EFE Spring announcement 2022 - 27th April at 9:30

[stovepipe]

14 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

I don't think the EFE announcement is retaliatory, I suspect they have been planning it for a while and it's co-incidence, or even Rapido "getting wind " of the announcement and getting in first.  Whatever, it's not "Titgate" take 2.
 

 

Yes I'm beginning to wonder if it wasn't the other way around too, with Rapido using the scanning date as the launch date after hearing on the grapevine that EFE were planning one too. It's not a "Titgate" for sure, but there were a quite a few skirmishes leading up to that embarassing debacle for Hornby. The level of competitive tension has certainly been increasing for several years now, and the established players are feeling it.

[AMJ]

These are existing castings as the part numbers follow on from the previous Nationals.  If a new casting is issued EFE use a new number range as an example see the RM.

[John M Upton]

Yet there are thousands of the old EFE Nationals among others from both theirs and Corgi OOC ranges that have been cluttering up pasting tables at swapmeets for years, the boxes gradually getting more torn and faded, the dealers desperately reducing them year on year.

 

The great boon in diecast bus collecting spectacularly imploded twenty years ago, nobody wants them except a few and they will only pay peanuts for them.

 

Back in those days the production Runs were 15000 per model.and more, a dozen new models released every month, some operator names going for silly money.

 

Not any more, a lot of people lost a lot of money, EFE and Corgi OOC both sank, only rescued by mainstream model railway manufacturers who have all but forgot they even own them.

 

The EFE National is a poor quality tooling, dated, inaccurate, whacking great gaps between parts, poor glazing, no exterior fitments, no representation of the types characteristic rivets.

 

It along with pretty much the rest of EFE's moulds from that era really should have been weighed in for scrap.

[AMJ]

I agree with John about EFE/OOC prices.

 

Slightly off topic.

When we were selling them many years ago there were many collectors who thought that "mint in box" would be the items that would go up in value but at the time I thought they were wrong as there were so many collecting them.  

 

One customer had the right idea they collected and kept in the packaging every ERTL model from the Thomas range as they were the toys that the kids were playing with.  Similar to DInky toys in the past.

 

With the likes of the National patterns being used for more than 10 models previously unless the cost of labour and transport are high it will be an item that has already paid for the pattern many times over.

[andyman7]

Not all of them are worth peanuts:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=efe+38701&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&rt=nc&LH_Complete=1

 

I agree that the diecast bus collecting boom was a classic bubble and that for most issues the market is well and truly bust. The exception is modern buses, because the boom was in 50s and 60s designs selling to an older cohort based on nostalgia. My son is only interested in modern designs (2000 onward and I can tell you that many of the popular liveries are hard to find and in demand.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by andyman7

[brushman47544]

Just been looking at the images again. The LCBS LN1 in Superbus livery is incorrectly painted as LH1... Hope Bachmann spotted that.