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EBay madness


Marcyg
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Strangely these are sought after (probably because they leaked and/or got lost/thrown away and are usually missing). They normally go for £5- 10, though this is a nice example. The rush to bid is rather revealing as to the item's value.

 

As to Kitmaster kits, the rarer ones (BP for example) fetch good prices. and it must be remembered that the dearer ones where over £10 in today's money. It's probable that the emphasis on these dearer models led to their demise. I, for one, didn't have 10/6d to spend on the latest loco kit every month.

 

I have got a shipping box of these bottles of oil upstairs, Ebay here they come if they sell for this!!

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I have got a shipping box of these bottles of oil upstairs, Ebay here they come if they sell for this!!

 

The items are much better making up a missing part in a collection than staying hidden away in a loft. But more to the point their cash is much better in your bank account, I am certain you can make better use of it. Good luck and drip feed them into the market to maximise your profit and kept away from dealers.

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I paid about 3 quid for an empty one a few years ago, still use it daily for (loco) lubrication although it's filled with more plastic friendly oil these days laugh.gif

 

I would expect an un-used sealed item to sell for more than a fiver, but clearly 19 quid was a step too far wink.gif

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Here we go again, greedy eBay beating up private sellers at every opportunity. Bear in mind cds and vinyl records (for example) often start at 99p and it's very easy to list 25 per week, so this will simply have the effect of reducing the rate of sales to 100 items per month. It's not as if they don't take their cut in the form of final value fee, re-listing fee for slow and non-sellers, extras fees (second photo etc):

 

***From 2 June 2010 all private sellers will be limited to 100 free auction-style listings per month***

GNL_line_right_10x10.gifspacer.gifspacer.gifspacer.gifIn March 2009 we introduced zero insertion fees for private sellers in the UK and Ireland who list items in auction-style format with a starting price of £0.99 / 1.49 EUR or lower. Since this launch there has been a significant increase in both the number and variety of items listed for sale. This has been welcomed by buyers who are finding great deals.

 

However, a few sellers have been taking advantage of this pricing to list very large volumes of lower quality goods, creating a poor experience for buyers and other sellers. In order to keep the marketplace in balance, we are introducing a new limit on the number of auction-style listings that do not incur an insertion fee."

EDIT: and I hate this sanitized nonsense of "creating a poor experience for buyers and other sellers" - a perfect example of meaningless PC drivel. This gives me rage. I need to read about Phil Collins' train set in today's Mail to calm myself down.

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Hehehehe! With a personal vinyl collection of (roughly) 15,000 items at its height, it doesn't make me a trader if I decide to knock out a couple of hundred singles. rolleyes.gif

 

If that's dictated by a wish to raise £200's worth of funds for something (I dunno - mic, DCC chips, juke box innards, whatever) quickly then why should I be penalised? At two minutes each, that's plenty of listings that can go down on a Sunday avo.

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Here we go again, greedy eBay beating up private sellers at every opportunity. Bear in mind cds and vinyl records (for example) often start at 99p and it's very easy to list 25 per week, so this will simply have the effect of reducing the rate of sales to 100 items per month. It's not as if they don't take their cut in the form of final value fee, re-listing fee for slow and non-sellers, extras fees (second photo etc):

 

 

Phil Collins' train set in today's Mail to calm myself down.[/size][/font][/color][/size][/color][/font]

 

If you dislike Ebay so much and it gets you so worked up, why do you still look at it ?

 

Ebay is not the only place that people sell cheap items, car boot sales, £ shops etc.

 

As far as selling my old unwanted items, even taking Ebays fees off I have sold items for a far greater price than a dealer would have given me. I have also seen the price dealers want for s/h kit built locos, far higher than Ebay prices.

 

And you forget about the bargins we all have brought, An Airfix 14xx with a working Comet chassis, gearbox,motor and wheels all for £15. Even my Compressor and airbrushes from a trader are execelent value and far cheaper than advertised via mags etc.

 

Yes some people do push it, but they are everywhere. Ebay does not force anyone to sell via them or buy through them. What about those auction houses who charge both seller and buyer commission, I see no one complaining about that.

 

Long may Ebay madness reign, not where items are sold above their value, but where we can find cheap good value items, and have a platform where we can sell our unwanted items to like minded modellers at a fair price.

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Some context: I've been buying and selling on eBay for six years or so. Had some great bargains, found some incredible oddball items, met some fabulous people who are now good mates, sold some items and realised a bit of value, and conversely given people incredibly good deals - sometimes even at a loss - because that's the way it works, and ripping people off isn't in my nature. I still use it because it's easy to drive, and because you can't shift the releases of Riot City Records 1981-1983 to your discerning punk rocker at a car boot sale. I recognise that there's a price to be paid to reach a global audience. I also recognise that eBay used certain measures to stimulate its market when the recession was in full effect, and is reining these back in now we're coming out of recession (not that I've noticed).

