Sjcm

13 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

They might plead poverty, but their report to the City has to be more than emotion, and Hornby's (

doesn't say massive profits kicking around anywhere. I don't recall them making a "good profit" in 2005 either.

 

yeh but is that due to what they're in dabbling now? the huge development and roll-out cost on a punt on a new gauge? I'd agree that a 15% "70 years" discount doesn't hint things are rosy but is the profits on one paying for the other?   That a serious question as  personally I have no idea of the take-up on TT beyond the initial "must have" mob, and whether it will become established. Obviously if tt is a huge success I stand corrected.

Well companies will always plead poverty. My view is if they were making a good profit in 2005 selling their bestest A4 for 100 pounds, then selling one now for 239 pounds now is about 70 pounds above inflation. Of course you can get the presumably same(?)  20+ years now railroad model for 150 pounds which is below inflation, but the fact remains has it really cost them an extra 70 pounds on top of inflation to produce the updated model? I doubt it. They obviously think the market can handle that and they'd be right

It's very much like the uproar of football or concert ticket prices to me as a unconcerned neutral. Everyone knows they're being fleeced but they just can't bring themselves to stop buying them, which I guess is what Hornby are counting on. Now I would never buy a new Hornby model. I don't want a super-detailed model that bits fall off  or bend every time you pick it up. Just not practical for me with no layout I can keep them on all the time. I'm not that careful and I have no wish to have to think about how I pick up a model or get out the packaging - if it looks okay from 3 feet that's fine by me. Not interested in sound, to my ears they always sound  crap, annoying and unrealistic. I certainly don't want all the faults that come as standard, the pain in the @rse of servicing them and the fact that your paying a premium for something that seems to have an intended limited shelf-life so you will buy another one in 10 years. I've seen about 10 or so videos on YouTube with people complaining about the price increase, but the same people then review faulty models or ones with damaged parts/bad build quality and barring being completely broken, they keep them and fix them!  it's like the need for detail has superseded everything else like performance and quality. I've said it before but you wouldn't buy a new car and then spend time in making sure the wheel axles turn correctly, finding out why the electrics cut out going round corners and gluing the front bumper back on.  Come to think about it you wouldn't put up with that if you were buying a non-premium item like a 30 quid kettle. With that sort of captive clientele i 'm not sure there will ever be a "tipping-point" where people will stop paying the prices - the "need" to have the latest model outweighs the logic in most cases and those that won't do it like me stopped years ago but it's quite funny watching the annoyed punters complaining for the 100th time😉

I liked whatever the hell this is supposed to be. If only it was in 00 gauge

Agincourt

It would probably be stretching Ebay's "buyer is always right" policy, to claim that a  stranger had somehow got the address of the buyer I would have thought. Unless there are gangs of layout thieves who knock on random houses on the off-chance you have a layout to sell, fully kitted up with  the tools and vehicle to remove it, coincidentally at the time you arranged collection😉

Usually bid at the last minute (4 seconds is the usual) because you're just increasing the price pointlessly beforehand otherwise.I mean why give other bidders the info that someone else is even interested or allow them to guesstimate what you've bid? Occasionally if it's just a punt im not bothered about, I will bid my maximum early and if I win I win, but I try and pick and choose my battles based on the interest and other bidding patterns because as a cheapskate it's highly unlikely I'm the buyer willing to pay the most money. However it's surprising how many times a last second bid to the minimum allowed can win - presumably some bidders just bid their maximum straight away? I bid on a lot of job Lots that attract dealers so straight away you know they will bid more than you based on how much mark-up profit they factor in. Any auction with someone with a telephone number feedback bidding on it is probably one I'm not going to win. Likewise if everything is nicely  boxed, and described as working then dealers will be around. Any sort of bidding war, or someone placing an early "all-in" bid and forget it. You're bidding against someone not interested in vfm. If you're winning in the last minute I often find upping your bid with about 10 seconds to go by literally nothing seems to work. Psychologically someone watching a countdown for a last second snipe seems to get thrown by seeing a bid come in but the price not change. They obviously know the current winning bidder has bid again but not by 1p😂

Think it was some temporary bug tbh.  After the BIN disaster as well as altering all my templates back to auction I tried doing a listing through the sell an item link and it went to BuyItNow as default.  Okay I thought, maybe they've changed it because more people use BIN?  Today I did the same thing and  it defaults to auction.😳 End of the day I lost about 15 pounds compared to what I thought it would go for in an auction so not a total disaster, but the wasted time I spent preparing to sell an item that wasn't worth the effort really hacked me off😂

I had about 5 templates that I always use until  this month when I listed an item as BuyitNow instead of auction. Of course the inevitable happened and so someone got a bargain.. Couldn't understand what happened until I checked my templates and they had all been changed to Buyitnow by Ebay. Yes, I should have checked, but the whole point of a template is its supposed to be saved in stone so things like this don't happen, not changed by ebay  when they feel like updating the site.

