Sjcm

So far I've seen 3 you tubers with the tender problem and 2 people in the comments that had to return their models. Even the favourable class47peters' video posted on here mentions it didn't work out the box until he pushed the tender in properly - is that just a one-off or the sign of a weakness that will only get worse? Trouble is there is a culture in our hobby of fixing stuff that you don't get elsewhere with new products for whatever the reason (don't want the hassle of returning/like the challenge/worried they won't get a replacement quickly?). Be interesting if someone posts a "how I fixed my black5" video on YouTube because given the price and complexity, Hornby may have reached the tipping point where people are prepared to start dismantling a new model rather than just sending it back.

He doesn't help himself with some of his fixations and his carpet layout, but some of his gripes about no proper bearings, flimsy parts, design faults, wheels out of scale, and glue all over the place in 200+ pound models seems perfectly realistic to me. End of the day no-one forced Hornby to go up-market and start charging 100+ pounds above inflation compared to the 2000's equivalent models. You can make an argument that the better detailing and mechanism is worth that price increase, but as fair as the quality and general robustness goes Hornby (and others) just don't get it. If I buy a premium product whether that's a top of the range phone or a tv, I expect it to work, be in mint condition when it arrives and the quality of it ensuring it has a long life. If I buy a cheapo smartphone I'll probably overlook the general cheapness and a scratch on the screen

While I understand the lamp argument on both sides, I would say on the realistic/prototypical stakes, a loco that doesn't move is much more of a bar to realism than the lamps. There obviously seems to be a problem with some of the release batch with the tender connection.How big that is is hard to tell, but seeing there is a fair number of YouTubers with this problem and those that have bought it and reviewed are not exactly everywhere, you have to wonder how widespread the problem is, and whether it's something that will increase with wear and tear in 3/6/12 months time. Suffice to say, it's the usual story with Hornby - Rolls Royce price, Lada quality control.

I have 3 of those duettes, one I use every day for testing. Hasn't blown up yet, touch wood, but I wouldn't pay 100 quid for one, or sell one. One of my favorite YouTube channels is a guy who gets working pre-70s televisions and radios.. When I say gets working, he doesn't repair or restore them because they are too far gone, but finds them dumped by the side of the road or down mines and does just enough to get them working so no replacement of leaky capacitors etc.. He's basically fearless of high voltage from being an ex repairman so half the fun is watching what will catch fire when he turns on a tv he's just jetwashed to get the mud out of 😲. He's actually very safety orientated and these are 1+ hour long serious tutorials,but every now and then he has a bit of fun - wired this microwave into one of those retro 2000's Crossley record player stereos and the resulting smoke and fire had the neighbours phoning him up thinking his house was on fire. "No, I'm having a barbecue"😂

Another YouTuber with the same problem as Sam's trains

yep. With.the added bonus that your hacksaw and glue job will probably last longer and be more robust than the 200 pound super detailed model - if its not already broken when you get it.

yeah, it's hard to see if the body has been "got at" to fit the chassis which may reduce the selling price

Obviously a lot of work put into it. You're left wondering why though... Still at a tenner you can't go wrong really.

If you look on completed listings he was selling them separately originally. Obviously can't be bothered anymore.

As President of The Enemies of Thomas, I've authorised a 20 pounds bid on the condition the seller destroys it with a hammer/sends it via yodel to get it out of circulation.

yes, but did he actually pay 2-5 pounds for a wagon individually or is that what he valued it them as part of say a big 300 pounds joblot? he may have even paid less per wagon but needs a "bottom line" figure to work out where to set his profit. He's sold those 3 unboxed Hornby wagons for 12 pounds each and claims they cost 10 pounds total so that's 26 pounds profit, but then he gave the buyer free postage so that's 21/22 profit. then you have his ebay fee's and business overheads. At 12 pounds a wagon they were unlikely to have flown out the door so could have been up for weeks. Worth the effort? perhaps, but a lot of work if you add in his time.

Personally I think it's pretty easy to sell at a profit on ebay, but that's different from making a living out of it by buying and selling. If you're buying stock and not that knowledgeable like this guy possibly (solarium coach?) then you have to go for joblots of boxed stuff in good condition which would add big time to buying stock and you'd need a hefty investment in stock to start off with (5k?) to keep things ticking over. The time aspect with research, listing, wrapping and posting stuff looms large so I doubt he buys stuff like non running loco's that he has to repair or gamble on them running so again any stock he buys is gonna attract top money on ebay with other dealers in competition. His mark-up seems to be at least 50% which isn't excessive on ebay but you'd imagine he has an awful lot of unsold stock in BIN listings running for months on end. Still if you can get 20 pounds for old Hornby controllers good luck to him.👍

I like how the paint is like "a car found in a barn". Minus marks for not mentioning patina

Based on personal experience, my guess is he couldn't be @r**d.

Well the last 4 photos look suspiciously like he's glued it to his hand.😉

Actually thats the 1976 line-up of The Wurzels. Should be in the music memorabilia section.

