eBay, have I just bought a pile of scrap, again! Has lock down affected my judgement ?

[hayfield]

Just won this bid on eBay and was described as Great western railway 40 ventilated van siphon_F 7mm scale unmade model, £13 plus £5 postage. Seems to good to be true

 

 

017.html

 

Never heard of metal models, and perhaps its a 4 mm scale kit not 7 mm ? Still a bit of fun and even at £18 whatever scale or complexity can't have over paid.

 

Anyone ever heard of them ?, are they any good ? 

 

At worst can relist with decent photos, but rather fancy a 7 mm scale siphon

Edited June 29, 2020 by hayfield

[Mad McCann]

Looks OK to me, John. Crack on and see how you do; for that price it was worth a punt!

 

D4

[hayfield]

Just found a thread on here, Kev's 7 mm work bench where he has one of these

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51710-kevs-7mm-workbench-scorpio-m2-shunters-truck/page-17

 

Might have lucked out, getting quite excited about its arrival   

[laurenceb]

The review in Model Railways ended "A kit to enjoy and to take your time over"

[hayfield]

Laurence

 

Thanks, with all the different projects on the go it will not be quick, Ever since I bought my first K's 4 wheel siphon, then their bogie version I have liked them, as they oose GWR style.

 

I guess the company has long gone

[sjp23480]

Laurence

 

Thanks, with all the different projects on the go it will not be quick, Ever since I bought my first K's 4 wheel siphon, then their bogie version I have liked them, as they oose GWR style.

 

I guess the company has long gone

you are right there, The GWR was absorbed into BR in 1948.

 

I'll get my coat.....

[hayfield]

I must admit to be getting a bit worried, as the item was still not showing dispatched 7 days later, and one negative feedback of item not been posted. Still worst weather for years so I thought I would be patient, as it happened a chap from Hermes turned up on the door with a parcel (had I known it was Hermes would not have been nervous as I have found they are quite slow) 

 

 

The main body comprises of a pre-folded sides and bottom with each side having 3 lamentations

 

 

 

The roof screws on to the body via the 4 roof vents

 

 

Ends, underfloor and body details

 

 

Nice heavy cast bogies

 

 

Body and roof details along with a set of vintage wheels

 

Really pleased with the kit, far better than I expected and all for £13 plus £5 postage, a ^ wheeled siphon from Slaters would cost me £80 + postage or a Roxey etched brake coach £148 + wheels and postage. It weighs over a kilo so my poor little tank locos will struggle !!

 

I definitely need to get a bigger soldering iron, bit unsure about the side etched overlays as they are thick gauge brass, might even be better to superglue them ? One good thing is all the small detailing parts on the fret are numbered

 

After a brief look new wheels are required, changing the cast buffers to sprung is a must as are screw couplings, may also buy brass door handles, still at £13 hardly breaking the bank. Well pleased is an understatement

 

This is the 4th item I have recently bought from so called antique dealers, all well under what they were worth. Thankfully for me the extremely poor listing (unlike his other items) got me a right result

[Devo63]

I've picked up a number of model railway items from "antique dealers" over the last few years. A couple of the best were a Trix 'ADLER' and one coach (unpowered) in a box labelled "Souvenir aus Nurnberg" for £15.00 and a built up K's model of a Bulldog for £25.00. This was described as "wheels don't revolve and missing key"! I gave it a light oiling and when I put it on the track it ran like clockwork (pun definitely intended). Neither of these were in the model railway listings section or even under toys.

 

Dave R. 

[hayfield]

Well I bought a lot with some photos of the parts and a poor description, having said this the seller from previous feedback looked exceptionally good.  There were bits of both kits mixed up, but if you looked carefully there were pack headers of a Slaters GWR 6 wheel syphon and a Midland 6 wheeled coach, the only risk I thought was one where parts may be missing?, partly as I don't know whats in the kits and some parts still in plastic bags. I had a bit of a gamble last week on an item then after winning found out half of the lot was not the item I thought it was, but that was a £12 gamble, and a later a £12 win made these parts into what I was after (£18 was still a good price) still at a keen price

 

One of the club members bought a Slaters unbuilt 6 wheeled coach kit for £60 off eBay as his wife had bought 2 0 gauge Terriers and wanted a cheap coach for her. Looking at Slaters prices the Syphon is just under £80 new and the coach just over £80. I got them for just under £59 inc postage, so I thought I had a bit of wriggle room at that price

 

Well they arrived today, the Syphon seems complete except for instructions. The coach may be quite old as the body sides are vac formed (as are both roofs) and these kits came without seats, so that will cost me £7.50. All in all a bit of a coup and well pleased

[Joseph_Pestell]

The main body comprises of a pre-folded sides and bottom with each side having 3 lamentations

 

 

Surely not that bad.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell

[hayfield]

Surely not that bad.

