Where to buy railway memorabilia?

[Rouleur]

I'm looking at buying something along the lines of an old station sign or engine name plate, so could anyone please suggest some good places to look for this kind of thing?

Thanks

[mcdjl]

A quick Google for "railway station name plates" throws up railwayana who are having an auction in Stafford today. If you want original try your local steam railway, there's probably a collector's shop there somewhere.

[Yertis]

At risk of sounding facetious there's this thing called Google.
But since you ask there are various 'railwayana' auction sites which hold regular auctions around the place. Locomotive nameplates are enormously expensive (for what they are, IMO) and station 'totems' can get pricey too. Some stuff does turn up on eBay, last year I chanced on an original edition BR poster by Terence Cuneo, turned out when I collected it that it was being sold by the artists daughter. Also odd stuff turns up in antique shops – few years ago I stupidly passed on the chance to obtain a wooden replicate nameplate from a Britannia class locomotive (I think fitted when they removed the brass originals for safe keeping at the end of steam). And then I also failed to buy the nameplate for (IIRC) "Lode Star"for £2500, mainly because I didn't have £2500 knocking around to spend on a bit of brass.

[Rouleur]

Thanks. I've done a little Googling but I thought there might have been some specialist places that wouldn't be obvious to a non-railway fan like me. Maybe there will be a localish sale at some point.

[Collectingbrass]

Just take care to clarify whether what you are buying is authentic with provenance or a replica, especially if you are going into the market via Google. The money authentic items go for these days is eye watering, the cost to produce replicas with the right kit is very low.

My dad had some cast iron signal arms made three weeks ago for a heritiage railway he is involved in. They were made by copying an original NER signal. Buggered if I could tell the difference once they were painted, they'd even copied the number stamp and some of the surface pitting, and the three cost him £200 to get made in a foundary.