EBay madness

[MrWolf]

13 minutes ago, andytrains said:

GosTURDe again

 

It's the gift that keeps on giving....

[Bucoops]

2 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Otherwise known as Hearing aid beige or Prosthetic limb beige. I do like a SAAB, even though my mate tried to kill us in a Shed green 96 V4.

 

 

I don't think that I ever saw an Allegro that was rusty and always thought that the nylon swimsuit colours suited them better.  That Blitz Evacuee Suitcase brown worked better on the Maxi, Princess and Triumph 2000 which needed to hide the galloping tinworm.

I see that is one of the last pre HLS types with the black trim, alloy look hubcaps and oooh! (Whisper...) Is that a bunny killer air dam under the front bumper?

 

 

I can just about remember these coming out and the car "experts" slagging them off, I like the dual headlamp treatment and if you had stuck a little Alfa Romeo grille in the centre you'd have got all the car snobs ignoring the faults.

Allegros were generally nice to work on and handled pretty well. I was offered, some years ago, an early yellow estate version with chrome bumpers and dog dish hubcaps (so pretty much my ideal) and at the time I was going through a divorce, had neither the place to keep it (wasn't road legal) nor the £150 to buy it. 

I think that we have all been there!

 

I presume you meant wasn't rusty? That was the advantage of the brown one - couldn't see the rust for the sh**. Tinworm killed them both sadly.

 

I upgraded the grey one to pseudo HLS spec - twin headlights, airdam, centre console. Even found some equipe alloys.

 

They were ruddy good fun to drive, could take pretty much anything you could throw at it. My mate had a Nova GTe which he had just spent about £2k on suspension mods by Leda (whatever happened to them?!) so he was not best pleased when I went round the outside of him on a roundabout, sideways, waving.

 

Used to go through a set of Mintex front pads in under 8k miles. Ferodo under 4k.

 

Top speed was an issue - even with a gas flowed MG Metro engine (oh how I wanted a turbo!) it struggled to get to a ton. Was attempting it on the M25 private road, 3 up once. In the distance I could see a car rapidly approaching, then it slowed a bit. As it got closer I noticed the light bar. I'd reached about 97 on the clock, so probably about 75 in reality, I eased off. The police car came cruising past staring and laughing hysterically at this rusy brown heap bouncing along like zebedee.

 

56 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

There wasn't an inherent design flaw with the Minor's front trunnions. 

The problem was that the owners had the same attitude as tightwad old farmers:

 

"When it's new,it don't need greasing. When it's old, it's too late to bother greasing it."

 

Heralds had similar issues, albeit less often, but for exactly the same reasons.

 

My dad had a moggy convertible for 49 years, it was 1 year old when he got it. Total mileage about 125k. If it had less than 15 sets of trunnions over that time I'd be surprised. He greased them religiously, but constantly failed the MOT.

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Bucoops

[The Johnster]

Oliver, the gift that keeps on taking, the p*ss, that is...

 

It's the asking price that is unbelievable; the model, assuming it runs or will do when it's cleaned up and relubed, is not half bad.  It's been neglected for a long time and shows it, but it's all there, brake detail, everything square and level excpet the smokebox handrail.  I think his claim that it has been professionally built is a bit hopeful but it might have been; certainly whoever built it, professional or amatuer, made a good job of it.  Nothing is obviously amiss, and it's just been in a damp box for a few decades.  A third or even a half of the price for a cosmetic restoration that would bring it back to it's former glory, and a nice little engine. 

 

This is one of the reasons I really don't like Oliver.  Mendacious chiseller, sure, but when it comes to something like this, a basically good model in need of TLC, he effectively denies it to the hobby by the insane pricing.  Somebody (not me, it's a little early for Cwmdimbath) would I'm sure get a huge amount of pleasure from owning this loco, which from the gears seems to be capable of good smooth slow-running performance.  But Oliver will never sell it at that price, he doesn't know what it is and doesn't care, because it isn't the sort of instant access RTR his customer base usually goes for, and those of us who might be interested are not going to bite, we're too knowledgeable to be taken in; basically, he has no customers for it at that price point, and we know he is highly unlikely to drop the price to an acceptable point, at which btw he would no doubt be making a profit.  The neglect has house clearance after the widow passed on 20 years after hubby all over it, and I'm willing to bet he had it for less that £20.  It will end up in landfill, and it's too good a model for that, a crying shame!

