There’s one thing about eBay I’m starting to notice. There are a number of people on there who will buy multiples of the same item because it’s rare or discontinued. Obviously this is for a profit and not for the love of the hobby.
It really hurts the small guy who can’t afford to pay 200%+ of the original MSRP.
I hate when you ask a guy if the “new” flex track is Brass or NS and he says he doesn’t know he’s not a modeler.
Or if you ask a question about an engine and the guy says doesn’t know because he’s selling it for someone else, but doesn’t think to ask the guy he’s selling it for.
Which also means more ripoffs.
You can say alot about model railroaders, but for sure I would say that we are basically an honest group.
Compare hobby items to electronics, and such. I bet much less problems.
Greg
The market will be what it will be. I don’t think wringing our hands about it will likely change anything.
I watch this happen in the '90s in O 3 rail. Collectors and profiteers (even before eBay) pushed prices of common postwar Lionel to unaffordable for me. Now as modern production has caught up with (and probably surpassed) demand, and collectors and operators are dying off, prices have fallen quite a bit. But for quite a while, many a dealer was making respectable money reselling collections - and some still do.
I simply stopped buying. I made do with what I had. If there was a “must have” piece, I decided what my maximum price I was willing to pay was. If I found it for that price or less - great! If not, it’s still on my want and watch list.
I’ve done the same with HO and HOn3. I have kept my layouts small, mainly for time reasons, but $$ is a factor too. Small layouts and a tight focus on what I am trying to achieve make my shopping list quite modest and very specific (often discontinued or out-of-production). Again, I decide what I am willing to pay for specific items, and either get it for my price or do without. I can certainly see buying more than one of a given item for my layout. Sometimes, a friend and I will combine to buy a lot (to get items that we would otherwise have difficulty obtaining), and sell off what we can’t/won’t use - if the lot price is reasonable and we think we can come out without too much loss on the lot break-up.
As a small eBay seller, I am happy to get good prices, and am tickled pink when somebody will buy my entire stock of out-of-production unstarted hopper kits (or whatever) at a good price. The buyer and I share the savings on shipping, and I have a lot fewer headaches. It’s pretty easy to tell from the eBay profile and number of transactions who is doing business on a personal level and who is in business. I stay far away from those who are obviously in business, yet claim to know nothing about the train
Some of these guys are real clowns. I was looking at a VCR and the add reads, “Sold as is. I do not know if it works and I have no way of testing it”. Lets see now, for him to test this VCR he would need a TV, a 120V outlet, a RF cable and a VHS tape. Wow, sounds like some really scarce items and hard to hook up too. Does he live in his car or what? No one bid on it. I wonder why?
I have dealt with some nice, honest people though.
Jim
if you buy the trains you should love them in my opinion.
I have a simple rule about ebay. If the seller acts like an idiot, I don’t buy from them…
As for rare items being marked up out of sight. I have a limit on what I’ll spend, and if it goes over that amount, I’d rather wait another six months for another one to turn up than get shafted.
Tracklayer
Remember, though, that not everyone is a modeller, and a lot of people come by train items in different ways. Some items are from “estate sales,” and they were probably picked up in auctions. The person who gets these might really be looking for jewelry, or china or furniture, but he finds a small box of trains and realizes someone might want them. Suppose you moved into a house and found some antique teacups in the attic. Would you feel “unqualified” to list them on eBay? I’d rather see these kinds of things on eBay than in a dumpster.
Shoe salesmen don’t all have foot fetishes, and grocery store people aren’t all gourmets, either. Many of the items we buy just come through generic “middlemen” who have little interest in the product. The people who take your order at Trainworld probably don’t have layouts at home. It would be nice if every person you bought from was an MR enthusiast, but that’s just going to happen.
I ask the seller a few questions, if they don’t repond in a manner that I expect, I just let the caboose go by.
ennout
I love that. I really do. [8]
I think Ebay is “Infected” now that everyone thinks Tyco sells for 2 dollars at Toys R Us and can be sold for 50 dollars plus on ebay.