They're not looking at the 35 pound loco, they're looking at the sales over 1700 pounds or selling more than 30 items. They wouldn't be at the stage to look at whether all the individuals items were legitimate selling of personal items or not from eBay flagging it up .Ebay cant tell HMRC where you got the item you're selling - that would be down to you😉 I don't think this was ever about catching the big fish who would have moved on or gone legit as soon as this was announced. Not sure it's about catching out hobbyists selling off unwanted stock either. Imo, its more about getting people declaring any ebay sales over the limits to HMRC as a matter of course, rather than the fear of a letter from them querying your sales. - So yeah, if I was selling over a 1000 pounds per year on ebay, I'd tell them, profit or not.

yep, but what's a personal item? if you bought say a loco off ebay next month and Christmas you flog it on ebay because you don't like it, changed era's, etc.. then that isn't automatically classed as a personal item. Profit wise you could have bought a non-runner and fixed it, and got more than you paid. There is no time limit so if you sell over 1000 pounds in total the onus is on you to prove that it wasn't intentionally bought to sell if HMRC decided to look into it. Its all very vague

While I tend to agree (hope) that is the case, it's still incredibly vague with the onus on you. The 1700 sales figure for reporting your figures is fair enough though many non professional sellers will be above that. The 30 items limit is ridiculous as that could easily be below 1700 or indeed 1000 pounds. Loads of railway hobbyists must go miles above 30 items in sales per year. With people like Martin lewis telling anyone to report over 1000 pounds worth of sales to HMRC even if your just selling the contents of your loft then people will be put off. And the elephant in the room is if they are after the big fish avoiding tax, then what sort of idiot big fish will continue doing it?

Yes but technically if you were still selling in January over the limit your records will be shared.

I see EBay have put a big article about "no side-hussle tax" on their home page. Seems a bit late seeing it came into law in January, so I wonder if there has been a significant drop off in sellers listing?

I don't know if its because of when I was born, but I've recently been losing a bit of weight and its suddenly occurred to me that I operate in some sort of halfway house metric imperial system. I use cm and metres for length EXCEPT height which is feet. I have no concept of how tall I am in cm's or metres. likewise weight I use grams and kilograms EXCEPT my own weight which is stones and lbs. weight in Kgs? Not a scoobie. Every time I try and work out my BMI there's only the option for metric or imperial, not some "born in the 1970s" mixture. Same with gallons - I can visualise how big a gallon is, but not 5 litres, and yet I know how big 2 litres is in non-petrol form 😂

I've given up bidding on weekend evenings since Christmas as anything I want tends to go miles over what I consider it's value, but then I'm looking for bargains. Not sure if this is the new "norm", or just one of those periodic fluctuations where demand outstrips supply - an influx of people who used to prefer to buy from Hattons perhaps? Saying that I have picked up a few good deals on a Sunday evening after everyone have finished going bezerk, but the best buys are usually the ones that finish mid-week before 7pm. No idea why people choose to finish an auction when everyone is at work? Selling wise, I don't time my auctions to end on the weekend as I always list for 10 days so potential buyers get the maximum chance to search and find it - I basically want the people actively searching for an item, rather than someone who just does a search for interesting items finishing in the next 48 hours on a Friday evening. As long as it ends around 8pm I'm happy. Everything i list is in the dirt cheap category so rarely is there another listing cheaper than mine. Some people would say that is risky but nowadays I always get the market value I want or more, probably because there are so many other sellers asking absurd prices. I guess I miss out on the weekends bidders with money burning a hole in their pocket, but the flipside is if your auction ends on a weekday evening then often your item is the only one available, while on a weekend you're up against sometimes 5+ people selling the same thing.

I think they look for keywords in your messages. I had a very odd experience when I bought some items in the usual way. The buyer didn't want to send through the post so offered to deliver. because he only lived about 20miles away I offered to meet him at a motorway service station half way. The problems started when we tried to swop mobile numbers as ebay would delete them. They obviously weren't reading them manually because I had paid and ebay had been paid. I agree with you on the unsoliticed offers though. My experience is they're normally dealers, and have the attitude that they're doing you a favour by offering (usually) less than it would go for if you let the auction run. I usually tell them I never cancel an auction ahead of time, but there's always the possibility that they get the hump, buy it anyway, and then leave crappy feedback

Wasn't sure where to put this as I'm guessing the manufacturer, but seeing people seem to frequently get unidentified random items with stuff they win on ebay, hopefully this isn't too irrelevant. About a month back I bought some spares I needed, and while I have identified 99% of the stuff I didn't want, a couple of packets have flummoxed me, and modern-ish Hornby(?) bits are a bit out of knowledge range unfortunately. No clue on the chimney shaped items apart from maybe a tender filler cap as they have some sort of hinge detail on it? The brake lever things I was thinking possibly a Hornby saint tender? Any ideas on their origins would be appreciated.