Erik Smith

I got excited, well, as excited as one gets about decal paper. But inkjet paper appears to be out of stock. I think it was like that last I tried to refill. Have you ordered from them lately?

I haven't noticed a huge difference in most of the decal papers. I used to use papillon (not available anymore that i know of), Bare Metal Foil brand, Testors, and one other i can't remember. It seems the white is a little thicker generally. To seal, I use Deft clear gloss lacquer. I had some paper that was old and the ink just pooled up on it, so I don't know if it goes bad or not, or it was just not good paper. Most of mine are for interior fabric, so you could clear with a semi or flat also, depending on application.

Really great work. My kind of car, turd brown and whitewalls.

You can coat decal film with clear lacquer - water based coatings will cause the ink to diffuse into the coating and adjacent paper. I would think clear lacquer would work similar on photo paper.

Yeah, kind of weird. Original kits aren’t even what I would call rare or valuable. Maybe they found a crate of old kits that never made it to market...

Finding the tires will be the hard part. 3Dscaleparts has some, no idea if they interchange with the steel wheels - and as you can see, won’t be cheap:

That’s nice, but for $50 you could have bought one piece of wood and then saved up for the rest and built it yourself in ten years. But really, that’s a score.

That’s really the ticket, Doug. Do what you’re comfortable with and what works best for you. eBay and its opportunities and ills are a recurring theme on probably any board, this one included. Fortunately, many of us are lucky to have the choices we do.

I’ve been fortunate and never had something returned - I am not high volume but have sold 1000 or more items (I bought a large collection once). Regression to the mean will probably catch me before too long. One part of eBay I miss, but don’t miss the hassle, was international shipping. It used to be interesting to me just to see where my models went - I sold a lot to Russia, Brazil, Italy, Finland - even one to El Salvador. It’s way too much work anymore and ebay’s international program seems very expensive for buyers.

Ah, so on low cost stuff the shipping gets you. That’s why I would stay away from selling small stuff or easy to find models. Could do some quick math and see where the breakpoint is. Agree about the shipping fee, but they had to get all the .01 plus 45.00 shipping sellers. The 8.25% tax would actually be a savings for me!

Yes. I know what my completion rate is and I know how many kits I have. Ne’er the two shall meet. Borges has a quote about books, of which I have the same problem, the gist is “we buy more books thinking we are buying the time to read them”. Same for models.

Jeez. I wonder which is scarier, the Blone Ranger, or that motorcycle in the background.

I wouldn’t be turned off. What are you selling? If it’s a Revell Corvette model, don’t bother. If it’s an AMT 1965 Falcon annual, sell it on eBay. A lot of the complaints here are not based on actual facts, they are conjecture and misrepresentations. Is eBay greedy? I believe it’s their fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits - they are a publicly traded company. That’s called capitalism. If they raise fees too high, people will leave, profits will fall, and either they make reconciliations or they continue to lose business and, eventually close. What are your options? Making your own website and selling? Taking them to a swap meet? Craigslist?

I agree with part of your assessment, though I think you are confusing two different markets. Easy to acquire kits are at best a break even enterprise. With shipping and fees, unless you’re getting wholesale price and selling a lot, it’s not worth your time. For rare kits and in auction format, I don’t think there is a better venue for selling your model to get market price. There is no other venue that has 182,000,000 customers.

What are monthly fees? For sellers of less than 200 items a month, there are no additional fees. Also, the PayPal deposit does not include the eBay fee of 10%. That is billed out separately at the end of the month. The PayPal deposit is the total sale (item plus shipping) minus the 2.9% plus 30 cents. At least that is how my account operates.

Case in point (10/27/20):

The search is only as good as the searcher and seller. If you search very specific terms, you will get very specific results. If the seller didn’t put in all the words you are searching, misspelled a word, etc, it won’t “result”. If you do a less specific search you may get more results you don’t want, but you can narrow and organize (lowest price) the results to lessen your scroll time. Sellers sometimes place items in incorrect categories, also, so specific inquiries in “automotive model kits” might not find the kit listed in some other category of “Toys”.

Actual fees on eBay for the average Joe selling a few kits is 10%. https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/get-started/seller-fees.html PayPal fees are 2.9% plus 30 cents. Total fee is about 13.2%. Sellers also get a discount on shipping that the buyer doesn’t see, even though they “pay” for shipping. Sales tax is totally buyers responsibility and based on their location. There is no other market the size of eBay. It is literally a worldwide audience. If you are selling items that are high demand or low supply, you are best served by this arrangement. How many people go to a swap meet and would be willing to shell out $250 for a model? That happens regularly on eBay for the right kit. Similar to what Churchill said about capitalism, eBay is the worst place to sell models, except for all the other places.

Cool model and great photos.

That is an incredible car. The ride height, wheel/tire combo, love the white. The Rear 3/4 view actually gave me goosebumps. Beautiful.

Welcome. I went to college up the road from Victor, U of M. My grandma grew up in Corvallis. I spent quite a bit of time in the Bitteroots 25 years ago.

Interesting. So, could anybody vote? Or was voting for entrants only? Maybe limited to paying participants? Looking at the “winning” model, it looks like a beginner built it. If voting was open to anybody, maybe a social media campaign to “vote for [insert child’s name] to win a model contest!” occurred? I have seen this for other types of “contests” where the actual product has nothing to do with votes but is based entirely on the level of social connectivity. I quit going to the local club near me because there was always some odd level of corruption and make believe drama and, as it appeared to me, relatively low standards (of behavior and building) by a majority of members. I would enjoy model contests, or displays, just to be able to see, in person, other models, but I’ve only attended one in my life (oh, and one virtual). I think most of us, looking at the examples Steve posted, know that the “winning” model was not the “best” model.

True, and as a bonus they’ve already sold at least 3 to the US based on this thread. There are some modelers that would rather swallow a mouthful of sugar barf than buy another Chevelle or Corvette model. The Pony is quite welcome.