I know this subject has been visited ad nauseum before, but I gotta mention this one. I’d been watching this auction, not with intent to bid, but just because it was for something in which I’m interested and was curious what they’d go for
A final bid in the $20-30 range seemed reasonable for four Kadee-equipped Blue Box hoppers with loads. So when I checked in this evening and saw the winning bid was $100.99, it made my head spin.
I have a bunch of Blue Box and MDC/Roundhouse cars I’ve lettered for the Monon. Maybe I should put a few of them up for bids, too. I just might be able to pay for my kids’ college after all!
At my local club, I got 4 of these with handmade coal loads and kadee no5s for $40.00. I must have gotten a steal. OTOH, I got a kato sd40-2 for half of the retail price on ebay.
Folks will pay what they want for what they want. I know what I’m willing to pay for a particular item. When it goes above that amount, I either lose the auction or move onto another one.
What I noticed was the four cars on the display’s top line - the two low-priced ones appear to have Kadees or clones, the two higher-priced ones obviously have horn-hooks…
Also, he might think he has two trestles, but they look like trusses to me. (People who call a bridge a `trestle’ because it’s being used by trains are one of my pet peeves.)
Fortunately, due to my choice of prototype, nothing he has tempts me.
That sale price may not be all that out of line. The buyer got 4 different number unusual road cars, with the KDs and the coal loads. Assuming they are as advertised, the seller likely put a good $15 each in them, plus the decaling installation. I suspect if sold separately they would have gone for about $15, but the fact that the buyer could get 4 at once made them more desireable.
I would assume the buyer has a soft spot for the Monon, and of course nobody wants just one hopper for a particular road.
As an aside, over the last 12 years I first bought - and more recently sold - literally hundreds of cars on Ebay. The cars I sold were either still in kit form, or built with KDs, DullCote, and original packaging. Many of these were very old Athearn stock or special runs from Bev-Bel and the like.
On the sales end, it almost always is the lesser known (modeled) RR that got the bigger bucks. Some of these cars were just “plain janes” 40 foot boxcars or two bay hoppers, but they were more likely to get into bidding wars than the Santa Fe’s, UPs, and the like.
While I am still surprised at what sells and what doesn’t, all it takes is two buyers with a stubborn streak wanting the same item…
Look at the final 2 bids. Both were placed almost simultaneously, right at the end of the auction. 2 eBayers using classic last second raid bidding to win the item. The tactic is to hit it high and late to overwhelm the competition. If only one of them had done it they would have got the item for $41 but because 2 used the same risky tactic at the same time, one got burned. I suspect that neither really thinks the cars are worth $100 and probably did not expect to pay that amount. The seller must have a big smile on his face.
5 years ago I would have said the bidders where nut’s. now I don’t know. Lot of the current RTR cars are in the $18.00. Being a Monon fan my self I know there are not a lot of there rolling stock out there. Lot of folks do not know who easy it is to make a coal load so that may be a factor as well. So if you really want Monon $25.00 a car may seem fair to them.
I have participated in bids where reasonable prices suddenly ballooned into crazy ones at the end of the auction, but I think that these skewed prices (vis-a-vis what you can get at a local club flea market) create unrealistic expectations for some sellers. I know a fool and his money soon part and such, but doesn’t this eventually have a negative effect on the resale market? Cedarwoodron
That’s not at all what happened. If you review the bidding on that auction, and understand the eBay process, Bidder #1 was leading the bidding with a $40.00 bid. Then, along comes Bidder #2 who is determined to win by launching a bid of $99.99. Had Bidder #1 only bid $40.00, then Bidder #2 would take the lead with a $41.00 bid. But, in this case, Bidder #1 had a “silent maximum” of as much as $98.99, so it took $99.00 to beat that silent maximum bid. Then, along comes Bidder #3 who won the auction with a $100.99 bid but, for all we know, he could have placed a $500.00 silent maximum.
I respectfully disagree. The winner and the second place finisher both “wanted” the item. Maybe they didn’t expect to pay as much as they did, but they were willing to pay as much as they did, because they both placed those silent maximum bids. I say that they both wanted the item bad enough to engage in a “bidding war”. Of course, in this case, there was no bidding war since they each only made one last minute bid. It was more a case of sniping that a bidding war. Trust me, this was all about wanting that particular item.
Rich, that is exactly what I wrote! Why tell me I don’t understand eBay and then point out that these were last minute bids as well. Neither of these two bidders had participated in the auction until the last 12 seconds.
If you “know ebay”, then it is clear that the bidder that placed the $40 bid had acually placed this as a secondary incremental bid. They were winning the auction at $32, their first bid, until the first of the high bids came in at $99.99 with 12 seconds to go. This blew past the $40 increment bid and would have been holding the winning bid at $41 for 6 seconds until the final bid came in. All we know about the final bid is that it was $1 more than the $99.99, it could have been a million$ for all we know.
“Auction frenzy” is more like it. Rather than look for a similar item elsewhere, the bidder becomes fixated on winning at all cost. Bet dollars to donuts I can look at eBay over the coming week and find AThearn Monon hoppers, maybe not a set of 4 in one auction, but certainly less than was paid for those. Heck I might even be able to find unbuilt kits of them! The loads are always available from Motrak and others, $5 for 2 cars. 4 pairs of Kadees - $6 or less. And those still have the Athearn plastic wheels.
I’ve benefited in the past - I got nearly $80 for a $2 AHM/Pocher car that wasn;t particularly rare or anything.
Randy, once again with all due respect, I diasgree with both you and mobilman44.
I say that those final two bidders wanted that item and wanted it badly. That is why they bid as high as they did and there was no bidding war or frenzy involved here.
I have been on both sides of the eBay process, as seller and buyer, and I have experienced this very situation in both positions.
As seller, I have witnessed bids being made where it became obvious that it was a “must have” item. And, in a few instances, the eventual winner told me just that.
As buyer, I have won auctions on items, including model railroading items, where I had to get the item “at any price”. Sometimes I paid more than I wanted to pay but never more than I was willing to pay.
I imagine that ego takes over in some cases, but it didn’t happen here.