 

The kit weighs in at 1k, as I said the sides have 3 (thick) overlays which come in at about 1.7mm thick so the sides once fitted will be 2.2 mm thick plus what ever holds them together

 

At the club and again at Ally Pally the thoughts were to use a RSU to solder them, I can borrow one but no idea how to use it. I thought about using a thin super after soldering the detail to the outer etch. At a slight loss at the moment

[hayfield]

Just got interested in this lot mainly as it seems to have a lot of 7 mm castings, though the 4 mm parts may be of use, the 10+ loco plates must be worth the cost on their own,  once sorted I may have a few items to off load which could reduce the cost which was far less than anticipated

 

 

A packet for a 7 mm gearbox, guess it may be empty and the Scalelink etches may come in useful, Difficult to count the packets but may be up  in the 80's. 

[chris p bacon]

Those are the kind of lots I like. I recently bid on a box of bits as I could see 4 packets of evergreen strips I needed, I based the bid on the price of 3 packs plus the postage and won it at 50% of my max. 

 

When it came there were 25 packets of strip with nearly all unopened as well as a bag of castings and bits, some of which I've already used. Best bargain this year.

[hayfield]

Those are the kind of lots I like. I recently bid on a box of bits as I could see 4 packets of evergreen strips I needed, I based the bid on the price of 3 packs plus the postage and won it at 50% of my max. 

 

When it came there were 25 packets of strip with nearly all unopened as well as a bag of castings and bits, some of which I've already used. Best bargain this year.

 

As you say if you keep your eyes open and a bit lucky plenty of super bargains to be had.

 

I bought a lot described as a joblot of HO, well I could see over 16 whitemetal figures (most in Phoenix packets) which 7 mm scale, 3 Dapol loco kits and some wagon kits which turned out to be 4 Peco  and one Slaters 0 gauge ones. plus other bits, cost me just over £30 in total.

 

Another lot for about a tenner lots of Wills and Ratio building parts, cost several times that amount if bought new

 

Back to the lot in question over 100 items at a second glance, some may have little value, but at 25p per packet even a 7 mm whitemetal steam hose is good value, as for the brass castings and the etched sheets. Still should be with me by the weekend and we will see

[Darius43]

I once bought a 1:48 Avro Lancaster kit on eBay that was advertised as having “some parts missing”. Upon receipt it transpired that the missing parts were the entire fuselage - just the wings and tailplane were present.

 

After some gnashing of teeth a 1:48 Avro York was born:-

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/319-148-avro-york/

 

Every cloud...

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[hayfield]

I once bought a 1:48 Avro Lancaster kit on eBay that was advertised as having “some parts missing”. Upon receipt it transpired that the missing parts were the entire fuselage - just the wings and tailplane were present.

 

After some gnashing of teeth a 1:48 Avro York was born:-

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/319-148-avro-york/

 

Every cloud...

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Darius

 

I have seen several lots where either its described as a complete kit and clearly some or all the main parts are missing (one case was a Southeastern Finecast chassis empty fret !!!). Or on the other hand where parts were thought to be missing and either complete of the odd bit missing.

 

I much rather err on the side of caution and base my bid on what I can see, also I try and form an opinion on the seller. In the case of this item I bought there were 9 photos, the seller did their best to show everything, which in this case caused confusion owing to the number of items on offer and in different scales, in another similar listing (which is in my opinion overpriced) states from late uncles estate explains that the seller may not be a modeller, also other model train items for sale are being sold individually and well presented. The other poor selling decision was an end time of 9.35 am on a monday

 

I got the lot for less than my maximum bid. Which happened to be a bit of a low cheeky bid. I think if there were some more clearly identifiable parts I would have been willing to double my maximum bid and recoup most if not all by selling parts I am not interested in. There are over 100 packs/loose items, if separated in to scale and sold in clearly identifiable small lots I would imagine they would fetch quite a lot. But then you have the problem of, is it worth the time and effort involved ?  

