Unrealistic expectations of value of an item

[kevinlms]

On 24/10/2022 at 22:49, Mallard60022 said:

Not used Ebay for anything 'expensive'  for ages. Loads of asking prices are silly (to me).

However, random items at smaller Auction houses; not the huge Toy sales where stuff is almost always daft prices unless you are on site; bit of a gamble, but.....

 

Would have thought that 'the huge toy sales' etc with daft prices, are for the serious collectors who desperately want particular models in mint condition.

Don't see anyone buying a model to tart it up and modify it, are going to pay collectors prices.

[kevinlms]

On 27/10/2022 at 01:47, The Johnster said:

Some people really do have ill-informed expectations, though, and of course the traders, selling grandpa's much loved collection built up over a lifetime of dedicated enthusiasm (or, as we call it here, house clearance) are happy to exploit them.  Typical scenario in pub; 'really, you're into model railways, are you'?  Show the guy some phoneshots of layout and appreciative noises are made.  'Bet that's worth a bit'!  'Dunno, don't really keep records, but probably not as much as you'd think if I were to sell it on'.  'But I saw on telly a while ago, one of those antiques shows, old Hornby  tinplate set went for thousands*.  Actually, I've got a Duchess of Montrose 3-rail set up in the attic, years old, must be worth a bit, you interested'? 

 

So you explain that, even if it's in mint condition and never been taken out of the box, these are so common that it's not worth the thousands that the £ signs rolling around kerching in his eyes tell me he thinks it is, that all my stuff has been altered, detailed, weathered, and messed about with and the secondhand dealers like stuff in 'as new in box' condition.  'But all that work you put in must be worth something, surely'?  'Not to anyone except me, really'.  'You must be mad'!  'Quite possibly, it would explain a lot, most hobbyists are a bit wierd, you spend tens of thousands on fishing gear and don't catch much, and your mate follows Cardiff City for his sins, season tickets, all the gear, travelling to away games, hotels, all that.  Colin over there keeps chickens in his back yard; at least he gets eggs out of them'! 'Yeah, suppose so'.

 

 

*maybe Bassett-Lowke or Marklin.

Two different versions. Those who think that it's old, so must be worth a fortune - cuz it says so on TV!

 

Or exploiters who claim it is worth nothing, but it's actually got some good models that have never been out of the box.

 

What is more likely is, a largish layout at one end of a garage, that has 20-40 points and many items of Set Track System 6 that has gone all rusty, but solidly glued down. There might be quite a few badly made plastic building kits on it.

However, there is no stock at all, because some family member took it all a decade ago, leaving behind what effectively is junk!

At least, that was the case of 2 'layouts' that I looked at, on behalf of a club, where we had been offered it for sale! All this, to go immediately because the house is up for sale next week!

 

The step left is to attempt to diplomatically explain that your club, is not going to buy anything at all and they are going to have to put it in a skip.

[The Johnster]

'But Uncle Bob put years of effort into it, and it cost him a fortune, it must be worth something, surely'.  Well, it was worth something to Uncle Bob, who got years of fun out of it, but it's really not worth anything to anyone else.  Shame to see it go in a skip, but pretty much inevitable, and even if the stock is still there, it'll be from the 70s or 80s, or earlier, and not worth much unless it is a well-made and smooth running kit build, and those are rare as rhs especially in conjunction with rusty setrack and badly made plastic or card kit buildings.

 

This is the future for pretty much all of our layouts.  Mine will certainly be skip-fodder, and the stock has all been altered from NIB condition, weathered, detailed, that sort of thing at least and sometimes cut about to make something else, next to worthless on the Bay...  There is this perception that model railways are an investment, and some items may hold their value if they are never unboxed, which would be anathema to me; take it out and use it, that's what it's for, but most will not and end up as job lots in house clearance sales.  I can't think of any that have reliably increased their value in real terms, though there are plenty of chisellers on the Bay and one born every minute!

 

Furthermore, I would expect a new technology to replace DCC fairly soon, probably abandoning the idea of picking up traction current from the track in favour of NFC supply of the sort that you charge your phone with from strips beneath the track, which can be plastic.  This should be cheaper than DCC and leave more room inside the loco for speakers and other bells and whistles, and offer better slow running and control, but it will render current models less valuable.  Remember what happened to film cameras when digital appeared?

[kevinlms]

16 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

'But Uncle Bob put years of effort into it, and it cost him a fortune, it must be worth something, surely'.  Well, it was worth something to Uncle Bob, who got years of fun out of it, but it's really not worth anything to anyone else.  Shame to see it go in a skip, but pretty much inevitable, and even if the stock is still there, it'll be from the 70s or 80s, or earlier, and not worth much unless it is a well-made and smooth running kit build, and those are rare as rhs especially in conjunction with rusty setrack and badly made plastic or card kit buildings.

