward end of the day for eight bucks. That should be like a $20-$25 piece.

RIT I think they announced 4800 or 4900 through the doors.

I think most came on Saturday, I could have come at noon on Sunday for all the business I had before that - but in the end it turned out to be the best sales total for any show this season. Of course about a quarter of that was my grabbing things others were dumping on Saturday morning and marking them at closer to market price.

Dumpers tend to be a blessing and a curse, you can make a ton of money from them, but unless you buy them right out the customers tend to buy there first and expect the same deals from everyone.

I'll have the 2018 Spring season posted later in the week. It's more or less done save some minor editing.

RIT had the longest line I've ever experienced there getting in. It was like CNY at the Fairgrounds. Moved fast though.

Saturday's line was very long. Sunday not so much, but that's normal at a two day show, even the summer car shows. RIT is so big it never looks very busy, though, between the size of the room and the generous aisles.

They're sending a survey, but I don't know what more I can tell them that I don't like, that they have any control over. I wish the parking lot was closer to the building, I wish the food vendor was at least a little cheaper, and beyond that it depends on people spending the money. I've done I think 11 of the 12 two-day shows they've had and of that they've been anywhere from just barely breaking even on the expenses, to selling more on Sunday than Saturday, to now this year it being the best selling show I've done.