What did you order or the post deliver? (Japanese N Gauge)

[Martijn Meerts]

Received a package from RG-Rokko today, probably going to be the last one containing rolling stock for quite a while. Going to focus on getting trains running, and getting kits finished from now on.

 

 

Package contained 3 Kato 8620s, the Hanawa Freight base 8 car set, the 2 car Remu 5000 add-on, 2 car Wamu 70000 add-on and 2-car Wara 1 add-on. This will make the triple headed 14-car train that's one of the options that Kato specifies on their Hanawa freight train info page.

 

Also included are the kits for the frame and shell of the 13 ton Shay from Toma Model Works in H0e.

 

[Kamome]

Nice. I feel I may have missed the boat on the 8620s this time around. Too many other bits I wanted but that triple-header will look great. I’m very envious.

Does Rokko only sell overseas? Their prices seem pretty good but I assume they exclude Japanese consumption tax.

[chadbag]

23 minutes ago, Kamome said:

Nice. I feel I may have missed the boat on the 8620s this time around. Too many other bits I wanted but that triple-header will look great. I’m very envious.

Does Rokko only sell overseas? Their prices seem pretty good but I assume they exclude Japanese consumption tax.

 

I think they have separate Japanese pages for local purchase.

 

[katoftw]

Rokko has a jp website

[cteno4]

http://railgallery-r.com

[chadbag]

I noticed Rokko is in Kobe.  Do they have a public shop?  My wife's sister and her husband live in Kobe and that is where we are based when we go to Japan.

 

[cteno4]

Looks like it from their home page pict and I sort of remember someone on the forum (Yavianice?) mentioning they had visited the store.

 

jeff

[Yavianice]

@chadbag they have a small (but filled to the brim) shop in Kobe. I have indeed visited them and met Tokonami-San and his family in person, and felt very welcome.

 

Important to know is that he does not do tax free for foreigners on site, unfortunately. 

[chadbag]

2 minutes ago, Yavianice said:

@chadbag they have a small (but filled to the brim) shop in Kobe. I have indeed visited them and met Tokonami-San and his family in person, and felt very welcome.

 

Important to know is that he does not do tax free for foreigners on site, unfortunately. 

 

That is unfortunate.  I suspect the paperwork burden on a small shop is not worth it.    Can't you take purchases to some gov't office to process the tax free stuff when the store doesn't do it?  It seems to me I have seen signs for this in a few places like Tsukiji etc.

 

[Yavianice]

@chadbag I don’t know, never tried it. But if you really want bang for your buck tax free, Joshin is probably cheaper. I am happy to pay a bit extra to support local business, however.

[Martijn Meerts]

6 hours ago, Kamome said:

Nice. I feel I may have missed the boat on the 8620s this time around. Too many other bits I wanted but that triple-header will look great. I’m very envious.

Does Rokko only sell overseas? Their prices seem pretty good but I assume they exclude Japanese consumption tax.

 

I was actually going to skip it as well, but then I saw some reviews of the 8620 and it looked like a really well made model. That combined with the triple header option eventually made me buy it 🙂

 

I usually just send RG-Rokko an email with what I want, since in most cases I want things that are not on either of their shops. I ordered quite a bit of IMON parts and stuff there for example, which they don't list on their sites. Also, the Shay kit is a custom order as well. They're great to deal with, very friendly and helpful.

 

[Yavianice]

9 hours ago, Kamome said:

Nice. I feel I may have missed the boat on the 8620s this time around. Too many other bits I wanted but that triple-header will look great. I’m very envious.

Does Rokko only sell overseas? Their prices seem pretty good but I assume they exclude Japanese consumption tax.

 

Their Japanese website has even better prices than their English website, even with sales tax included. They also ship domestically. However do note that some items on their English website is exclusive to overseas buyers. Tokonami-San wants to give non-japanese people an opportunity to purchase items that sell like hotcakes in Japan

Edited October 14, 2020 by Yavianice

[disturbman]

50 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

I usually just send RG-Rokko an email with what I want.

I do too. Simply browse the Japanese website and then send the item number and name. Their price for overseas is 25% off list price.