I agree with MisterBeasley. In a glorious fantasy world everyone would be just the way we want them to be. But they ain’t. Don’t buy from people who don’t meet your standards. Simple.
I have an even simpler solution. I don’t buy from them at all. I’m sure there must be some honest sellers out ther, but I just don’t have the time or patience to sort them out.
I figure Ebay is about as “safe” as going to a show - in that i don’t trust anyone with their old stuff at face value. HOWEVER, i will ask questions about what they are selling and whether or not they actually know if the stuff is in good running order.
I’ve only won one auction… for a few pieces of track and rolling stock… from the sound of it, it was a guy who wasn’t a modeller and had no idea of what he was selling. I emailed him, and requested more pictures of what he was selling, as there was only like two shots for the entire lot. the seller was really good about it, and sent me an email of about 6 or 8 more shots from different angles - all pieces were as he stated… which helped… after i got the things, it was a different story, although it was a quick fix for the cars (non-molded on details popped off in shipping, but were in the bottom of the box)…though it was too bad the drive on the loco was too shot to warrant anything more then dummy service (which is fine by me, the entire set was < $30, excl shipping)
other times, the sellers haven’t been as cooperative, so i’ve let those auctions go by…
Ebay is for many of us a tool, and a very good tool at that. Contrary to the opinions expressed here already, I would probably prefer buying an item from a seller on ebay than over the phone from someone I’ve never met before who can’t provide me with any pictures of the item in question. Remember the old adage a picture is worth 1,000 words? Based on many of the conversations I’ve had with “vendors” at the shows, you would need 10,000 words from them to get 1,000 that were truthful… [;)]
For those looking for hard to find items, or discountinued items, ebay is a blessing in disguise. I’ve had over 500 successful transactions on ebay dealing mostly with trains, which forces me to laugh at some of the remarks I see made here and on the other forums about the terrible state of things there. For every crack pot selling snake oil for a fortune on ebay, there are hundreds of honest transactions to choose from. Just be careful as you shop, make sure to check the sellers feedback rating, and ask questions if you have them. If one or none of these checks out, don’t bid. It’s that simple.
Jeff
Another perspective check is to look at the other items the seller has offered.
If there’s one lot of train related items and a dozen Barbie items, the seller probably isn’t hip to railroading.
I’ve made over 100 eBay purchases and only felt misled or taken on three occassions. I wish I had that percentage of good results relative to personal relations I’ve experienced in this lifetime. [B)]
dwRavenstar
Yeah!!! Me too…What he said.
You can usually spot the antique dealers offering model railroad items on eBay, they often have “train” in the description. Like “RARE TRAIN CAR WITH COAL LOAD” when referring to a steam engine’s tender!
Bob Boudreau
The one good side of the coin is, when you have a seller who deos not know anything about the item at all and put a low buy it now on the item. I have had several of these over the years. Had a buyer about 6 months ago put a auction up on a set of P2K’s loco’s, seller stated he is selling them for a friend and new nothing about them. I could not pass up the deal that was on a Pair of them for $30 plus $5 shipping. The auction was about 10 minutes old. This is the one good thing about buying from someone who deos not know what they have. When I got the loco’s they were brand new never run before. So if you find one of these and they Have the buy it now option, and you know what the item is! You can score a good deal.
The ones I get a kick out of list their stuff as working for N, HO, O, On30, On3, HOn3, HOn30…and on and on. Makes me wanna email um and ask WTF scale it is.
I have a different peeve re eBay sellers - do a search on “FSM”, which is an abbreviation for George Sellios’ Fine Scale Miniatures - and you’ll get a whole lot of auctions that just stick FSM in their titles so they will show up in searches of FSM. A marketing tool I guess, but sleazy in my thinking. Some also use “Fine Scale”, which could I suppose just be a description.
This isn’t really new, I’ve seen auctions for other items doing the same. Like listing an everyday camera as being “Not Nikon”, so searches of Nikon will turn up their auctions.
Thanks but no thanks!
Bob Boudreau