Tom Geiger

I didn't see anything on the road today. I worked from home and never left the house!

All of the above! The guys selling resin hoods and decal stripe sets have big notes on their auctions saying "THIS IS NOT FOR A REAL CAR" and the idiots still think they are buying a full stripe set for their Camaro Pace Car for $3.98 plus $2.00 shipping. I want to meet that idiot. And the guys who don't / can't read the description. I imagine these are the same guys we see on the board.... Post: Here's my new build,painted Testors Royal Spew over Duplicolor primer. Reply: Cool car Dude! What color is that? You also described my own departure from making good money on eBay. I found a niche in selling car brochures on eBay back in 1998 or so. Everyone was selling antique car brochures, but I found that I could sell 1980s brochures to car owners. I was running 100 auctions a week, starting them at $3.99 plus $2.99 postage. It was rare that something expired without a bid, and even rare that there weren't multiple bids. My median sale was $11. Life was good. Then I noticed new sellers coming in on a regular basis. It got down to sellers getting in offering brochures for 99 cents plus 99 cents shipping. I was curious and found that they shipped them in manila envelopes without any protection, instead of the expensive photo mailers I bought in bulk. Each one of these people would show up, pollute the category with dollar brochures, quickly find out that they couldn't mail them for the $1.98 they got, never mind their fees. Then they'd tell everyone that eBay was a scam and they couldn't make big money there. As I saw my own sales shrink to the point that 25% sell through was good, and most of those selling at opening bid, I decided it wasn't worth my time and quit selling. I didn't have many scammers, this was before eBay tracked packages and such. I had a few say they didn't get their package, and one who said their letter carrier bent my package in half to fit in his mail box, (hard photo mailer marked "do not bend" all over it) and of course, that was my fault and he wanted a new brochure. I had one swapper I remember. I had a brand new case of 1985 Firebird brochures so mine were absolutely mint, never even opened pages. The guy sends me a tattered one that looked like a cow licked it. He was returning it for 'bad condition'. Oh yea.

What pleased me? It's stick day in my town... that's the day that the town trucks go around and pick up your brush and branches. I'm pleased because they took all my stuff. They are picky as to how it's put out (small stuff in rigid cans, no bags.. branches stripped flat no longer than 48" long, branches tied together.) and they must dream stuff up not to pick up your stuff, since they've left behind stuff every time! Today they took everything!

Seems you have a decent strategy and I believe you are the type of person who will follow through. For me, there is only a half point spread between my current rate and what they're offering in the market right now. So even the mortgage folks I spoke with (who are usually eager to sell you anything) agreed it wasn't right for me. I had a mortgage calculator that calculated out how much sooner you paid off a mortgage if you added different amounts to your payment, which of course goes directly to the principal. This strategy can actually come out cheaper than a re-fi for a lot of folks

More common than you think... there are Fortune 100 companies that expect their vendors to sell goods and services to them at a loss, just so that they can list that company on their client list in hopes of attracting new clients.

Cool, my link works! Everyone has mentioned Harry's songs that have gotten all the air play. You have yet to discover the gems buried on his albums. Harry quipped that most of them were too long to get airplay. Above is Mercenaries, a very ironic story song, from the Dance Band On The Titanic album. I have all of Harry's albums. The one thing that always bothers me when I play old music is that it's dead, I fear that no one will ever play a song live again. Well, this fellow Art Starling has a bunch of cool old obscure Chapin music on YouTube. Enjoy!

Congrats Harry! Did they allow you to refi in place, that is not go for a new 30 year loan? I'd refi under your deal if they'd let me stay at the same point in the amortization than go back to start.

Here's an interesting one. Pennsylvania law says that when a traffic signal is not functioning, ALL sides must come to a complete stop before proceeding. We have power outages on a regular basis and the lights on the highway nearest me are often dead during them. Nobody seems to know this law because during these episodes the cars on the highway are zooming past at 50 or greater while those of us on the cross roads try to merge in or worse case make a left onto the divided highway. Last time I decided that it wasn't going to be safe to make my left, so I made a right and found a left that I could use as a turn around. I made my turn safely. I got up to the next intersection and there were two Camrys that had imploded in the center of the intersection. Camry number one was no doubt trying to sneak the left onto the highway and Camry number two nailed him at highway speed. I only saw the law in the paper right after that.

