Discontinued Monorail Playsets

[tcsta]

I've been looking into the discontinued monorail playsets and I'm getting increasingly frustrated with how many cool things are no longer available from the stores (e.g. the switchtrack, sign set, Grand Floridian and the Polynesian, Astro Orbiter, etc). Does anyone know why these were discontinued? Did the monorail playsets not sell very well in their initial run? I could understand Disney maybe trying to ignite a collector frenzy by pulling them off the shelves for a bit and then bringing them back at a higher price (a la their vaulted movies), but I don't see any hint that they will return. Does anyone have info on this?

 

[CandyMandy]

You raise an excellent question. I (and I suspect no one outside Disney's retailing operations) have any idea about how well the monorail accessory playsets sold.

That stated, the aftermarket activity on these is readily visible on eBay. Presumably, if Disney thought people paying hundreds of dollars for things like a Dumbo attraction accessory meant there was a market opportunity for re-releases, they would have already acted on that. They may have been deterred by the fact history shows that in most cases the primary impact of re-releasing things that have become collectible is to benefit sellers of orginals, who find they can suddenly demand a new premium for the autheticity/nostalgia elements that a "copy" can never offer.