Edited February 19, 2023 by The Johnster

[Paul H Vigor]

23 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

It's the gift that keeps on giving....

The problem with Mr G, and others of his ilk, they tie up models that may be of use to actual modellers. eBay is a horror for suggesting potentially interesting projects then putting the wherewithall to pursue said projects out of reach. Some 'traders' appear quiet content to simply sit on their stock ad infinitum, rather than sell it outside the trade?

[MrWolf]

51 minutes ago, Paul H Vigor said:

The problem with Mr G, and others of his ilk, they tie up models that may be of use to actual modellers. eBay is a horror for suggesting potentially interesting projects then putting the wherewithall to pursue said projects out of reach. Some 'traders' appear quiet content to simply sit on their stock ad infinitum, rather than sell it outside the trade?

 

It's the same with everything. Not much is truly rare but if you can create a sense of scarcity and a trend for the acquisition of a particular item, then its perceived value goes up.

I know several people who are sitting on literally hundreds (one of those has over five hundred) of British motorcycles, supposedly for a pension scheme, but they let things go in dribs and drabs: "When did you last see one of these?" according to the Swansea computer, there's only twelve left!

(That is, twelve currently registered and on the road ) But I have seven more in better condition in my stash, but if they all come out at once,no feeding frenzy.

Also, if I can get just one person to pay X then the word goes round that they are fetching X and out comes the stash until the market is saturated again.

[DCB]

3 hours ago, MrWolf said:

There wasn't an inherent design flaw with the Minor's front trunnions. 

The problem was that the owners had the same attitude as tightwad old farmers:

"When it's new,it don't need greasing. When it's old, it's too late to bother greasing it."

Heralds had similar issues, albeit less often, but for exactly the same reasons.

The Trunnion was an awful design, designed by Issigonis I believe.   It was a glorified nut  screwed onto a bolt thread  and because of the stupid design the torsion bar forced the lower arm down.  I have seen the assembly fail with the trunnion dropping the lower arm on the ground.  I changed one in what is now Lidl car park at Cirencester.  Minors had the same stupid arrangement and allowing them to skip MOT tests is absolutely mad. The original Minor design was for greasing at 1000 mile service intervals, the last Itals had 6000 mile intervals.  When new you couldn't get grease in even with a pressure greaser.  QH made a much larger version which screwed on the original thread which was vastly better.   By 1982 you could build a decent Ital Estate with 1700 engine,  but you had to use 1800 HLS dash, to get a Rev counter, An it needed the final type Ital suspension front suspension with telescopic shocks.  I had one.  The estate was by far the best handling of the Ital / Marina range.   The 2 door by far the worst.  Sadly the factory never built to that specifications.  My boss had a 1700 Marina 2 for sale.  It stood so long the tyres distorted and went out of round.  The apprentice and  I fitted new tyres and took the car for a test drive.  He was seriously impressed with the ease it ran up to an indicated 100mph.  He boasted about it down the pub.  Next week his friend bought it on the strength of his recommendation.   That was the 1700 problem, it would beat a 2 litre Mk3 Cortina, up to 60 mph. it had better gear ratios, smaller gap between 1st and 2nd but you had to rev it, 60 in 2nd, but old codgers left them in top gear and they were gutless at low revs.  The single carb 1800 was the opposite, Max torque was 35mph in top gear, seldom needed anything but top...  but anything over 85 was a struggle. Some  had the MGB twin carb steel crankshaft engine, most had twin carbs on the iron crank 1800, not quite so clever.