[Yavianice]

The overseas price is the same price as the "non-VAT" price on their japanese website. EXCEPT if they have a special sale or discounted price on their japanese website. This DOES NOT count for overseas buyers (most notably the landing page/sales page).

[disturbman]

That's too bad. There was one set I might have wanted to get on their sales page.

[Yavianice]

Yup. I asked Tokonami-San a few times about those, but he wouldn't budge. No sales for foreign buyers; usual discount and vat free only.

[disturbman]

I'm not sure I get the reasoning, their sale pages seems to be a sort of a clearance sale. Old sets that are not exactly desirable. Who the buyer is and where they are located shouldn't matter.

[Yavianice]

I don't either and I did not want to be rude and ask. I don't make the rules, and am already satisfied considering the amount of time Tokonami-san spends on my requests, that they are already some of the cheapest to sell to foreign buyers, that he is the best shipper/also does personal shipping requests/combinations, and for the fact that he does not charge extra for personal shopper requests. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Yavianice

[disturbman]

No, definitely, I'm just surprised.

Their service is amazing. They take really good care of their overseas customers.

[Mutley]

More disposals of unwanted things via Ebay has resulted in a couple more deliveries from Amazon Japan.

 

For the JR West fleet, for starters a 221 and 225, both lovely models and run very well.  To go with my 683 Snow Rabbit Express and 681 Thunderbird, now a 681 Shirasagi.  I originally thought I'd just get the 6-car set to give a bit of variety but in the end, delivery #2 just had to include the add-on set for completeness 🙂

 

I was pleased to find that the 'pointed' lead car on the Shirasagi add-on set doesn't suffer from flickering lights as the one on the other end of the train does, and both on my Thunderbird set do.  An investigation job for after we've moved house I think.

 

Finally, an E531 for the Tokyo fleet. Again, lovely, smooth runner as I've come to expect.

 

My second order was placed on Sunday and has just arrived this morning, very impressive.

[Yavianice]

18 minutes ago, Mutley said:

I was pleased to find that the 'pointed' lead car on the Shirasagi add-on set doesn't suffer from flickering lights as the one on the other end of the train does, and both on my Thunderbird set do.  An investigation job for after we've moved house I think.

 

I'm sure the funky coppers wibblywobblied themselves out of alignment. You will see what I mean when you open the train. After some "PTOING!" events and cursing I realigned them and did not have issues afterwards. Be careful when opening it though, those coppers are easy to lose!

[Mutley]

5 hours ago, Yavianice said:

 

I'm sure the funky coppers wibblywobblied themselves out of alignment. You will see what I mean when you open the train. After some "PTOING!" events and cursing I realigned them and did not have issues afterwards. Be careful when opening it though, those coppers are easy to lose!

Thanks for the tip 😀

[railsquid]

Another one ticked off the MicroAce back catalogue list:

 

MicroAce ED16 (ED16-1) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[deathletter]

Well, the latest package arrived. I paid the shipping fee on Tuesday and it arrived Thursday. This time it was 24 auctions. I had to pay a little over $100 to customs. The first time that has happened. I am going to talk to DHL and see if they can explain why I was charged a customs fee. I am curious more than anything else. I still have 9 more auctions to ship but they are kato, tomix, microace and casco storage cases. They can all go seamail.

 

Picture 1: Kawai cars

Pitcure 2: Kato and, Micro Ace sets. 7 Kato Diesel locomotive set and various Tomix/Kato container cars. Various private owner collections in cases. My favorite is the 31 car (21 Semu and 10 Sera) set.  

Picture 3: Kato cars

Picture 4: Bandai freight

Picture 5: Kato and Micro Ace locomotives

 

 

[cteno4]

2 hours ago, deathletter said:

Well, the latest package arrived. I paid the shipping fee on Tuesday and it arrived Thursday. This time it was 24 auctions. I had to pay a little over $100 to customs. The first time that has happened. I am going to talk to DHL and see if they can explain why I was charged a customs fee. I am curious more than anything else. I still have 9 more auctions to ship but they are kato, tomix, microace and casco storage cases. They can all go seamail.

hugh, never seen a customs duty on toys from japan to the us. I will be interested in hearing what they say.

 

i wonder if the value of the package triggered a full customs review and the money is for us customs fees and DHL processing fees as the agent.

 

jeff