 

This is the future for pretty much all of our layouts.  Mine will certainly be skip-fodder, and the stock has all been altered from NIB condition, weathered, detailed, that sort of thing at least and sometimes cut about to make something else, next to worthless on the Bay...  There is this perception that model railways are an investment, and some items may hold their value if they are never unboxed, which would be anathema to me; take it out and use it, that's what it's for, but most will not and end up as job lots in house clearance sales.  I can't think of any that have reliably increased their value in real terms, though there are plenty of chisellers on the Bay and one born every minute!

 

Furthermore, I would expect a new technology to replace DCC fairly soon, probably abandoning the idea of picking up traction current from the track in favour of NFC supply of the sort that you charge your phone with from strips beneath the track, which can be plastic.  This should be cheaper than DCC and leave more room inside the loco for speakers and other bells and whistles, and offer better slow running and control, but it will render current models less valuable.  Remember what happened to film cameras when digital appeared?

Don't know about a replacement for DCC - some sort of battery powered models taking over have been promised for some 20 years now. It seems to be as far away, as are new types of nuclear power station.

 

Of course, because OO gauge is on it's way out, all 4mm stuff will meet it's maker soon, to be crushed up to make TT:120 models!

[melmerby]

4 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

 

Of course, because OO gauge is on it's way out, all 4mm stuff will meet it's maker soon, to be crushed up to make TT:120 models!

If TT-120 goes down well, I can see Hornby going the H0 route sometime in the future, after all the track is already there!🙂

[The Johnster]

Quite possibly, if the trade gets behind it.  TT is a useful size, and modern production techniques can get a good bit of detail and performance into it.  I don't personally think battery-on-board is really a flyer for steam outline in smaller scales (which in my mind includes 4mm) though, as the battery takes up too much room inside the locos.  NFC directly driving the motor from underneath sounds more plausible, perhaps using sleepers to house the transmitters.  The limited power avaialble for traction can be overcome by having all axles on a train powered, and each vehicle can be switched off when it is not to run, stabled in sidings and so on.  The NFC provides the control of the train as well as the prime mover power, perhaps alternate sleepers could provide traction current and control current.

 

Plastic rails, with plastic wheels, will offer good grip and the perennial dirt problem will be minimised; all you'll need to do is scrub the wheels when it builds up to the extent that it affects the rollability.  Hard plastic should minimise drag.  You could even run the train through a wheel-cleaning bath in the fy...  If each axle doubles as an axle motor shaft, very good slow running not dependent on electrical contact other than the contactless NFC should result, manufacturing costs will be lower, and there will be room between frames for detail to boost them back up again!  Wiring your layout will be even simpler than DCC.  I would expect retrofit conversion kits to be available to bring your existing stock to NFC traction and control spec, and of course you could still use your old steel or nickel-silver rails and DC/DCC control at the same time as running the new stuff, and retain the existing wiring and pickups if you want.

 

I'd expect 3D prints to be capable of providing a more or less infinite variety of plastic track turnouts and crossings, and it should be possible to create your own sectional track to recreate the Newcastle junctions to scale...  I'll be long a'mouldering in my grave before any of it happens, and expect my current DC 00 layout to last me out.

 

You heard it here first! 

[The Johnster]

22 minutes ago, melmerby said:

If TT-120 goes down well, I can see Hornby going the H0 route sometime in the future, after all the track is already there!🙂

 

I'd like to see this, but I think the opportunity was missed during the late 70s and early 80s, when the RTR monopoly of Triang Hornby was broken by Lima, Airfix, and Mainline.  Lima intitially came into the game with UK outline H0, a 33 and some mk1s & wagons at very competitive prices, but sadly the quality was so compromised that it never really got a foothold and 00 standards won the day, as they had previously when Jouef Playcraft had a go, for much the same reason.  The trade has been so firmly invested in 00 since that anything else seems unthinkable in the RTR game, and perhaps this is why Hornby are going for a clean break altogether with the new TT range.  For this reason, I reckon further experiments in British outline RTR H0 are unlikely, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong!  The mass of 00 products from smaller companies, kits, details, and so on, is probably to inert to shift, though card model prints and 3D prints would adapt easily.  As they will to TT.