Yea, that could come into play. Minimum wage is $7-8 an hour depending on the state, but $2 for those who are tip dependent. I always thought it was just the waitress, but they've added the extra staff like food runners, table cleaners, bartenders etc onto that tip bill. So when you give a tip to that nice waitress, she puts it in the tip pool and it gets divided up. She may get 20% of it! In the case of the Chinese take out place... two adult Chinese guys who are cooking and at the counter. They are probably owners. And Harry and I are probably getting the cat menu for not tipping! My wife says at a beauty salon you tip a hair dresser, but not the owner...

Several times. Last time took!

agreed. In both NJ and PA, my world of influence, you don't have to pull over for emergency vehicles on a divided highway. Here, a highway is usually divided with tall concrete barriers that you will bounce off upon contact. That also holds true for school busses and 'frozen dessert trucks'. One of the big problems is people not stopping for the school bus. And many people don't know that a 'frozen dessert truck", which I guess is the legal definition of an ice cream truck, rates the same as a school bus! So when one of those have their little stop sign extended.. stop! In my NJ town the cops were hiding behind ice cream trucks to snag people.

I've had the opposite too.... great old kits I mean to build someday but never seem to get around to! Then came the annual 24 Hour Build on FaceBook. I've participated the past two years... first year I attacked my Miss Deal Funny Car and this year it was a Lindberg A100 pickup. Worked fast and got most of them done in the 24 hours, just needed a few hours later to finish up and add details.

I hear ya Paul... cars before they became too high ticket to afford and enjoy! Here's the front of my house circa 1978. My '56 210 2 door sedan, and in the driveway you can see my silver '66 Valiant and my '65 Barracuda below it.

I saw that Harry changed his avatar to my favorite Harry! You are right, he was very approachable and met with the audience after every concert. Being in the NY/NJ metro area, I saw Harry live many times. In honor of Harry's new avatar I just started a Chapin thread... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=92764

I was pleased to see Harry finally choose a Harry that I like! Back in the day, Harry Chapin did all kinds of shows and benefits in the NY/NJ metro area. I would go to every concert that we found. He was a great guy, great story teller in his music and he always met the audience afterwards to shake hands, sign autographs and just talk. He never left until everyone was satisfied. Just the guy he was. Here's the Harry memorabilia that is on my den wall.... Here's a period concert booklet, that Harry signed for me. Note that it's made out to me. I also have one of his World Hunger Organization t-shirts tucked away. Here's my favorite piece, and probably the only one that survives. This was one of the best Chapin concerts I went to. It was just him and Big John acoustic, without the full band. It was at Brookdale Community College and I was a student there at the time. I grabbed the poster as they were taking it off a college bulletin board the following week. This was Harry's last concert booklet. Only I didn't get it back then. A few years ago his band did a Harry Chapin Tribute night in Phoenixville, PA. Another modeler, Mike Cole told me about it, and we met him there. The band was selling the old programs and autographing them in the lobby, chatting with the audience just like Harry did. The signatures are Steve Chapin, John Wallace and Howie Field, all from his old band. It was very cool reliving a night of Chapin Music!

I question that myself. I picked up Chinese food last week... take out place, no seating, big tip jar on the counter. Then I put the order on my debit card, and they had a tip line on the receipt too! Nope!

This is the older Ford van, 1/20 scale. I don't think they'd reissue this one, maybe the later Ford van which we have seen many times.

I have one of those I bought many years ago at a flea market for $5. Before you get too excited, mine had the roof smashed off of it and is missing the tail gate and back seat, which folds down. Most of the ones I see for sale are missing those parts. Modelhaus does make both the upper and lower tailgate, head lights and back bumper for it. If they made a body, I'd be ordering it. I have thought about building mine as a topless beach buggy with surf boards but that's about 500 projects down my list! And while this 1950 is about 1/20 scale, that '54 wagon is 1/25 or there abouts..

