Some fun eBay weirdness...

[Mike999]

I'm getting ready to have an eBay sale.  While researching some stuff I'm selling, I ran across this:

An SMP '60 El Camino front bumper got 6 bids and sold for $13.50.  The front valance panel, often missing in built-ups, got 5 bids and sold for $9.05.

A '60 El Camino rear bumper did even better.  It got 7 bids and sold for $16.50.

That's a total of $39.05 for 2 bumpers and a valance panel. Plus $4.50 shipping. 

A complete '60 El Camino, built and painted with a clean, unglue-bombed bed, sold for $47.55 with 19 bids. It did have some emblems sanded off, which is often the case with these kits. 

A resin '60 El Camino body, with valance panel, front/rear bumpers and tail lights was also on eBay for $50.00. It was from Vic's Resins and looked pretty good. But you'd have to do your own chroming, the bumpers are white resin.

Maybe I'll forget about stocks or bonds, and invest in 1/25 scale '60 El Camino bumpers...

Edited March 30, 2020 by Mike999
goof

[Erik Smith]

I get annoyed at the amount of empty boxes on eBay, but then I wanted one to go with an AMT 62 Nova I have. The empty box sold for $28.00 plus $8.00 shipping. Not to me. 

 

[magicmustang]

The "Parters" that sell individual parts from a kit, and they list them all in a row. 

On average they ask $4.95 a part, and a kit will have 70 to a 120 parts. That's about $350 to $600 a kit (if they sell all the parts, which I doubt). I bet they have a lot of incomplete kits sitting around.

I find them very "not fun" when I am surfing the bay for a kit.

[Greg Myers]

Maybe it's time for who ever owns that old war horse '59 El Camino kit to modify the mold to a '60 ?

[peekay]

1 hour ago, magicmustang said:

I find them very "not fun" when I am surfing the bay for a kit.

I have bought parts from these sellers and think they provide a useful service. If I buy an incomplete kit, loose a part or destroy it some way, it's always a lot cheaper than buying a whole kit just for that part. That they make a decent profit for not much work - well so does Elton John.

[Erik Smith]

5 minutes ago, peekay said:

I have bought parts from these sellers and think they provide a useful service. If I buy an incomplete kit, loose a part or destroy it some way, it's always a lot cheaper than buying a whole kit just for that part. That they make a decent profit for not much work - well so does Elton John.

They are useful, and I’ve also purchased from them, but when just perusing eBay for models, random part after random part isn’t as interesting as seeing a Jo-Han complete kit.

As far as pricing, if people are paying, it’s a fair price - especially for non-essential items like model parts.

 

[peekay]

1 minute ago, Erik Smith said:

 but when just perusing eBay for models, random part after random part isn’t as interesting as seeing a Jo-Han complete kit.

 

 

But if you're looking for parts all those complete kits just get in the way. ?

[slusher]

At least we don’t have PJ’s parts to go thru. I wonder what happened to him?

[magicmustang]

47 minutes ago, slusher said:

At least we don’t have PJ’s parts to go thru. I wonder what happened to him?

I think he changed his Avatar!!

[Mike999]

1 hour ago, slusher said:

At least we don’t have PJ’s parts to go thru. I wonder what happened to him?

I tried to figure that out, but it was a while ago.  As I remember, I checked his eBay seller page and it suddenly went "Inactive."  I suspected he might have finally got booted for the long rants in his listings, calling buyers "stupid" and griping at length about eBay policies.  Which WILL get a user kicked off eBay. But that is just my suspicion and I don't really know.

We should probably be careful.  He is, or was, a member here. He signed up just to post the same kind of angry screeds he put into his listings, when he found out we were talking about him in here.

IIRC, he barged into this group once, said he had a lawyer and threatened to sue the board owner for "slander and libel."  He must have the world's dumbest lawyer.  Slander is knowingly making a false SPOKEN statement damaging to a person's reputation. Libel is a false WRITTEN statement. Anybody who ever watched a TV show about lawyers should know that.

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Mike999
goof

[ChrisBcritter]

Certain parts do have a very consistent market;  besides that valance panel (I saw one go for $20-something recently), Continental hood ornaments are regular $8-$20 sellers; the last two glass units for the '60 Ford pickup went for over $20 each. '63 Pontiac rear bumpers often have broken taillight bezels so that's another tough one; early Nova taillights come in three different versions - two with very small easily-lost red lenses. I think a savvy resin caster (paging Greg Wann...) could do pretty well with items like these until the market was satisfied.

Edited March 30, 2020 by ChrisBcritter

[Tom Geiger]

With Modelhaus gone the eBay parts guys provide a vital service. They are not making a lot of money once you consider the work and fees. By the time they’ve photographed the item, wrote the description, packed and shipped it, I’ll bet they have an hour invested. Then think about the PayPal and eBay fees, including fees on unsold items and it all adds up.

[goldfinger]

7 hours ago, magicmustang said:

The "Parters" that sell individual parts from a kit, and they list them all in a row. 

On average they ask $4.95 a part, and a kit will have 70 to a 120 parts. That's about $350 to $600 a kit (if they sell all the parts, which I doubt). I bet they have a lot of incomplete kits sitting around.

I find them very "not fun" when I am surfing the bay for a kit.