[MrWolf]

41 minutes ago, melmerby said:

If TT-120 goes down well, I can see Hornby going the H0 route sometime in the future, after all the track is already there!🙂

 

Given that a number of manufacturers have attempted British outline HO in the past and failed, I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon either, 4mm scale, albeit running on HO track has such a huge following and an industry of suppliers geared to it and developed over a good seven decades, I doubt that many of the smaller suppliers will be able or willing to follow the 3.5mm route and I doubt that the big boys will want to make everything other than what's needed to build RTP trainsets.

 

As for uncle Bob's model railway, it's the same with everything. I get it a lot with the bikes. The day after uncle Bob's funeral, cousin Kevin claimed his Road Rocket and Tiger 110, then flogged them to a dealer for half what they were worth, to buy a secondhand Audi TT and a package holiday to Tossa del Tossa 

But there's another bike he was working on. Or rather a frame, wheels and odd bits.

Yes there's an engine under the bench, but it's out of a totally different BSA and I can assure you it won't fit, plus all the rare and expensive bits such as mudguards lights carburettor etc are missing.

What about the registration number? That must be worth a couple of grand? 

Okay, do you have a current logbook? 

No, but a bloke down the pub says there's a way around it, his mate's done it apparently.... No, you can't. Not on Swansea computer, you might get the number back, but it's non transferable.

Yes, it is worth something, but nearer £500 than £5000. It's generally provable too, so people know I'm not trying to pull a fast one, they're grateful for my honesty and almost always tell me to take a load of other stuff, but I don't enjoy giving people the bad news. Unless of course they're an obvious bread head who hasn't spoken to their late uncle since about 1985, I put that down to karma.

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by MrWolf

[melmerby]

10 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Given that a number of manufacturers have attempted British outline HO in the past and failed

Tongue in cheek.

 

However they were small fish against a big tide but if that big tide turns (Hornby) who knows?

 

[MrWolf]

Some of that is general, some of it from actual events. When one of my great uncles passed away, sat in the garage was his prized Triumph Herald, twenty years old, but the only car he'd bought new. As I was only fifteen my eighteen year old actual cousin Kevin got it. Which was fair enough. He drove it once or twice and sold it to buy a souped up Ford Escort that promptly collapsed in a rusty heap at the side of the M69.

Two years later, I went out and bought a dark green Herald 1200 from the wife of one of dad's workmates that had inherited it and wanted a sensible car instead.

She bought a Talbot Samba for reasons that were never fully understood...

Edited November 5, 2022 by MrWolf

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Furthermore, I would expect a new technology to replace DCC fairly soon, probably abandoning the idea of picking up traction current from the track in favour of NFC supply of the sort that you charge your phone with from strips beneath the track, which can be plastic.  This should be cheaper than DCC and leave more room inside the loco for speakers and other bells and whistles, and offer better slow running and control, but it will render current models less valuable. 

No chance.

The magnetic field required to supply an all bells and whistles sound loco would be enough to affect everything metal around it.

 

I remember somebody doing an experiment to power a small helicopter from microwave radiation. It worked, just and the power required was enough to cook your dinner (or brain if close enough)!

[MrWolf]

5 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Tongue in cheek.

 

However they were small fish against a big tide but if that big tide turns (Hornby) who knows?

 

 

I thought as much, but I still can't understand why Hornby of all people think that it's likely to take off in a way that will justify the investment.

[The Johnster]

Perhaps H are in a desperate enough state to try anything!  Or their market research knows something we don't...

 

The marketing ideas behind the original Triang TT release are the same now as they were then, saving space and getting more on to a given size of layout, and one could suggest that TT back then failed because N appeared and was better in that respect.  But N cannot replicate the level of detail expected from current 00 RTR, while TT probably can.  My only reservation would be about the slow running capabilities of these smaller, lighter, models; early British outline N was appalling in this respect, and smaller scales seem to suffer with it as well.  As you go smaller, the friction and drag becomes proportionally greater, and friction and drag are the enemies of good slow and smooth running, as are dirt and poor pickup performance, which also have a proportionally greater effect as scale reduces.

[Andy Hayter]

My personal thoughts on TT are firstly  - not for me.

 

However H may be latching on to trends that have been going on for years, even decades.

 

Over decades, the average age of modellers and model buyers (not necessarily the same thing) has been slowly rising.

 

Over a similar if not longer period, the size of living areas has become smaller and smaller.  Smaller new build houses and larger properties have been split into smaller condominiums, flats etc..

 

Putting the two together, you end up with a modelling / collecting population with less and less space to carry out their hobby and quite probably increasing failure of faculties.  So less space might push you to N, but failing faculties (eyesight and dexterity) makes that impossible.

 

Possibly TT offers a medium way through.

 

As I said above - not for me - but I have space (never enough of course).  However, having enjoyed bad eyesight for a lot of my life, I do understand how N is just too small for some people.  Not just the level of detail but simply handling stock and putting it on the track.

