I have been in N scale since it started in the 1960’s and know what locomotives and rolling stock are worth. Just saw on Ebay that a seller is trying to foist a 1970’s vinatage Minitrix Santa Fe U30CG off on some unsuspecting buyer or $115. They are great runners, but they are worth abott 25 to 30 dollars. Who ever the seller is, he has a lot of nerve trying this. I hope no one buys this engine. CAVEAT EMPTOR. “Let the buyer beware”.
LION wanted a new power supply for the server of him. Actually the server requires three power supplies for redundancy.
Be that as it may I have found these units for sale on E-bay for $15 each up to $2.000 each. Pretty good for an obsolete unit.
I can only assume that the person selling the $2,000 unit was selling it to himself and pocketing the rest of the money from his employer. If the boss went shopping for the unit, him would be in trouble.
ROAR
Who is stupid, the one selling it overpriced, or the one who does not perform due diligence in researching prices? If the seller does not get the price, he will have to lower it. And if he gets the price…
In some cases a stupid E-Bay Buyer!
Saw 12 Tyco X2F couplers go for $39.95, I think I may have something to get rich on for all the Tyco/Athearn/Bowser X2F’s I have accumulated in my throw away box.
Rick Jesionowski
Really, are we going to go through this again? Those of us that use Ebay are well aware of what some sellers do.
Just chuckle to yourself and move along.
Mike.
This kind of thing is modus operandi on Ebay past few years since they went to new re-list policy.
It might help everyones blood pressure if they just train themselves to ignore all the insanely priced items and just scroll past. Otherwise we just keep re-hashing the same thing about Ebay over and over ad-nauseum. [xx(]
Rick,There are collectors of Tyco that may need those couplers to restore a car…
Yes,even today there are those among us that still uses the X2F plus the collectors restoring old cars and locomotives back to their “new” condition.
There’s a guy here in the rest home that has a Varney 2-8-0 that looks brand new but,he refurbish the engine to new condition and yes,it has X2F couplers and it runs quite well for its age…He’s currently working on a Varney 0-4-0 Lil’ Joe. He’s 73 and has 20 some engines in display cases.
BTW…He plans to letter the L’il Joe G&D to honor John Allen.
But ebay does keep bored modelers busy in forums.
Rich
The recent ebay sold prices for LL HO Proto GP7’s are $35-55. There are plenty for sale on Ebay from $89-100. The sellers must be more patient than I am.
There is nothing dishonest about this at all. He is not forcing anyone to pay this price.
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The prices these things go for can vary wildly. When a seller goes to research a price, he might not be able to determine what a fair market value is. He might also want to do his best to get maximum dollars for his items.
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It is common to start with a high opening bid. If it does not sell, lower the price.
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I have seen the same item listed week after week, each time with the opening bid going down a little until someone bites at the bait.
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This is perfectly fair and an acceptable practice in eBay, and in the physical auction worlds.
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Nothing to get upset about here… we can all move along.
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-Kevin
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A few of the comments made about ebay ellers and buyers are true.
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It is not illegal to over price items, but sellets should not try to gouge buyers with such over inflated prices. Guess they have no scruples…
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I partly blame ebay because they do not even try to protect buyers by blocking such sales. I have seen may others like this over the years.
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The buyer who purchases items at thes infated prices are the stupid ones.
That’s nothing. A few years ago, somebody tried to flog off a “genuine 1966 vintage Athearn SD45“ for something in the neighborhood of $5,000. If your guy’s only asking for a C-note and change for the U30CG, he truly doesn’t know what “vintage” equipment is really worth.
Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have to go roll around on the floor convulsed in helpless laughter.
Andre
Once in a while I sell a baggie full of hornhook couplers. Some people want to sell their old Athearn blue box cars but want to restore them to original condition by removing their Kadee couplers. Then of course they use the Kadee couplers on their newer cars and save some money.
Empty boxes sell for a lot of money also. I shouldn’t have thrown so many away.
Heres another example of a crazy Ebay seller, I often look at cars for sale on Ebay motors, one guy had a newer mustang with the title “2016 ford mustang coyote” at a pretty low price for a V8 mustang, I continue to the description where he states that the car has a EcoBoost V6, which makes sense because only GTs come with V8s, so I send him a message asking why he claims it’s a Coyote, he replies “because of the ‘coyote’ decals on the taillights” I send back that the decals do no more to make the car a “coyote” than the “Decepticon” badge on the fender does to make it a Transformer.
He insisted that the car is indeed a Coyote.
Just to clarify Coyote is the name for the v8s they put in the new mustangs.
[(-D][(-D][(-D] Good one, Rich. [tup][tup]
Yea, really. If you get bored with your hobby, maybe you need to do landscape painting, maybe still life, not people, I was never good at people. [*-)]
Much more satisfying than Ebay trashin’
Mike.
The same thing happens on Craigs List. Somebody wants to dump a Bachman ho set and thinks an F7 and three cars with a loop is worth more than they paid for it. In one case the guy is asking $600.00. Its more a case that they have no idea of the market and assume all trains are collectable quality and condition. After three years of checking Craigs list locally there has been nothing of quality or priced that I want.
I really wouldn’t want eBay to decide how much is “too much” for an item. Fraud and decption should be investigated but over pricing is something the free market — and educated buyers — should determine.
Cheers, Ed
I could not agree more. That is just plain silly to suggest that eBay should “protect buyers by blocking such sales”. Whether or not the $115.00 asking price is too high based on the going price of such items, $115.00 for a locomotive is not an extraordinary amount, and even if it were, so what. Just don’t buy it.
Anyone who does buy it may be the stupid one, not the seller. That said, the eventual buyer, if there is one, may not be stupid at all. Maybe he wants it bad enough that he is willing to pay an above market price.
Rich
Just my two cents. All opinion. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve dealt with consumer law in my profession.
If the seller knows what the typical item sells for, and significantly overprices it in hopes of finding an ignorant buyer, then there is a bit of a preditory aspect to the deal. Sure its seems legal, on the surface, but you’d have to determine what the attitude of the seller was when he chose to list something. If its an organized, chartered, and licensed business that engages in commerce targeting the ignorant frequently, it could in fact be illegal. Hard to prove, but it could be punishable if you could prove it.
Maybe not as much with model trains, but product and services of a technical nature, where pretty much every customer is ignorant relative to the level of knowledge needed to truly understand the product, preditory practices are discovered quite a bit.
Think of home improvement service companies that target elderly widows, as an example.