I know its none of my business, but I hate seeing kits /models parted out like that.

[slusher]

5 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

With Modelhaus gone the eBay parts guys provide a vital service. They are not making a lot of money once you consider the work and fees. By the time they’ve photographed the item, wrote the description, packed and shipped it, I’ll bet they have an hour invested. Then think about the PayPal and eBay fees, including fees on unsold items and it all adds up.

I agree I have three sellers I go to first...

[peteski]

Ah, yet another one of "these" threads.  Funny how the same subject (selling parted out kits on eBay) pops up regularly here.

[Mike999]

2 hours ago, peteski said:

Ah, yet another one of "these" threads.  Funny how the same subject (selling parted out kits on eBay) pops up regularly here.

I just thought it was funny that 3 parts sold for almost as much as a complete kit, with all 3 of those parts attached to it.

In this case, it wasn't a seller being greedy and I should have mentioned that.  The seller started the valance panel at $3.95 and the 2 bumpers at $4.95 each, which are fair prices for 60-yr-old items. The buyers bid them up to those final prices, which is just the way eBay works.  I like that when I'm selling, not so much when I'm buying.

As mentioned, I'm getting ready to put up an eBay sale, which I've been doing since 1999.  It is more work than people realize who've never done it: write listings, take photos, get a shipping box, weigh and measure the box.  Then people often win more than one item and you have to re-pack, re-weigh and re-measure the new box.  Since shipping prices are always going up and I want to keep them as low as possible for buyers, I don't charge any extra fees for packing or "handling."  

Probably the only way to make a profit selling old model kits on eBay: find a barn full of mint-condition early 3-in-1 kits and buy them for $1 each.  And we all know how often that happens.

[slusher]

Look what popped up a classic 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMT-1962-Ford-F100-Unibody-with-Camper-Model-Car/264682761776?hash=item3da0526e30:g:n5IAAOSwtVZegLaM

[misterNNL]

For some historical perspective on the model car parts business, some may not know the Modelhaus got their start by making replacement parts for the Zettermans who were and still are in the promo business. They would send Don and Carol a mint condition piece they needed to complete a promo and they would cast and in many cases chrome plate those parts.Don Holthaus told me that they were some times working 12 to 16 hours a day seven days a week to keep up with orders. That's a real world commitment right there.

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by misterNNL
Misspelled work

[Greg Myers]

5 hours ago, peteski said:

Ah, yet another one of "these" threads.  Funny how the same subject (selling parted out kits on eBay) pops up regularly here.

Hmmm ? maybe there is a continuing interest there. 

[Plowboy]

50 minutes ago, slusher said:

Look what popped up a classic 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMT-1962-Ford-F100-Unibody-with-Camper-Model-Car/264682761776?hash=item3da0526e30:g:n5IAAOSwtVZegLaM

That's something else that gets me. That's a '63. Not a '62.  

[Mike999]

55 minutes ago, misterNNL said:

For some historical perspective on the model car parts business, some may not know the Modelhaus got their start by making replacement parts for the Zettermans who were and still are in the promo business...

Thanks!  I did not know any of that and it was interesting to learn.  

[Erik Smith]

5 hours ago, Mike999 said:

As mentioned, I'm getting ready to put up an eBay sale, which I've been doing since 1999.  It is more work than people realize who've never done it: write listings, take photos, get a shipping box, weigh and measure the box.  Then people often win more than one item and you have to re-pack, re-weigh and re-measure the new box.  Since shipping prices are always going up and I want to keep them as low as possible for buyers, I don't charge any extra fees for packing or "handling."  

Probably the only way to make a profit selling old model kits on eBay: find a barn full of mint-condition early 3-in-1 kits and buy them for $1 each.  And we all know how often that happens.

It is a lot of work. I bought an old collection of about 600 kits once and thought it would be an easy way to make some extra money. Every weekend for about 6 months I was listing and/or shipping models. I probably made $4 per hour if I actually did the math.
The post office regularly changes policies too - last time I was selling off some kits they changed the box dimension rule and I didn’t realize it. An inch taller box went from about $14 to $50.

[peteski]

4 hours ago, Greg Myers said:

Hmmm ? maybe there is a continuing interest there. 

Then why not revive one of those older threads?  No? And what you mean by "interest". How many things can one say about parts being sold on eBay.  Guess what?  "Parted out kits are being sold on eBay".

In the end most of those threads turn into b-i-t-c-h sessions about how people would rather see complete kits for sale instead of parts, or how much more expensive it would be to get all the individual parts to end up with a completer kit.   But selling parts has become a niche on eBay, with some sellers having reasonable prices, with other trying to fleece the buyers.

[Plowboy]

Something else to consider concerning parts sellers is there's no way to know if they're parting out complete or incomplete kits. It could very well be that the kit they're parting out is missing critical and or hard to obtain parts. The way I look at it is they're providing a service to those that are needing those parts. It's those people who are determining what the parts are worth. Not the seller. At least the parts are benefitting other modelers and not being thrown in the trash.

[Oldcarfan27]

On 3/31/2020 at 12:24 PM, peteski said:

In the end most of those threads turn into b-i-t-c-h sessions....

I haven't heard one person complaining on this one - except.....

Don't be a troll - let it go.