 

[Bucoops]

6 hours ago, DCB said:

The Trunnion was an awful design, designed by Issigonis I believe.   It was a glorified nut  screwed onto a bolt thread  and because of the stupid design the torsion bar forced the lower arm down.  I have seen the assembly fail with the trunnion dropping the lower arm on the ground.  I changed one in what is now Lidl car park at Cirencester.  Minors had the same stupid arrangement and allowing them to skip MOT tests is absolutely mad. The original Minor design was for greasing at 1000 mile service intervals, the last Itals had 6000 mile intervals.  When new you couldn't get grease in even with a pressure greaser.  QH made a much larger version which screwed on the original thread which was vastly better.   By 1982 you could build a decent Ital Estate with 1700 engine,  but you had to use 1800 HLS dash, to get a Rev counter, An it needed the final type Ital suspension front suspension with telescopic shocks.  I had one.  The estate was by far the best handling of the Ital / Marina range.   The 2 door by far the worst.  Sadly the factory never built to that specifications.  My boss had a 1700 Marina 2 for sale.  It stood so long the tyres distorted and went out of round.  The apprentice and  I fitted new tyres and took the car for a test drive.  He was seriously impressed with the ease it ran up to an indicated 100mph.  He boasted about it down the pub.  Next week his friend bought it on the strength of his recommendation.   That was the 1700 problem, it would beat a 2 litre Mk3 Cortina, up to 60 mph. it had better gear ratios, smaller gap between 1st and 2nd but you had to rev it, 60 in 2nd, but old codgers left them in top gear and they were gutless at low revs.  The single carb 1800 was the opposite, Max torque was 35mph in top gear, seldom needed anything but top...  but anything over 85 was a struggle. Some  had the MGB twin carb steel crankshaft engine, most had twin carbs on the iron crank 1800, not quite so clever.

 

 

Ha ha yes, Morris Minors could beat *anything* off the line. Until you changed to 2nd when normal service resumed and you caused a traffic jam!

[Swissrail]

In the early 80s I had a 1975 standard (non TC) 1.8 Marina in blue. When I joined the Beeb in early '83 I decided to drive from my then home in Kilmarnock to Wood Norton near Evesham, where the Beeb's engineering training department was, every week, rather than flying from Glasgow and Heathrow on travel warrants. (Getting to Heathrow on a Friday night was a nightmare and I only did it once). I'd leave WN at about 4.30pm and tool it up the M5 at over 90 (no cameras in those days) just in time to meet the worst of the rush hour at the M5/M6 junction in Birmingham. After getting past Wolverhampton the foot would be pressed to the floor once more and it's 90 plus all the way to Gretna and then career dangerously up the A76 from there to Kilmarnock, arriving home at about 10.30. Same in the other direction on the Sunday night to get back to WN for work on the Monday morning. After twelve seeks of this punishment, the car was burning more Castrol GTX than it was petrol but I wasn't much bothered as I could top up the oil for a fiver a gallon. Much more worrying was the lever arm shockers creating the problem experienced when rounding any kind of bend at more than 40, at which point the car would ignore the steering wheel and just keep going in a straight line. I had a close encounter with a hedge that way so, since I now had a pretty decent salary, I scrapped the thing and bought a Triumph Acclaim HL. I know I'll get pilloried for saying this but I thought it was a nice car and, since it was a badge engineered Honda, much better built than anything British Leyland could create themselves.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Swissrail

[Swissrail]

16 hours ago, MrWolf said:

It looks anything but "professionally built" to me

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363627507555?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dUl0TI1oQ1m&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=3qkTzGg7QRS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

From the colour of the weathering, this one's seen some service in the Sahara! The way those pony wheels have been fitted doesn't seem too clever either. Nice model otherwise, although Go$turd is barking at the moon if he thinks he's going to get 300 notes for it. Half that would still be pushing it a bit.

Likewise this one...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373797687067?hash=item5708140f1b:g:8dEAAOSwnYphl7S5

 

Why doesn't he at least brush the dust off these models before he photographs them? This one looks as if it's been at the back of someone's pullover drawer for the last twenty years. This is quite a nice Barnum. But is it £400 worth of Barnum?

Edited February 20, 2023 by Swissrail

[MrWolf]

28 minutes ago, Swissrail said:

From the colour of the weathering, this one's seen some service in the Sahara! The way those pony wheels have been fitted doesn't seem too clever either. Nice model otherwise, although Go$turd is barking at the moon if he thinks he's going to get 300 notes for it. Half that would still be pushing it a bit.

