Best Offer implies the seller will accept the best offer he receives. Make Offer gives the seller the discretion to accept or reject any and all offers.
OK, let me come at this a different way.
First, $259 is not the going price because that 4th car isn’t going anywhere. That’s why I pointed out that the 4 car set listed at $599 averages $150 per car. That is the more likely going price had you or someone else won with a bid of $599.
And No, you didn’t say that the price wasn’t fair, and I didn’t say that you did. I used the term “fair price” to demonstrate that the amount that you were willing to pay only separated you and the seller by $15 per car.
Rich
Actually the Boston and Maine had a similar train.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Yankee
And I contacted ConCor about the chances of them making the Yankee, they said unlikely.
Not really the Mid Atlantic either, but ConCor did sell the Zephyr undecorated, and later in the paint scheme of the 1934 film “Silver Streak”.
Sheldon
Yes, I am familiar with the B&M Flying Yankee, Sheldon, and I would have LOVED to have seen Con-Cor release one. Unfortunately, the window/door arrangements of the cars were noticeably different from the Pioneer Zephyr and would have required new injection molds. I would surmise that that is likely the primary reason Con-Cor told you it was unlikely.
The only version of the Flying Yankee that I’m aware of in HO is the brass version from Challenger Imports (CI). No, that’s incorrect. There’s also a version from Oriental Limited but it’s not as nice as the one from CI.
Tom
I have waited 6 months or longer for some ebay sellers to reduce the starting bid or their buy it now price, and it just never happened.
I also have finally caved and bought that item on two occasions this past year.
In both instances I was disappointed–not necessarily enough to give a negative feedback rating–but that the item was not quite in the condition represented by the seller (new). Some things I try to fix and can fix, and some things not.
In both instances I overpaid a little bit or a good bit to get a scarce model that (I checked) was just not available anywhere else. After doing the minor repairs I was basically happy with the models, until I learned over on other forums that there were issues with the way that Walthers/Lifelike actually made the models. If I pay $280 for a plain dc only scarce E unit, as I have twice this year, I’m then disappointed to hear there are a number of mistakes incorporated into the model.
Sheldon likes to pick on the fact that some of us change our mind; I change my opinion of models when I do research and find out that there are actually real problems that I then just cannot unsee and pretend don’t exist.
HO E units: they all have their issues; Rapido has not produced the be-all end-all model that they most definitely advertised they were going to produce.
That is why I’m replacing some Rapido passenger units with Athearn Genesis GP9’s (picked up one yellow warbonnet yesterday 12/31 at English’s, and about to order another).
I am unwilling to shell out a lot of cash and then cut up expensive models to do major surgery to fix problems. Instead I sell them while they still qualify as being like new or excellent, and find something else instead
John.
Well John, your level of perfection will always leave you dissatisfied from what I
I guess there still confusion about this.
With an auction, the auctioneer starts the bidding at a certain price…and the bids go UP from there. If there are no bids, the auction ends. Auctions have always worked like that. The price either goes up from the start, or it ends without a sale.
With an ebay auction, ebay gives the sellers an option for bidders to skip the formal auction process and sell the item at a price above the starting bid, based upon what the seller sets as his minimum. He can set a minimum offer price that automatically and immediately rejects any offer below his set amount.
As a seller, I have never done the make offer thingy and have simply set my starting bid at my lowest price. But others will set the starting bid low as a means to encourage bidding. People seem to get competitive once the bidding starts.
Its an auction. When the auction ends, the “make offer” chance expires with it.
Sure, you can send the seller an email after the auction ends to see if he will now sell the item at a lower amount, but that’s a different transaction that’s not part of the “make offer” auction.
A Buy It Now is a list price, like buying a car or a house. If the seller also includes a “make offer” option, then it would obviously expected to be at BELOW the listed price.
When any offer is rejected immediately, its because the seller set an offer amount that would reject any offers below that amount.
I do not know if they are doing it now but I recall that sellers on a couple boards reported when the make offer function first came out ebay was applying it on auctions automatically. They thought that it was being applied when the eBay algorithm indicated the beginning auction price was too high. Not sure if this was true just somethin
Sheldon–
Besides the relaxation I get from running the trains, the learning more about their history has always been quite fascinating for me, so whatever it is that I buy, even if purchased on a whim, I always end up researching the item after the fact. If it’s a freight car or a lesser priced loco, I’m of course willing to let some things slide.
However, there are other times I cannot let things slide.
As I said, I’m effectively downsizing my entire roster now for the next most likely smaller layout and house…and am trying to decide what the have-to-have’s really are or are not for me. I just picked up a highly-detailed but delicate Genesis GP9, but then turned around and ordered off ebay a durable and easy to handle Walthers GP-60, too, for the best of both worlds.