 

Not for me - but I wish Hornby well and hope the move is successful.

 

[kevinlms]

7 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

I thought as much, but I still can't understand why Hornby of all people think that it's likely to take off in a way that will justify the investment.

So who came up with TT:120 first Hornby or Peco, or was it a joint venture? Not that it really bothers me, as I won't be buying!

[Hal Nail]

15 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Remember what happened to film cameras when digital appeared?

i bought my dream Leica about a week before. Apart from girlfriends, comfortably my most expensive mistake.

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

As I said above - not for me - but I have space (never enough of course).  However, having enjoyed bad eyesight for a lot of my life, I do understand how N is just too small for some people.  Not just the level of detail but simply handling stock and putting it on the track.

 

Arthritis doesn't help either we all get older.

[hayfield]

On 17/10/2022 at 13:51, Andymsa said:

I got my eye on a couple of items on eBay, the prices set for them are to high. I messaged the seller to see if they were open to offers but it appears there selling for a relative who I guess have no real idea what the price should be, the price seems to have included any eBay fees. It’s for an item that’s not made anymore and a premium is being placed on it for this reason. It’s not the first time I have noticed this with pricing but it does make me wonder at unrealistic prices being set, at this time the item has still not sold after 6 weeks. So is eBay really the best place to sell items now as fees have gone up so much

 

 

I only sell on eBay on reduced fee weekends (80% off) but even at normal rates eBay's fee of appx 13% is far cheaper than other methods, but when did the fees recently rise. I am still paying the same rate 3.5% appx + 30p !!

 

As a buyer if an item is too high I pass it by, sometimes I have to recalculate my valuations if I want one, but usually something comes along at what I think is an acceptable price (I nearly always buy on the auction format). 

 

As a seller, I list at a price I feel as fair, mostly getting more than a single bid, others must agree. Recently I had to relist something several times, but it sold at the price I wanted. If someone contacts me offering a lower amount, I politely thank them for their offer and increase the price, interestingly a few times the items went on and sold at the end of the auction (that's why I politely thank the person wanting it on the cheap). I only ever make an offer if that facility has been included in the lot

 

To make a sale both buyer and seller have to be happy with the price offered !! Usually when an item is discontinued if its sought after the price goes up  !!

[Kylestrome]

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

I only sell on eBay on reduced fee weekends (80% off) but even at normal rates eBay's fee of appx 13% is far cheaper than other methods, but when did the fees recently rise.

 

I'm surprised that you are still having to to pay eBay sellers fees. German eBay is now free to private sellers!

[andyman7]

9 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

 

I'm surprised that you are still having to to pay eBay sellers fees. German eBay is now free to private sellers!

Ebay treats its country markets as discrete entities as they all exist in different environments. The German change will no doubt be evaluated and may be expanded elsewhere if it is successful in driving overall traffic and revenues to the site but it's far too early for them to throw the doors open on the (bigger) UK and US sites.

[Sjcm]

On 06/11/2022 at 00:53, kevinlms said:

So who came up with TT:120 first Hornby or Peco, or was it a joint venture? Not that it really bothers me, as I won't be buying!

Same here. Even if you think the space issue is a major selling point (I dont) then it will fail for the same reason the original tt did - lack of models. It's obviously not aimed at kids given the price, so the serious modeller then. So what serious modeller can make a layout out of a couple of LNER A3/A4's? LMS you have a pacific, a HST? GWR and Southern  fans are out of luck.  And other non-express loco's?. And wagons and coaches? Modern image is the best catered for but even then it's thin on the ground and the whole range seems to be trying to cover 100 years of railways 😂I'm sure they will bring out more models but common sense says they can't have a gigantic catalogue of models so unless all the other manufacturers jump on the bandwagon it's doomed because over the years you can get literally anything in OO and even N. If you look at any market like this ,video games, music formats, video formats it's not necessarily the best system that succeeds, but the one that's supported most, and to me TT will go the way of Betamax or Laser discs because of that.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Sjcm

[hayfield]

18 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

 

I'm surprised that you are still having to to pay eBay sellers fees. German eBay is now free to private sellers!

 

eBay has to make money otherwise the platform will close, given other ways of disposing of unwanted items even at full fees (13%) it is far cheaper than other auctions who charge both buyer and seller, usually 20% each though I recently read one charging the buyer 35% 

 

Also for the private seller eBay can achieve higher amounts for your items more akin to retail s/h prices

 

As seen in this thread, buying carefully at a traditional auction the items can be resold at a profit

 

I guess eBay are investing in building up their model train following in Germany.