My problem is more that my production schedule keeps changing. I have many of the new kits that came out the past few years. I have all the Mobius cars and all the Revell new releases such as the Barracuda, Mustang PD, '57 Ford and '50 Olds. I even have a cool resin wagon body for the Olds. I have great ideas for all of them. What happens is that I get something new I'm excited about and start building it. Or there's a club theme build so I start something related to that. Overall my problem is that I have way too much stimuli to pick just one to build!

There are times that you can find a rare old part that you need. The last full size Chevy I needed to own all of them was the 1972 year. That one is also pretty scarce, along with the 1971, so I was piecing one together from parts and such. I had a resin body that was defective, but I had a really bad broken 1973 Chevy that I could cut the trunk lid and other elements I needed from. The '73 also provided the hood and the entire chassis. I got my bumpers from Modelhaus, but sorely needed the interior bucket. Modelhaus only had the front seat. The '73 again would provide the dashboard and steering wheel but the interior bucket, and front seat were unique to that 1972 year. I put wanted posts on both the model car message boards I frequent, nobody had one to spare. Enter eBay! I had a search out for 1972 Chevy minus Vega,Nova,pick (for pickup) that would send me emails when it found something of interest. After a long search that interior bucket came up for sale. Perfect condition, never assembled or painted. Complete with front seat, dash and steering wheel for... get this... $9.99 starting price with free shipping. I put the auction in my snipe software and was amazed that nobody else bid on it. I got it for the $9.99. I had bid double that. So there are times you can find that rare part at a reasonable price. I left the search agent open and watched complete kits sell for over $200. I saw a few old built ups sell for $100 range also, but eventually I found one that was less than $50 so I bought it. Now I have two 1972 Chevys!

In the time period from when I was out of high school, through my 20s, I wasn't building models but I would still cruise the model car aisle at stores and buy promising vehicles. I wasn't in touch with the hobby at the time, so I could go to Child World and find a new kit I never saw before. I kinda miss that! Anyway, I amassed about 30 kits, primarily Mopar that I wanted to have nicely built. I didn't think I had the skills at the time (actually I proved that to myself!) so I reasoned that I would hold onto them until I got good enough as a builder to do them justice. Well, I found a club, and my primary goal was to enhance my skills to be 'good enough' to do those Mopars. I started to 'practice' on newly purchased kits that weren't so dear to me. Once in the hobby, the new stimuli around me took me away. I got plenty good as a builder in the next 25 years, but guess what? I never built any one of those Mopars!

Ken, if you think you've stumbled on the get rich quick scheme of the century, go for it! But the reality of the situation is that by the time you have photographed, written the auction text and sent it off to eBay, you probably have an hour invested. Then, if you are listing your auctions for free, you still are paying final value fees to eBay, So you aren't getting the whole $3. Postage... any small bubble mailer costs $2-3 to mail, and that mailer will cost you 50 cents to $2.00 depending on how / where you buy them. Note that something like 75% of your auctions won't sell, so you are only getting your $3 from 25% of the items you list. I watch items in several collectible categories, and have noted some items perpetually relisted for the last 3-4 years. So some stuff will never sell. Ever go to the car dealer and find out the little plastic clip you need is $28?? That's because that's the amount of labor and handling it takes to get that tiny little part from the factory to you!

I wouldn't say I have kits that I avoid building. It's more like I have so many kits that I don't expect, or have a plan, to build half of them! I call it a collection. I enjoy owning them, some of them just fill holes in a run or series of kits. For some of them, one day I'll see a photo or otherwise get a great idea that involves that specific kit. I'll be happy I have it then.

Pssst Mike.... This is either a '53 or '54. This one was cast by Perry's, but I've seen other castings of it. It's just a repop of the original promo. BTW, if you get Hemmings Classic Car, the October issue has a cool article about a collection of four '54 Plymouths that represent all the body styles.

Stay tuned... you'll get a better education here than in high school. My wife and I will be out with friends and a topic will come up. I'll answer the question with the facts and they all look at me and ask how the heck I knew that. "Model Car board!"