Likewise this one...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373797687067?hash=item5708140f1b:g:8dEAAOSwnYphl7S5

 

Why doesn't he at least brush the dust off these models before he photographs them? This one looks as if it's been at the back of someone's pullover drawer for the last twenty years. This is quite a nice Barnum. But is it £400 worth of Barnum?

 

Definitely not. It's not exactly a state of the art up to the minute model. If it wasn't from a kit someone else would be trying to flog it as "folk art".

 

(Other, similarly rage inducingly pretentious titles are available.) 

 

It wants a complete stripdown, everything checking and a repaint as soon as you get it. You're not going to unwrap it and immediately press it into service on your "finescale" layout, that's for sure.

It also looks to be powered by a Tri-ang motor.

 

I'd risk £100 at the old beater and he's probably still making a 300% profit at that 

 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by MrWolf
Added a bit.

[Swissrail]

19 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I'd risk £100 at the old beater and he's probably still making a 300% profit at that

Precisely. He probably got this in a house clearance and if he paid more than twenty quid for it I'd be surprised. Go$turd's avarice is off the scale.

This one...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364123658051?hash=item54c7761743:g:7OUAAOSwE1Fj0jtq

 

...is clearly from the same source to judge by the build quality but it's obviously worth an extra fifty notes because it's a Martin Finney kit!

Edited February 20, 2023 by Swissrail

[MrWolf]

9 hours ago, DCB said:

The Trunnion was an awful design, designed by Issigonis I believe.   It was a glorified nut  screwed onto a bolt thread  and because of the stupid design the torsion bar forced the lower arm down.  I have seen the assembly fail with the trunnion dropping the lower arm on the ground.  I changed one in what is now Lidl car park at Cirencester.  Minors had the same stupid arrangement and allowing them to skip MOT tests is absolutely mad. The original Minor design was for greasing at 1000 mile service intervals, the last Itals had 6000 mile intervals.  When new you couldn't get grease in even with a pressure greaser.  QH made a much larger version which screwed on the original thread which was vastly better.   By 1982 you could build a decent Ital Estate with 1700 engine,  but you had to use 1800 HLS dash, to get a Rev counter, An it needed the final type Ital suspension front suspension with telescopic shocks.  I had one.  The estate was by far the best handling of the Ital / Marina range.   The 2 door by far the worst.  Sadly the factory never built to that specifications.  My boss had a 1700 Marina 2 for sale.  It stood so long the tyres distorted and went out of round.  The apprentice and  I fitted new tyres and took the car for a test drive.  He was seriously impressed with the ease it ran up to an indicated 100mph.  He boasted about it down the pub.  Next week his friend bought it on the strength of his recommendation.   That was the 1700 problem, it would beat a 2 litre Mk3 Cortina, up to 60 mph. it had better gear ratios, smaller gap between 1st and 2nd but you had to rev it, 60 in 2nd, but old codgers left them in top gear and they were gutless at low revs.  The single carb 1800 was the opposite, Max torque was 35mph in top gear, seldom needed anything but top...  but anything over 85 was a struggle. Some  had the MGB twin carb steel crankshaft engine, most had twin carbs on the iron crank 1800, not quite so clever.

 

 

Interesting stuff. I preferred the twin wishbone coil over shock set up that was used for years on Vauxhall's and Standard-Triumph. Even that broke if you didn't look after it though.

BL's attempt to use common components did a great job of making 4 cylinder Triumph engines last about half as long as they did a decade earlier, so no surprises there!

[Swissrail]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334753790706?hash=item4df0e17af2:g:ln0AAOSwolhj8K4k

 

Kit built motors? That's novel! Just the thing to go with this...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364137047965?hash=item54c842679d:g:5QkAAOSw3v1j4Q4U

 

An unmade kit for £239.50? Just because it's old, doesn't make it worth its weight in gold. He's smoking something.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Swissrail

[Rowsley17D]

9 minutes ago, Swissrail said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334753790706?hash=item4df0e17af2:g:ln0AAOSwolhj8K4k

 

Kit built motors? That's novel!

 

Kit-built is Go$turd's default description for all things model railway related.

