Someone at Amtrak has some bad information along with a lot of the speculation in this thread. There were more than that made and they'll pop up soon enough. These were never offered to or were going to be split with Kato dealers...in the case of MTW, he purchased his directly from Amtrak the way everyone else has.
So is Kato sending more to Amtrak? Or has the run sold out? From what the guys at Amtrak told me, there are no more, well from them.
They're back! 62 left as of this posting. Kato sent out a tweet this morning alerting everyone who follows them that you can get them now.
Amtrak order page shows stock of 60. I got no confirmation of run size from my source, so I wouldn't (and didn't) make any assumptions of collector value on it.
Funny, as of 2:07 it's back up to 61. Guess these aren't as rare as first thought. I don't feel so bad now I let mine go at cost, and I may pick up another one later today if they are around. Of course, being an East Coaster with an East Coast layout, I really don't need it.
Lesson learned for me. I admit I picked a couple extra in Spokane off the train hoping to flip these for a few extra bucks. I guess I'll hold on to them for a while longer. Kevin
Yup...but who knows if the market has already fizzed out on these or if there will be a market in the future.
It appears that all of these are sold only through Amtrak. That said, we have at least one report of a dealer selling them that may have acquired stock by buying them through Amtrak (like the rest of us).
Just checked the AMTRAK site, and there are 53 left! I had a backorder so I guess that will ship soon. Henry
Opting not to get another one. I guess everyone learned a lesson though. This had been an interesting occurrence.
I don't believe everything I see on ebay. If somebody really did pay that much, it's their own dang fault. I do believe that some have sold at $60 - $70 and we'll likely see some selling in that range again after the current stock sells out and a little time passes. The second batch still has 53 remaining at Amtrak, so anybody on the fence should probably buy immediately. If I had been asleep at the wheel, I would certainly be happy about this "second chance."
I had to laugh, the n scaler in the club was all excited about this on Saturday. He had just heard about it in the Mr email the night before. I told him they'd already released a second set, because the first set was sold out. He didn't believe me. Lol