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

 

 

Sounds like a sack of parcels has gone astray, devastating for both you and your customers, but the exception rather than the rule. I still feel RM is the safest carrier

 

 

Evri, apparently our village has a good delivery agent. BUT when he is not working our village Facebook page has requests for miss delivered packages

 

For me I avoid them like the plague, especially as their BOT refuses to accept the words "delivered to the wrong property" They have two different photos of my front door, both of which they claim are of my house, neither looks anything like my front door.

Think it very much depends on the individual you have in your area. As far as stuff sent to me via evri, its been very good. As a seller, I have never had a parcel get lost or damaged via Royal Mail, touchwood, and I would have stuck with them, but when a small parcel goes from 4.69 to 8.95 for the same insurance cover, any loyalty disappears I'm afraid

Had the same experience with yodel as a buyer. One item was damaged with the box caved-in and missing parts, and the other lost so a 100% failure rate. Will not buy from a seller who uses them because i just dont need the hassle.

 I'm using Evri now for stuff worth over 20 pounds, mainly because any service with insurance over that now via Royal Mail is a fortune. I don't use the eBay online thing as I haven't got a working printer so going to my local shop to print it is easier. May try and get my old printer working and try the tracked 24/48 eBay thing but I'm very annoyed that Royal Mail increased their prices over a pound on signed for and then reduced the insurance coverage by 30 pounds! My fear with Evri was always  damage but as a buyer the tracking is far superior to Royal Mail and so far no damage (fingers crossed). Have to admit I never expected to be using the old Hermes as they were terrible but they seem to have got their act together and Royal Mail are obviously  treating me as a cashcow.

To be fair modern day Hornby regularly sells stuff that's not fully operational and doesn't function as intended😉

Just been offered a 1k discount on the Serbian steam engine to 26,500. Now if we all club together on the postage....👌

Yeah I got opted in about 3 years back and never opted out. No-one bothers bidding from abroad anymore in any case because of the postage costs. Besides if they do bid, you just send it to a UK address and as long as it gets there, it's not your problem. Getting lost in the post or damaged, the buyers argument is with Ebay. I used to always offer to post abroad myself, but it was always a risk and if you got unlucky.....

Spares is really the area where you can clean up buying and selling especially in job lots when you want  1 or 2 items in a pile of other stuff. As long as you're willing to spend the time identifying items and of course selling them. I picked up a joblot a month back which I mentioned in the good buy thread for 30 pounds. The stuff I've kept from it would have cost me getting on for 60-70 pounds individually on ebay (don't want to think about the postage costs). I've sold 12 HD ringfield brush springs (got loads of them), a Triang box, Triang continental track bumpers, and H&M Multipack controller clips which came to about 35 pounds so the spares I wanted have cost me nothing.

On the flip side I've just bought a Britannia silver seal motor tender weight for just under a fiver with postage (replacing one that had disintegrated through Mazak rot) which being tight, I wouldn't call a bargain, but seeing the next cheapest by a well known parts supplier is 11 pounds which is half the price of the cheapest  complete britannia.....well any spending budget on parts is going to get depleted rapidly.

that's the one. not that he needed my help in the end as he got the cash in about an hour, but knackered locos have the same effect on me that others get with abused donkeys and  homeless kittens. 

3 hours ago, Darius43 said:

Non runner perchance..?

 

Collection in person from London but the item is in Serbia…

 

ChatGPT description.

 

What could possibly go wrong?
 

Cheers

 

Darius

As someone who actually gave money to save a rushton shunter from a scrapyard last night ( I wasn't even drunk!), the urge to Press Buy it Now was almost uncontrollable.

Judging from the amount of tops, sniffing it?

1 hour ago, Bucoops said:

Everyone's favourite ebay seller again.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334223723808

 

The wagon itself looks reasonably built - but why on earth has whoever built it used pen lids as the load?!

Is this one of these suspect adverts RM keeps warning me about?

Really pushed the boat out for me over the weekend. 9 locos for a grand total of 160 pounds with postage.  All runners allegedly. A couple will replace models I already have in worse condition with the rest being moved on. Hopefully should make a minimum of 30 pounds for the pot if I've got my pricing right or keep another one if I do well. Worse case scenario is I've bought a load of nails but the way eBay is going on prices shouldn't be out of pocket by much.

Got lucky with a Triang pantograph this week, and not the already expensive metal working ones, but the dummy plastic rarer than hens teeth ones which never survive usually. Cost me 17 pounds with postage but the other junk that came with it will be moved on so hopefully get it for under a tenner

Could be the start of a new trend in the hobby. No more messing around with airbrushes and weathering paint. just plonk your loco in a box with a breeding pair of weathering mice and wait a month.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE MICE, DON'T BID

*may need gloves*

12 hours ago, PieGuyRob said:

I have never sold anything on Ebay, so wasn't sure. In that case we are definitely encouraging him! 

I've always assumed he knows he has a fan club on here, and purposely sets aside a listing each month for our entertainment😉

Looks factory to me. Wouldn't mind a dabble on one of them. Picked up the later version without the plungers years back with the chassis snapped from zinc pest. Fortunately the zinc had stopped pesting and 15+ years on the repair is still solid. Mine has the x04 type motor so it got a neo magnet upgrade and runs as good as any comparable model from that time period