Am I An Official Door Stop Collector Now??

[2railjon]

My first Max Grey is on the way!
It’s old I guess, but please tell me it’s not a door stop!!

[Jay Criswell]

Jon,

Nope! Sorry bud a Max Gray is way to nice to be classified as a POS doorstop.

Nice model.

Jay

[bob turner]

Jay is correct - not a doorstop. I am sure he did not mean that doorstop collectors collect pieces of shit.

[J. S. Bach]

Jay is correct - not a doorstop. I am sure he did not mean that doorstop collectors collect pieces of shit.

Jon, Nope! Sorry bud a Max Gray is way to nice to be classified as a POS doorstop Jay

I think that Jay meant:
'Nope! Sorry bud, a Max Gray is way TOO nice to be classified as a POS doorstop. It makes more sense that way.

[E7]

Doorstop? Not by a long shot! Way too nice!

Rich

[Jay Criswell]

It was a long time ago. I don't recall what I meant.

I thought about correcting my post but then everything else just looks kinda silly. Wouldn't wanna do such a dastardly thing.

Jay

[Jay Criswell]

My excuse...I just spent the last six days in ICU. Obviously, I haven't fully recovered.

Except for one time in the Army, back in '69, it's the only other time I've ever been in the hospital. Tried to kill me both times. I won the first two rounds. I suppose those were just battles and war is yet to be determined. Rumor has it winning said war ain't promising.

Jay

[bob turner]

Glad you are back with us.

Doorstops can indeed range into pure trash. There are a few that fall in that category on eBay right now, offered at over a grand. There are also some with value. I personally believe the line is between Scale Craft and Lobaugh for steam, with Max Gray being the giant step up from Lobaugh. For Diesels I draw the line between the sand cast and etched PAs, even though I believe the sand cast PA is the more accurate.

I would not own the early FT doorstops - I consider them very poor representations of the prototype - but others find them historically valuable. That's what distinguishes a hobby from other more productive ventures - we get to value our own collections.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

It’s not a door stop.

[Carey Williams]

Nice Max Gray piece ...as a door stop collector ...I draw a line in the sand some where between 1954-5 .

Max Gray and Kemtron represent ( in my eyes) the "next generation" .... so that is my realization not to collect it .. (additionally there is only so much wall space).

too much reality is not what the people want ... happy with my door stops.

Cheers Carey

[R.K. Maroon]

Implicit in this whole thread is the idea that the only value in an old model is as a collectible piece. This point of view arises from two sources. First, some doorstop modelers tend to act more like collectors than like model railroaders. That is, they tend to value models based more on age and rarity then on accuracy to prototype or whether it fits their modeling interests. This is not a knock by me -- as is often said here, there is space in the hobby for everybody -- but it does engender a certain amount of scorn from a lot of people in the hobby. The second reason that doorstops are often perceived as valuable only as collectibles is the belief of many modelers that accuracy to prototype and level of detail are the only measures of the value of a model. Note in passing that this can lead to collecting of a different sort -- buying a model just to admire the detail, with no regard of whether it matches the modeler's actual railroading interest (assuming they have one). I don't subscribe to either point of view, and will claim that there are other reasons to have an interest in old models.

Like many model railroaders, prototype matters to me, especially at the railroad, region, and era level. That is, I like assembling and operating complete trains that are a reasonable representation of the real thing -- freight locomotives should have a matching caboose and a historically appropriate string of cars, etc. As an overlay to this, I value the efforts of the individual modeler more than the amount of detail on a model. That is, I find hand-built kits and scratchbuilt models to be far more interesting as exhibits of the art of railroad modeling than models made by either machine or paid skilled workers with no interest in railroading. Not surprisingly, I have wound up with a roster of older models, as that is where most of the modeler-built cars are. I do, however, have an accuracy threshold -- it has to look like the real thing in basic proportions, or I am not interested. And I don't fancy fantasy models.

On a side note, I understand Carey's doorstop cutoff at the mid-50s, but I think the Penn-Erie models that came later also qualify as doorstops. If an all cast metal GE U50 is not a doorstop, then what is?

Speaking of which, does anybody have one of the Penn-Erie 65-ton GE switchers? Looks like a 44-tonner but was a later model. I have never seen one except in the LWS newsletters.

Penn-Erie GE 65-ton Switcher.jpg (206.6 KiB) Viewed 5669 times

Jim

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Speaking of which, does anybody have one of the Penn-Erie 65-ton GE switchers? Looks like a 44-tonner but was a later model. I have never seen one except in the LWS newsletters.

Had one..........might still have it in a stack of boxes on the one shelving unit.

[E7]

Nice Max Gray piece ...as a door stop collector ...I draw a line in the sand some where between 1954-5 . Cheers Carey

you sure you didn't mean: I draw the line in the sand castings