[PhilJ W]

I recently won a bid on a job lot of old Matchbox and other plastic and diecast toys. I espied in the pics four Minix cars including a couple of the rarer ones so I bid £20 but expected to be outbid but I won the bid at £18, worth it at least for the Minix cars alone. Also included was a Lone Star 'Impy' Foden 8 wheel chassis and cab and a Matchbox domestic garage minus its doors plus another diecast garage of similar size that has no identification. Theres a few other bits that will be useful for code 3's, the rest will go to the 10p box at our next show.

[Horsetan]

…. I think if there were some more clearly identifiable parts I would have been willing to double my maximum bid and recoup most if not all by selling parts I am not interested in. There are over 100 packs/loose items, if separated in to scale and sold in clearly identifiable small lots I would imagine they would fetch quite a lot. But then you have the problem of, is it worth the time and effort involved ?  

 

I think it's always worth doing, otherwise your money is tied up in these packs that you don't need and are never going to use. By re-releasing the surplus onto the market, you're at least letting others have a go at what they themselves want / need, and they don't need to worry about excess bits.

 

I've just about sold off all the individual EM-specific stuff from the last lot, with just a couple of sets of wagon wheels left to go.

[hayfield]

I agree with that in two ways.

 

Firstly you are recouping some of your original costs, which I guess any buyer would be pleased with

 

Secondly many of the smaller parts are not stocked by local model shops, or discontinued. So buying from a third party may be the only option

 

The one fly in the ointment is postage, so large letters add £1.50 in postage, small packets from £3.50. So making the items into a worthwhile group for low value items is often the best option for both buyer and seller

[hayfield]

The parcel arrived and well worth the money in spares, as I thought mostly 7 mm with 11 packs of 4 mm loco etched plates and some 2mm scale Scalelink frets

 

I gave up trying to count the number of packs, but the 4 mm plates mostly GWR common ones would cost a fiver a pack plus postage if I wanted some

 

10 plus 7 mm hard brass small detail castings, plus larger hard brass and whitemetal funnels domes etc, 5 packs of 7mm buffers and several packs of van and carriage vents and steam pipes, other parts for cab interiors, loco lamps plus others

 

I think the castings have a NE influence so may well place back on eBay along with the plastic wagon solebars and buffer beams

 

 

Ant idea which wagon these come from please, as I have 4. Guess they are some form of coal wagon due to the springs for the solebar but the 4 projections from the solebars are quite unigue

 

Still a good buy, just need to sort through the castings to decide what I want to keep

[Ian Smeeton]

Shock vans/opens, perhaps?

 

Regards

 

Ian

[hayfield]

Regarding the bulk lot of spares, the 7 mm scale parts and 4 mm scale plates have been sorted into various lots, those not wanted were put on eBay and sold

 

I decided ti let the plastic wagon parts and the packet of loco brass castings/turnings go, the latter being from a region I don't model, cut the cost in half but left me with a lot of loco and coach hard metal castings, which will be used on dome Slater coach refurbishments and loco builds, as will the whitemetal castings, 6 sets of buffers and coupling hooks and loops. The name plates (10 out of the 11) will go into unbuilt kits/ waiting for refurbishment locos I have and indeed are worth the next cost of the lot on their own. 

 

Now on the look out for another lot

[Joseph_Pestell]

Quite a selection of Midland Rly locos and chassis kits on eBay at the moment. Some look very good value.

[hayfield]

Seen those and for me the wrong region, prices recently have reached quite high levels on similar lots

[Horsetan]

An old Crownline kit to completely revamp the old Dublo / Wrenn BR Std.4 tank has arrived. This is the "full" version with Crownline's own etched chassis; I also have the body-only detail kit acquired a couple of decades ago.

 

It's every bit of a curate's egg as I remember it. The castings in particular are all whitemetal and have long since been left behind by today's lost-wax castings from AGW and Comet. The etches are actually alright and would still pass muster today, but the chassis fret itself could do with upgrading via Comet parts. I will stick it under the old Wrenn body that I began hacking at years ago - that diecast mazak stuff is pretty tough when it wants to be!