MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Hello everyone! I wanted to wish you all Merry Christmas and let you know that we are getting closer to a move...which will mean a new home with more room for a new layout (one of the reasons I’ve been quiet lately and I’ve dismantled my layouts has been both for work reasons, but also my lack of interest in building a layout and modeling in my garage.).

The other thing I wanted to say (which I’ve thought but never stated) is that the N Gauge community worldwide is pretty awesome. The virtual relationships and friendships that I’ve developed through my blog and YouTube channel over the years have been a profound source of joy, especially in these times. I hope that you have found the same yourself.

Yes, there have been a few criticisms. Most of these seem to be from persons who probably have multiple relationship challenges anyway so it’s easy to brush them off. Some of them seem to lack a certain self-awareness or have an entitled idea of what they think MY content should be (or not be) which is pretty hilarious. As with the advice that “it’s your hobby, do what makes YOU happy” I always followed the same philosophy when creating my videos or blog posts. Yep, maybe not to everyone’s tastes, but that’s not the point. Fortunately I’ve been rewarded with thousands of positive responses and likes, which is cool and says a lot about how cool most modelers are in this hobby.

But not everyone! LOL! Happy Holidays!

QUINNTOPIA IS SHIPPED OUT

With the "Great Quinntopia Sell-Off" still in progress, I thought I would share this photo of a bunch of buildings going to the Post Office for their new owner!  An interesting side note as that a few buyers picked up nearly all of my buildings, which means that somewhere, someplace, someone is going to have a pretty good share of my urban layout! This makes me happy as I like to think that these buildings will be able to seen together as part of a new city.

I do get quite a few questions about the buildings from people on eBay, mostly asking me if I have any more to sell!  Unfortunately, all the 'big' ones with lights are gone. I do have a few smaller ones and some facades and other odds and ends that I either haven't had the time to list yet, or need a wire reconnected.

What I'm listing now is mostly rolling stock: Locomotive, freight cars, Subway sets, etc...   

I have several items (locomotives and sets) that I think are in decent demand, so I'm going to post a few using the 'auction' model later this week (probably Thursday night). So keep an eye out on my eBay channel (store?) if you're curious....

Its almost impossible to figure out a 'fair' price for all of this.  While, in fact, nearly everything (not all!) that I am selling has been used or opened (and a few pieces with some minor damage or flaws), asking a full, new, retail price is insane! But what about the cost of the added decoder? Or interior lights (for passenger cars)?  Do people care about those? I still get questions about DCC decoders working in analog, so clearly the DCC aspect has little interest for some people.

Even though I tried to price my buildings really fairly (an informal formula based on level of interior detail, amount of interior lighting, amount of work that went into either the kit-bash or scratch-building, and how the end result turned out) with most selling around $140-$160, but a few really large and 'premium' buildings at $300 or more.

But, they all sold within a few days. Does that mean I priced them too low?  Maybe, but I don't think so.  Again, there's always a bit of regret saying goodbye to something that represents literally hundreds of hours of time, but with where my time and priorities are right now, its all good.

I can build more! :-)

THE GREAT QUINNTOPIA SELL-OFF IS HERE!

Yep, you read that right. I'm selling out. Pretty much everything will go: Locomotives, rolling stock, buildings, track, DCC system, etc...

If you are interested in any of the buildings or rolling stock you've seen on my layout, keep an eye on my eBay store:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/joemesmero/m.html?item=142867973010&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

My eBay account is listed under "joemesmero". I created that account a long time ago! :-)

If you REALLY want to make an offer on something before it goes up on eBay (or just don't want to deal with eBay), send me an email at quinntopia at hotmail dot com or using the 'contact' feature here on the blog. I will start putting most items on ebay in the next couple of weeks, and proably slowly add more stuff through early Fall. I think there's about a hundred different items to photograph, describe, upload, weigh, etc.. so it may take some time for many items to show up.

Some of you may be wondering....why?

Well, there is not really just any one reason, but many smaller reasons. Here they are in no particular order: I may be moving in an year. While I planned on boxing everything up, that just didn't make as much sense when you consider the next two reasons.... I've also started my own business (its what I've done my entire professional life, and its an ad agency: ) and because that takes up both a lot of TIME and requires MONEY to invest, well....those two things made it hard to find time or resources for more modeling.

Yep, I still love N scale. The trains, the models, the whole thing. But for the next few years, putting everything in boxes seemed sort of pointless to me. I assume that what I sell I can replace (or get something different) or build again.

Many of the items will be those things that I spent a lot of time working on. In most cases I'll probably put a crazy 'buy it now' price on it. Honestly, I have no idea how to value a building I spent over a hundred hours working on, particularly when its not a perfect item. So it'll be interesting to see how this goes!

Please fee free to ask me any questions, and also share this with other N scale modelers who might be interested!