HELP NEEDED!! Collectors Value Guide For Scale model plastic kits

A value book from 1999 is worthless if you are wanting it to establish prices for kits.

Tom

Try snipped-for-privacy@swbell.net.

If the kits are aircraft John has just brought out Pak-20, Plastic Aircraft Kits of the Twentieth Century (and beyond).

Interesting opinion. What value guide would you suggest? Oh, wait. There arn't any. The CVG is a great guide to help establish values of kits. Prices do not change that much in four years. Besides, it's a GUIDE, not fast and firm.

Sites such as e-bay are time consuming and tend to run the gamut from absurd high prices to absurd low prices. You'll see huge differences in prices from hour to hour that don't reflect the market in the least.

How many times have we seen e-bay nonsense posted here on RMS?

Hope that you find a copy of Burns' CVG.

Tom Young

One held by collectors of all types worldwide. People selling cars, parts, christmas onaments, antiquities, games, furniture, cameras, recordings... Its touched about everything. If someone in a business isn't using it, they will be selling to alert people who will be turning around and reselling it there.

The Ebay explosion changed everything, as do reissues and newer, better kits of the same subjects. Sure some kits are classics but ebay has affected their value too.

But are more reliable than five year old price guides.

The only price of consequence is what they finally sell for. For that you have to seach completed auctions or monitor current ones until they are completed.

How many times have we seen people here looking for outdated pre-ebay printed price guides?

Tom

How do you establish a reliable price for this one? Three weeks ago a made model of a Revell XSL-01 manned Space Ship was sold on eBay for the sum of $700.00. This is a made kit, no instructions, and the decals were already mounted. It was purchased by a relative newbie with about a dozen hits in his feedback, all good. Last Saturday another made example was sold. This one went to a collector with over two hundred feedback hits, all good. The final price was $102.50. Who got hosed? Who got a fabulous deal? Neither. They paid what THEY though the model was worth. In perspective, I bought an unmade (for the most part) with decals and instructions two years ago for about $250.00. And then stopped buying for about six months. It is a pearl of great price.... Price guides, even old ones are very useful in establishig a baseline price value. Once that is done, scanning similar sales on eBay or the other auction sites will fine-tune your knowledge as to a kit's value.

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

As someone who has been buying and selling vintage models (a lot of Aurora) for quite a while, I can personally attest to the fact that trying to set a value on a kit can be agonizing. Setting the value on a diamond, for instance, is fairly easy. There are accepted guage parameters to go by such as color, size, clarity, etc., and depending on where the stone falls, you get an accurate value (assuming the person evaluating knows his stuff). No such luck with model kits. In our hobby, the intrinsic value of a kit is mainly determined by individual perception. Sure, condition matters, but more importantly, as stated by John, the value is determined by what the individual feels it's worth. Has the modeler been looking for the kit for years, does he need a particular kit to complete a collection, is he going to keep the kit as a collector's item or is he going to build it? Just a few things that effect value.

I usually spend quite a bit of time researching a kit to try to determine its value. The problem is, the prices swing wildly and it's sometimes impossible to reach a conclusion. The Collectors Value Guide is by no means the final word on value. It was written using as much objective data as possible, however, is still very much just a guide. I wish I could tell you how many times I have put a kit up for auction and was totally blown away by the final selling price, both very high or very low. I have seen models up for auction in pathetic shape...broken boxes, missing parts and decals, partially built, partially painted, that have commanded prices that made my jaw drop. Just depended on how badly the buyer wanted that particular kit.

Basically, I have learned to trust my instincts and experience. After I finish with my research on a kit, I set the value accordingly based on a very educated guess. I find I'm usually in the ball park. Anyway, what I am basically saying, albeit long-winded, is don't frustrate yourself if you can't find a collector's guide. They're nice to have but in no way guarantees the going value of a particular kit.

Mike

I have noticed on ebay a lot of stuff has a high minimum that closes with no bids, only to be reopened, where similar items sell routinely sell for less. Apparently they aren't in a hurry and are holding out someone will pay the price as opposed to the usual compromise of price and urgency to get it over with.

Tom

Well, you know what they say...you can sell a loaf of white bread for a $1000, it'll just take you a little longer to sell it.

snipped-for-privacy@iastate.edu (Tom Hiett) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@itc60158.itc.iastate.edu:

Some idiot bookseller is listing the Airfix book Bf 109: Their history and how to model it for $257. I found it I think in New Zealand for $23.05 USD. I called the bookseller and tried to explain it to them and that I wanted to buy American. Needless to say I bought from the Kiwis.

Frank