As a seller, the fact that ebay holds my money for a period of time despite my account being fully verified became the last straw. I did hundreds of sales in the past, but not many during 2021 or 2022, so they are treating me like some newby who never sold anything. Ebay made it an unpleasant place to sell anymore. My local store is doing just great with selling my consignments; they apparently get walk-ins from all over the US and we are finding that the western road stuff will even sell here in PA.
John
Whatever John,
I have 145 locmotives, 950 freight cars, 175 passenger cars and in 55 years I have only sold 4 locomotives that I later decided did not suit my needs.
I’m not as big a spender as many people I know in the hobby, or some of our friends on this forum. But I can afford the hobby at the size/level/complexity of the layout I am building.
I’ve never owned an “expensive” (read over $600) locomotive, brass or otherwise. I do have a few older pieces of brass.
I don’t have any newer expensiv
I am doing the same thing right now. I have collected tons of stuff for the next layout, but I am currently buying “better” kits instead of the plastic kits I already have. As an example, I was going to use Walthers Sunrise Feed Mill, but I recently bought Fine Scale Miniatures Schramm Manufacturing to use in that location instead.
This is my last layout, I want what I want.
The no-longer-have-to-have items will be sold off at train shows. I just don’t want to deal with selling on eBay after I read about it. I sold off tons of stuff in the 1999-2004 era, but have not sold much on eBay since.
I sure buy a lot of stuff, but selling seems like a pain. We will see how the train show in February goes.
As I get to actual layout construction, I know I am going to find I have a surplus of freight car kits, passenger cars, scenery supplies, etc.
This is on purpose, I intentionally bought more than I need so construction will have no delays.
It sure is John, great way to describe how it works.
I just had a deal work out for me and a seller just how you described.
He had an item I wanted, but he was asking just a tad more than I was willing to spend. I contacted him and asked if he would take my price.
Through additional back-and-forth, we arrived at an agreeable deal on two items and reasonable shipping.
Completely a free market transaction between two individuals that worked out well.
-K
[quote user=“ATLANTIC CENTRAL”]
Whatever John,
I have 145 locmotives, 950 freight cars, 175 passenger cars and in 55 years I have only sold 4 locomotives that I later decided did not suit my needs.
I’m not as big a spender as many people I know in the hobby, or some of our friends on this forum. But I can afford the hobby at the size/level/complexity of the layout I am building.
I’ve never owned an “expensive” (read over $600) locomotive, brass or otherwise. I do have a few older pieces of brass.
I don’t have any newer expensive DCC/sound locos, since I don’t do DCC or sound.
I do have some Bowser RS units on preorder, DC versions of course.
I’ve been a pretty savy shopper over the last 55 years. I seldom make investments in the hobby and then “change my mind”.
I buy model trains with “resturant money” - do you know what that is? If you eat in a resturant can you ever recoup that money?
My life style and my families life style does not include many things others consider necessary or ordinary - for example we have only taken one expensive vacation in the last 27 years because we have different values.
There will be model trains on my new layout that date from my childhood and before.
I grew up building models including model trains from craftsman kits.
So I am COMPLETELY out of touch with your version of this hobby.
Actually I’m pretty sure I’m out of touch with a lot of peoples version of this hobby today.
I was once a big Ebay seller of custom GRAVELY garden tractor parts, they ran me off with their new policies.
I don’t buy much of anything on there either these days. I only shop for old, NOS sort of stuff on Ebay.
Hope you are having fun, but I just don’t see the fun in constantly buying and selling stuff - in my world that is not fun -
Like me and my Milwaukee M18 tools!
[(-D]
-Kevin
I think my offer was a fair price but the seller doesn’t thinks so. Doesn’t look like a deal wil
[quote user=“John-NYBW”]
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
Whatever John,
I have 145 locmotives, 950 freight cars, 175 passenger cars and in 55 years I have only sold 4 locomotives that I later decided did not suit my needs.
I’m not as big a spender as many people I know in the hobby, or some of our friends on this forum. But I can afford the hobby at the size/level/complexity of the layout I am building.
I’ve never owned an “expensive” (read over $600) locomotive, brass or otherwise. I do have a few older pieces of brass.
I don’t have any newer expensive DCC/sound locos, since I don’t do DCC or sound.
I do have some Bowser RS units on preorder, DC versions of course.
I’ve been a pretty savy shopper over the last 55 years. I seldom make investments in the hobby and then “change my mind”.
I buy model trains with “resturant money” - do you know what that is? If you eat in a resturant can you ever recoup that money?
My life style and my families life style does not include many things others consider necessary or ordinary - for example we have only taken one expensive vacation in the last 27 years because we have different values.