 

The irritating part is that the eBay in-box only seems to contain rule changes that forever disbenefit sellers. We've dissed and discussed these exhaustively on this and other threads and it's not my intention to reprise them here, suffice to say that the seller's experience seems to be generally disregarded. Anyway, my days of shifting entire artists' worth of repertoire are behind me (and no, that doesn't make me a trader, just a regular record collector like many others, but with finite storage space), so this is very much a hypothetical discussion. Apologies if this upsets people who are buyers by nature, no offence intended, just a Sunday rant in good humour - hence my ironic reference to Phil Collins in the earlier post wink.gif

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I don't think it's a rant to be honest. We don't do Ebay at present but Mrs Stationmaster was a big, and regular, seller until we moved house a couple of years back. At that time I think EBay gave sellers a fair deal but the more I read and see the greater the impression I form that it has turned rather one-sided in its overall approach with far greater emphasis on the 'rights' of the buyer.

 

This is very different from what I have become well accustomed to as the way in which auctioneers should discharge their business - offering what might best be termed a 'fair deal' to both buyer and seller (although some, I know, don't respect that convention).

 

I don't do much in the way of model railway selling or buying nowadays as a most of what I had to dispose of has gone already but I think either direct sale via RMWeb, or through a respectable auction house (albeit with a commission to pay), is now far more attractive than the ever increasingly restrictive practices attributed to Ebay.

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This gives me rage. I need to read about Phil Collins' train set in today's Mail to calm myself down.

 

You read the Daily Mail to calm yourself down?????

 

Sweet Jesus, anyone with that much rage should be surrounded by some sort of exclusion zone until the storm has passed.

 

Jim

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You read the Daily Mail to calm yourself down?????

 

Sweet Jesus, anyone with that much rage should be surrounded by some sort of exclusion zone until the storm has passed.

 

Jim

 

LOL! It was meant in a beyond-ironic sense, trust me! Collins AND The Mail are about as much the antithesis of my world-view as it's possible to get!

 

So, getting back on track, let me at this lot:

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...2#ht_500wt_1182

 

And I'm rather glad I don't remember this:http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tri-ang-Hornby-RS615-The-Railway-Children-Train-Set-/220572996213?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item335b2cd275#ht_500wt_956

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LOL! It was meant in a beyond-ironic sense, trust me! Collins AND The Mail are about as much the antithesis of my world-view as it's possible to get!

 

So, getting back on track, let me at this lot:

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...2#ht_500wt_1182

 

And I'm rather glad I don't remember this:http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tri-ang-Hornby-RS615-The-Railway-Children-Train-Set-/220572996213?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item335b2cd275#ht_500wt_956

 

Chard

 

I am glad you take out your frustrations in print and that in pratice you have benefited from using Ebay. Over the years their charges have gone up. However selling to a dealer is so expensive as they have to have a good mark up plus pay VAT and overheads.

 

But how is it that we all spend so much time searching Ebay for that elusive item which no one else will have noticed. Or that wrong description, will anyone else spot the mistake and steal that gem from us. Or that badly taken out of focus picture, am I the only one who spotted it. Or that small item that on its own is not worth much, but for you is the last piece of the jigsaw for that loco you are building.Then again you have won an item that most seem to have kept clear from, it arrives and you have found its not what you thought it was. But when that gem does arrive in the post at a bargin price, all is forgotten.

 

Then as a seller, seeing the item you do not want actually sell, the odd one sells for far more than you expected, or the item you thought would sell well struggles to find a buyer. Then you recieve a letter from the buyer taking the trouble to thank you, telling you that this small inexpensive part will allow him to finish his loco. Life would be so dull without Ebay.

 

Chard do have a good week and thanks for the rants will look forward to the next one.

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I sort of can't understand this either - if I find something that causes me aggravation I steer clear of it. Ebay isn't compulsory...

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This looks like a classic case of ebay madness to me

 

My link

 

 

On the face of it this wagon looks expensive, but when 3 buyers are willing to pay £50+ and 2 into the £80's the price might not be so bad.

 

The kit I guess costs about £30 that leaves £50 for the price of building, painting and finishing the wagon. How much would a modelmaker charge to build, paint and finish the item ? Trouble is we are all looking for that bargin and forget the real cost.

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This looks like a classic case of ebay madness to me

 

My link

Intrigued to learn that such a vehicle is called a "container wagon". In my day I think they were called Minfits, or, oddly, POs? But then, I never did get into O gauge, so I'm sure that explains everything.....

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Intrigued to learn that such a vehicle is called a "container wagon". In my day I think they were called Minfits, or, oddly, POs? But then, I never did get into O gauge, so I'm sure that explains everything.....

 

I think he's got his boxes mixed up (16ton?) steel open wagon, the container wagon is the one the containers fit on to.

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The madness does work out the other way though, picked up a as new Hornby Class 50 MIB earlier for just 35 notes... B)

 

...and if that's the pre-TOPS blue beast I'm taking my ball home wink.gif Nice work mate!

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Coming soon, from the same seller: the hard-to-get Giraffe Car box, without the more popular lid! The following week, the giraffe car itself, and a week after that, a lonesome long-necked camel-based quadruped...

 

My friends and I weren't, I'm sure, the only ones to coin the phrase, "you're havin' a giraffe", which seems about as apt as it ever will.

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I keep seeing stuff listed - I presume speculatively - on Ebay at silly prices. One of my pet hates is the way a significant number of Ebay sellers seem to confuse the word 'rare' with 'mass produced; there's hundreds of them'. It has to be one of the most misused words in Ebay listings.

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