Whether you’re in the Concord Model Railroad Club or not, if you like model trains, you need a place to get them – and all of the accompanying accessories. Luckily, Concord has just such a place: Depot Antiques & Toys.
Located on Main Street (and conveniently close to Depot Street), this shop has all kinds of old-fashioned trinkets and doodads. You can get an autographed baseball, a vintage toy gun and an antique metal sign if you want.
But the main attraction is the plethora of model trains and accessories from the past and present.
“Mostly the older stuff we get are from people who bring them in who have had them in the family for years and they no longer have an interest or a place to put them,” said owner Tom Smith.
“Ninety percent of it is people bringing trains in to sell,” he said. “Occasionally I’ll go to auctions, but that’s less often. Sometimes yard sales, but that’s rare.”
This business model makes for an always-evolving, always-interesting inventory. Stuff comes in from all over the place, and from all generations. Smith said the store has some regulars who come in all the time, knowing that they may see something that just came in that they’ve never seen before.
Smith knows all about collecting and dealing model train stuff. He’s been in the business since the mid-1980s, he said.
“I started in Manchester, owned Mountain Trains and Hobbies for about 20 years, then sold it in 2005,” he said. “I opened this store four years ago. I had been doing this in Laconia and decided that Concord was a better market.”
Within the world of model train enthusiasts, there are a few kinds of people.
“You have people that are operators, who are buying trains strictly to run on their layout,” Smith said. “They might have a specific scene they’re trying to lay out, such as the Boston and Maine Railroad. Then you have other people who are just collectors, they’re not so much into the operating on a layout, they’re more into buying specific items to add to their collections and add to their display cases. There are different aspects of the hobby that interest people. Some people are more into the scenery, they’re concerned about the detail of the layout and how intricate it is. They’re concerned with scale, realism.”
So whether you’ve been at this for 30 years or are just getting into it, whether you like to run the train around the track or just sit it on a shelf, there’s a place in model railroad world for everyone. And, there’s an item at Depot for everyone.
“We sell everything you would need to get started in this hobby, and if you’re really into it we have a lot of unique items, rare pieces,” Smith said. “We have track, transformers, lights, buildings, operating accessories, books on how to expand your layout.”
One of the real heavy hitters in the train game is Lionel. It should be no surprise, then, that Depot carries loads of Lionel stuff, both vintage and new.
“Lionel has been in business since 1900, and they’ve consistently been making trains,” Smith said. “They’ve never missed a year.”
Lionel is instantly recognizable to train enthusiasts by the iconic orange-and-blue packaging, a color scheme Depot uses on their storefront sign.
“Lionel is the biggest name, without a doubt,” Smith said. “We have people who come in who may remember a grandparent or an uncle who had Lionel trains.”
About 50 percent of the Lionels in the shop are from the 1950s and older, the other 50 percent are from the ’70s onto current production. “I would say right now, my oldest trains are probably from the 1930s from Lionel,” Smith said. “Right now I have several, but the inventory changes very fast around here. Collectors stop in from time to time and if they see something they don’t have, usually it doesn’t last.”
So that means you better put a bookmark in it and get over there before all the best stuff is gone forever! Good luck!
For more information, go to depotantiquesandtoys.com.
May 1, 2018
“Boston to Maine railroad” is wrong… the actual company name is “Boston and Maine Railroad”
I think that Depot Antiques has since gone out of business.