Flea Markets (and other alternatives to full price shops/ eBay for second hand model railway treats)

[tbtc]

Are there any decent Flea Markets, or other places that you’d recommend beyond the full price model shops (where you can easily spend a couple of hundred pounds on a locomotive) and eBay (where there are some apparent bargains but then you find yourself paying a fiver for delivery which makes the item quite expensive, plus you can’t see things “in the flesh”)?

Car boot sales used to be interesting but seem increasingly grubby as people have worked out that anything remotely valuable would fetch a lot more money online

Charity shops similarly save their best stuff for their eBay shop (and, fair enough, they are trying to raise as much money as they can for a good cause, I understand that)

Some model railway exhibitions have some great stalls but I don’t know where these vendors are the rest of the time

I was thinking of a trip to the market in Chesterfield some time but don’t know if there’s any model stalls at it - a number of the markets that have survived have done so by going upmarket and focusing on hand made middle class trinkets - buying a bar of scented soap for five quid isn’t really my scene

I’m just after some “toys” to play with, rather than worrying about sound effects or just how carefully detailed the updated cab windows are on the re-release of some locomotive that now costs an extra fifty quid for the privilege of this extra degree of accuracy

If it means buying HST carriages of the wrong length or wagons showing signs of their age then I can cope with that, but we’ve lost the outdoor market place in Sheffield where there was a stall that used to sell serving hand trains/ buses and I’m reluctant to go much further afield unless I know there’s likely to be a stall selling treats from back in the day

 

[Peter C]

I've found www.classicrail.co.uk to be really good for some amazing bargains compared to what eBay sellers are asking for the same items (and my apologies to any forum users who have had their 'secret' bargain treasure trove shown-off there!). Apparently the bricks-and-mortar shop has even more bargains, though I'm yet to venture down that way (once I find out exactly where it is again - south-east way I believe).

I've also found that looking through the advertisements in Railway Modeller (or any other magazine would do, I suppose, though I expect National Geographic is a little less helpful) provides some good, smaller model shops with some good bargains to be had too - especially in the 'pre-owned' sections. It does take a while to go through a few such sites and find any good deals, but they are there. I realise that's a little less "here's an answer", and more "here's some homework", though!

Some of the best model shops are those where they have new-old-stock, kept at their original prices (or close to their original prices). Quite a rare find in my experience, and there was one I heard of not too long ago which had loads of items like that - Hereford Model Centre (further apologies in the same vein as those re. Classic Rail!): https://herefordmodels.com/

I realise with websites, you don't really get to see the items before you purchase as you would if you could actually visit the shop in person (though there are 'real' shops for both Classic Rail and Hereford Model Centre) - but the bargains are so good I find it hard not to be persuaded in the shops' favour

I hope this is at least a little bit helpful.

-Peter

 

[trainmania100]

Lewes has always been good for me. Not always brilliant but there's usually at least one junk shop that sells a model train. Can't remember which one but one was selling a triang NY subway type loco / railcar a while back. Was going to buy it but didn't have £75 available.

But if you take an hour or two and have Google maps handy just search for antique shops , there's about 5 or 6 in total but only 3 or so sell things like toys and trains.

But worth emphasising that these are usually sold by a shop on behalf of a seller and most are usually pre 80s stuff so like I said triang, Hornby etc