[Swissrail]

I don't believe the Southern ever did this...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334755298863?hash=item4df0f87e2f:g:vUUAAOSw2RJj8gAF

 

You could probably source the entire loco for less if you were so minded. And it would be in the correct livery!

Look too, if you will, at this pile of old trousers!

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334753790707?hash=item4df0e17af3:g:nb8AAOSwVLRj8MIZ

Edited February 20, 2023 by Swissrail

[TinTracks]

Members

 278

Location: The Red Bladder's Harem

Posted 14 minutes ago (edited)

I don't believe the Southern ever did this...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334755298863?hash=item4df0f87e2f:g:vUUAAOSw2RJj8gAF

 

I could be wrong but wasn't 34064  Fighter Command not Hurricane ?

 

 Regards, Rich

Edited February 20, 2023 by TinTracks

[RFS]

3 minutes ago, TinTracks said:

Members

 278

Location: The Red Bladder's Harem

Posted 14 minutes ago (edited)

I don't believe the Southern ever did this...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334755298863?hash=item4df0f87e2f:g:vUUAAOSw2RJj8gAF

 

I could be wrong but wasn't 34064  Fighter Command not Hurricane ?

 

 Regards, Rich

 

Indeed. 34065 was Hurricane, and not even BR painted light pacifics blue. 

[Darius43]

I can’t help thinking that Gostude’s inventory Is fairly low hanging fruit for this thread.   Posting links to his stuff and calling him names can get boring very quickly.

 

I suspect he expects to get a mark up on whatever he paid for his stuff, which means that, if he paid too much, then the items stay on eBay for ever.   Some of his stuff is reasonably priced and I have bought several things from him in the past.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

 

[Swissrail]

50 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

if he paid too much, then the items stay on eBay for ever.

I doubt Go$tude ever paid too much for anything. Asking too much is more his thing.

 

[paulmblythe]

2 hours ago, Swissrail said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334753790706?hash=item4df0e17af2:g:ln0AAOSwolhj8K4k

 

Kit built motors? That's novel! Just the thing to go with this...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364137047965?hash=item54c842679d:g:5QkAAOSw3v1j4Q4U

 

An unmade kit for £239.50? Just because it's old, doesn't make it worth its weight in gold. He's smoking something.

for £20 less you could buy the kit new from djh. ok they dont come with wheels these days but you might get some customer service if bits are missing or you damage them.

[Enterprisingwestern]

49 minutes ago, Swissrail said:

I doubt Go$tude ever paid too much for anything. Asking too much is more his thing.

 

 

I sometimes wonder if he's been skinned at a few auctions and has to charge the prices he does to try and recoup his investment.

 

Mike.

[Swissrail]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I sometimes wonder if he's been skinned at a few auctions and has to charge the prices he does to try and recoup his investment.

But if the prices he charges are such that the stuff never sells, and it would appear from his listings that this is the case with a lot of what he's got, then it's never going to work.

[Paul H Vigor]

4 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Definitely not. It's not exactly a state of the art up to the minute model. If it wasn't from a kit someone else would be trying to flog it as "folk art".

 

(Other, similarly rage inducingly pretentious titles are available.) 

 

It wants a complete stripdown, everything checking and a repaint as soon as you get it. You're not going to unwrap it and immediately press it into service on your "finescale" layout, that's for sure.

It also looks to be powered by a Tri-ang motor.

 

I'd risk £100 at the old beater and he's probably still making a 300% profit at that 

 

 

 

Misread as "folk f*rt"! I'm blaming the dog! 😎🐶

[Rich_F]

48 minutes ago, Swissrail said:

But if the prices he charges are such that the stuff never sells, and it would appear from his listings that this is the case with a lot of what he's got, then it's never going to work.

I wonder if Go$turde actually makes any money? 

 

My gut tells me he's quite well off anyway otherwise he'd be pricing items more competitively to get them to sell. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

57 minutes ago, Swissrail said:

But if the prices he charges are such that the stuff never sells, and it would appear from his listings that this is the case with a lot of what he's got, then it's never going to work.

 

Ah, but, you can depreciate stock in your accounts, so he never actually needs to sell any of them, just the bread and butter stuff.

 

Mike.