Just a goofy question: Do those guys who bid $1.50 on a classic brass locomotive ever expect to actually buy it for that price??? you never see their bid again, is this some kind of lotto game these guys play, hoping that if they bid $1.00 eventually after 5, 700 bids the might actually get it for a buck??? has it ever happened?? A year ago I got a Key NYC 12 wheel tender with a coal load for $58.00 in original box and in mint condition, what a beauty, it started out at $5.00 and stayed there for 5 days, then the bidding started , surprisingly few bids came in and I won the bid and I’m pretty happy.
No but I do believe that miracles can happen
Some people, including myself, will put in a small bid so that when it comes to the end of the auction, I can just enter a bid rather than bidding and confirming. It costs you a buck to make the process a bit easier…easier to snipe, I mean.
David B
A lot of times I will lowball a bid on something just on the off chance I’ll win it.
I never do!
Rotor
Hey, I got a great running Tyco 4-8-0 for 24 bucks which I then turned into an SP TW-2.
Peter Smith, Memphis
My primary experience on E-bay is as a seller. The service I used routinely lists an item for 7 days. I found that when ever I would put an item up for bid there was almost no activity at all for the first few days of the auction. Then within 24 hours or so of the auction closing, suddenly bidders would start to show up.
I suspect that a lot of buyers will simply bookmark an item that they are interested in, and come back later to decide if they actually want to place a bid on it. The logic I assmue being that you have a better idea of what the final bid will be the closer you get to the end of the auction.
Ebay bidders is some of the cwaziest people.[(-D]
Sometimes people will make a small bid rather than click on “Watch This Item” because it’s less of a hassle than having to go back into their personal account to check up on it. When you place a small bid you’ll get an e-mail notice that you’ve placed that bid and can use that e-mail as a link to check on it. And then there are those that live in false hope of actually winning a $500.00 item for $1.50… I personally like to wait up late at night and bid on rolling stock at 3:00am that would normally go for say $15.00 that I sometimes win for $5.00 or so.
Tracklayer
How’s about doing an article on that engine? If not that, how about describing how you built the whaleback tender.
Andre
Once I fell out of chair when I saw a beautiful engine under buy it now just listed for 1.00
I aborted the bidding/complete process once I saw shipping at 200 dollars in very small print.
That’s an attempt to beat ePay out of their final value fees, and listing fees.
If it’s caught by ePay, they will pull the auction.
Rotor
EBAY is the most unpredictable website I’ve ever seen. I have put bids in for one or two dollars on stuff that retails for over $100 and won, and the S&H wasn’t outrageous as is commonly seen on a low-ball auction or buy it now sale.It’s all in the demand for items at the time…one day sellers can’t give away a Bachmann Spectrum loco, the next day the bidding is up to $150 and still going! There are definitely slump times on EBAY when it seems that nothing is selling, those can be good times for a shrewd buyer.
As for the question ‘‘do the bidders who bid a dollar on a brass loco think they’ll win?’’…probably not…but I bid $2 on a NIB Athearn SD40 [with $6 S&H] and won…I was the only bidder…pretty good deal for me!
A lot of sellers list their items for $1 and let the market find its own level. MB Klein does it all the time. When a seller lists an item, they can pull it any time, if it has not recieved any bids. Once it has a bid the listing stnds unless the seller can get ebays permission to pull it. The $1 bid locks the listing in so the seller can not pull it.
Sometimes you might be amazed at what you can find on eBay. A few months ago I got the Lionel American Flyer Southern Work Set #6-49613 for $200.00. The price when new was $450.00
I stumbled across it with about 5 minutes left on the auction, and no one had bid on it. I remember the mesage I got was that I had beat the competition, although there was no other bidders.
The more valuable items that get started for a few dollars usually are so desirable that you will see dozens of bids, changing a $5 starting bid to around $500 rapidly.
I have found eBay to be a good place to find parts for my 40 year old yard tractor, I like to check on old train items, I even came across the first year of trains magazine in top shape.
I prefer to buy train items at shows and at hobby stores, I prefer to interact with the person(s) selling the train, but then again, that is just my opionion of the process.
Last year I got four brand new CSX Atlas n-scale locos (two GP-38 and two Dash-8) for a total of around $160 plus cheap shipping. Miracles do happen [:)]
If you think it might be helpful to others, I will try to do this on a separate thread. I will need to take some additional pictures and I am not very good at that.
Peter Smith, Memphis
P:
Very nice! Did you change the motor? If it’s still the PM-1 you might want to try the NdFeB magnet trick.
Ebay bargain hunting occasionally works (often because somebody erred in the description) so it makes more sense to me than when people bid, say, $70 on an item that is currently available for $50 from a mail-order retailer. That just doesn’t make sense at all.
(and then, in my other hobby, you get the people who bid $50 on Ebay for plastic robots that are going to be sold for $10 at every Walmart in the country in a few months. Money > brains!)
Yes, after phone conversations with both NWSL and Yardbird, I decided to replaced the existing motor with a Yardbird D8120 Re-Motor Unit. It took a bit of shimming to get the gears to mesh properly but it now runs as smooth as silk and the current draw is essentially nil. By the way, could you explain what the " Magnet Trick is"
Peter Smith, Memphis
PAS:
So glad you asked! [:D]
As described here:
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1472782/ShowPost.aspx
I slid out the PM-1’s factory magnet and slid in a stack of four NdFeB block magnets. Cost about $2, and it gives a lot more torque, great creep speed, and decreased amp draw. My loco went down to .32A at 12v, running free, and .52A at 12v, slipping. Oddly enough, despite the strengthened field, cogging is reduced, too. The greater torque overcomes the tendency to cog. The improvement was quite dramatic, but oddly there seemed to be little interest expressed here. I can only assume that $2 for all that must seem like snake
[quote user=“Autobus Prime”]
PAS:
So glad you asked! [:D]
As described here:
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1472782/ShowPost.aspx
I slid out the PM-1’s factory magnet and slid in a stack of four NdFeB block magnets. Cost about $2, and it gives a lot more torque, great creep speed, and decreased amp draw. My loco went down to .32A at 12v, running free, and .52A at 12v, slipping. Oddly enough, despite the strengthened field, cogging is reduced, too. The greater torque overcomes the tendency to cog. The improvement was quite dramatic, but oddly there seemed to be little interest expressed here. I can only assume that $2 for a