Old & Weary wrote:Not sure what you mean by 10%. The only food vendor at the Batavia Show is the "Cookie Lady" who has been something of an institution since she showed up years ago when the show was still in Alexander. If you mean the CNY Show and it is six times the size of Batavia, then are you talking about 120 tables of food vendors.
What I said is that the CNY Chapter show is easily six times the size of Batavia and that of the vendors tables at the CNY Chapter show 90% or more are train show vendors. I never said 10% of them were food vendors, only non-train vendors, but that most of the non-train vendors I remember were the various food vendors in both buildings. I've no idea if the table count is six times as many, but you could fit about four of that room at Batava Downs into the Center of Progress building alone. And two or three more into the Toyota Building. A previous poster to you seemed to imply there were fewer tables of train-related merchandise at that show, and that is simply not the case.
Railroaded wrote:SimTrains wrote:It's all the same vendors at all of these shows if you ask me...
We can finally agree on something. You're durn tootin' they are, and they drag boxes loaded with the same old crap to every show within a 50 mile radius every year and they still don't lower the price on anything. Some times, I can ID a vendor before I even look at him, just by scanning the table and seeing the same junk that I've seen at 10 other train shows around town. That's when I don't even bother to say hi, or make eye contact, because he's already wasting my time, for the 10th time in a row. -B in B
Sure it's some of the same vendors. What are they going to do, have a garage sale in the winter? Not all of them have a hobby shop to sell from, not with all the hoops you have to hop through in New York to have any kind of serious small business.
But you're only hurting yourself by passing people up, because I recognize all the same vendors and I take the time to look to find that almost all of them have different things to put out at every show, because all of them sell things and go out and buy more things between shows. Which is how I find lots of good deals on things, by looking through the stuff that other people are too lazy or can't be bothered to look at. It does amaze me though, to sit there at a show and see how many people are too lazy to even move one level of stacked flats of used stuff to look at one underneath. There could be a brass engine marked $25 in there and these turkeys would never see it. (okay, probably not, but I have bought brass engines at shows for rediculous low prices like that, I got four of them at one of the last GATS shows that came through here, and I got another one for $25 at a show last year that I turned around for $525 on eBay.. so it CAN happen).
Now at Batavia, well after Noon, I picked up an early Athearn train set box with all the inserts, 4 of the 5 cars including a super-scarce caboose, for a real reasonable price. I already had the right engine and the other car to go in it. The Greenberg guide claims they didn't actually produce this set, but I need to check the other Athearn book for more information on it. I about fell over because it was still there after all the collectors and guys who should know what that is had walked by it for like 4 hours.