There will be model trains on my new layout that date from my childhood and before.
I grew up building models including model trains from craftsman kits.
So I am COMPLETELY out of touch with your version of this hobby.
Actually I’m pretty sure I’m out of touch with a lot of peoples version of this hobby today.
I was once a big Ebay seller of custom GRAVELY garden tractor parts, they ran me off with their new policies.
I don’t buy much of anything on there either these days. I only shop for old, NOS sort o
My flip phone cost $30 and it does what a phone is supposed to do.
I have purchased many items on Ebay over the last 15 years. I’ve had a few bad experiences, but mostly positive. Back then it was quite the revolution. Our LHS only offered a few brand new items that I could not afford. There was only one local show that was OK. Ebay became my number one source for used and NIB locos.
Another positive thing about Ebay is that it opened my eyes to all the products that were made since the 40s that I was not aware about. Sure, I did my homework before purchasing, but Ebay revealed the product.
Since then, my sources have diversified quite a bit though. I found some of my best brass locos on Marketplace, at very good prices. Online stores are also excellent now, with Paypal too. But Ebay remains a good source.
Simon
Another thing I like about eBay.
I’m sometimes prone to a bit of impulsive modeling. So last night I stumbled across a YouTube video showing the last runs of the Bessemer & Lake Erie passenger trains (Erie to Pittsburgh) and what I spotted was the two coaches used were former Pennsy P70s.
I already had the passenger-equipped SD7 so I decided to get a pair of P70s to strip and paint coach green and letter for the Bessemer.
Ebay to the rescue. Trainz had a pair for a reasonable price. This morning I got the confirmed shipping notice and I’ll have my coaches by the weekend.
I don’t know how many hobby shops I’d have to visit to find these, although not actually “scarce” they aren’t normally stocked. Train shows are still three months away.
eBay feeds my whimsy.
Cheers, Ed
[quote user=“John-NYBW”]
ATLANTIC CENTRAL
Whatever John,
I have 145 locmotives, 950 freight cars, 175 passenger cars and in 55 years I have only sold 4 locomotives that I later decided did not suit my needs.
I’m not as big a spender as many people I know in the hobby, or some of our friends on this forum. But I can afford the hobby at the size/level/complexity of the layout I am building.
I’ve never owned an “expensive” (read over $600) locomotive, brass or otherwise. I do have a few older pieces of brass.
I don’t have any newer expensive DCC/sound locos, since I don’t do DCC or sound.
I do have some Bowser RS units on preorder, DC versions of course.
I’ve been a pretty savy shopper over the last 55 years. I seldom make investments in the hobby and then “change my mind”.
I buy model trains with “resturant money” - do you know what that is? If you eat in a resturant can you ever recoup that money?
My life style and my families life style does not include many things others consider necessary or ordinary - for example we have only taken one expensive vacation in the last 27 years because we have different values.
There will be model trains on my new layout that date from my childhood and before.
I grew up building models including model trains from craftsman kits.
So I am COMPLETELY out of touch with your version of this hobby.
Actually I’m pretty sure I’m out of touch with a lot of peoples version of this hobby today.
I was once a big Ebay seller of custom GRAVELY garden tractor parts, they ran me off with their new policies.
I don’t buy much of anything on there either these days. I only shop for old, NOS sort o
Sheldon–
Why do you continue to post the same crap ALL the time?
We know how much stuff you have because YOU keep telling us all the time. You also keep telling us how great your customized models are, while constantly insinuating that the rest of us who DON’T do things YOUR way are a bunch of idiots who have never modeled anything, which btw is NOT true; I’ve personally built dozens of model planes, ships, trains, etc. and learned I do not find it to be fun at all, but instead I absolutely positively hate doing it. Building models, even repairing new products, I find to be stressful. I also have a life outside this forum and outside model trains that causes me to make decisions differently than you, and I acknowledged that I’ve personally made mistakes and need to change the way that I do things.
I’m really sick and tired of your horsecrap. You make this forum a terrible place by constantly opposing anybody with a viewpoint different from yours. You are the reason I often stay away from this forum for months at a time. I do NOT direct most of my posts at you, yet you never fail to insinuate yourself into each and every single thread that I ever post on. It is positively maddening. I try to keep the discussion civil, yet you turn it into some kind of personal bullcrap between us.
Please, get a life and get a clue that there are valid viewpoints other than your own!
Moderators–if you don’t like these comments, please simply remove my account, as I’m 100% fine with that if you do. I’ve actually asked to be removed in the past and they refused or couldn’t do that within the limitations of the site, and actually urged me to stay. I only took a few minute break at work to come on here; was in a great mood before I came on here.
Goodbye.
John
[John, If y