MORE EPay insanity

The Old Man wrote: : : over $72.00. I looked at that heading (Air Trails Magazines) and where : they were anywhere from $.75 to $5.00 last year, now you have some : clowns asking for as much as $40.00 a magazine! : Thing is, they can ask. Will anybody answer?

Bruce

Don't blame eBay for the price of an auction item that gets bid up by people like you and me. There are all sorts of reasons why the bids got so high right now but were low 6 months ago. In the weeks or days to come, a few folks with those same magazines will see the price this set went for. They will put theirs up for auction and will get a lot less for it. Basic supply and demand.

Remember that scene near the end of "The Pink Panther"? Cars racing back and forth in the streets at night, and an old man pulls up a chair to watch the crash. That's about the only reason I have anymore to check eBay.

Exactly. My varied interests have seen models & mainly '60s space toys do the same thing within weeks of each other, if not days. A couple of months ago, a Cragstan Moon Men 'Gazo' came up on eBay. He was the last one I needed to finish my set of the 4. Apparently there was another buyer in the same boat. He ended up paying well over $200 for it, where the other 3 I had bought were $50 - $100 each. Last month, a set of 4 came up. Knowing I can sell the rest, I bid about $500 on the set, only to win them for a tad over $200! A few years ago as I was collecting kits I built as a kid in the early '70s, I was after a 1/48 Monogram Huey. They always sold for $30 - $50 & my limit was about $25. One auction, I bit the bullet & bid $50. I won it for I think $6.

On Aug 1, 10:26=A0pm, Rob Gronovius wrote:

Many of these weren't bid up; the $50.00 price tag was the starting price. THese magazines are nice and I've gleaned a ~lot~ of information about the earliest days of the missile and space program from them, but some of these people are pricing themselves out of business. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

The higher starting price is often based on the seller seeing what they previously went for. He then prices his collection at the amount he'd be willing to sell it for.

Sounds more like simple greed to me (or looking for innocent newbies) Last fall, I was getting magazines that started around 95=A2 each and ~might~ work their way up to $3.00 wach. Lots generally started at around 75=A2 each magazine and sold for as high as $20.00 for the set. One lot that I bid on was a box of Air Progress that dated from 1960 to 1979 and had sixty-seven magazine in the set. It started at $2.00 and I won it just under $10.00. The most expensive Air Trails magazines (according to my bidding records) cost me $12.00 each. These guys are starting their auctions at at least $20.00 and a couple wanted almost $50.00 for the magazine. Pardon me, but that's nutz! My 2=A2....

Hey, greed is good :-) The desire for exchange of things of unequal subjective value is what creates wealth. The fact that the person in this case may not find someone to exchange with does not in itself invalidate the merits of greed.

I'm so happy to government is printing money & making my existing stash of it more and more worthless with each passing printing day and each new piece of legislation---makes me all the more eager to swap the worthless paper for plastic LOL

It is NOT greed to offer to or actually sell your own property for as high a price as you see fit.

In the past 11 years that I've been on r.m.s. and ebay, I've noticed an amazing coincidence: For nearly every poster claiming that a seller is greedy there exists an item that sold for or was offered at a price well above what said poster is willing to pay for said item.

I wonder if there is any connection there?

Oddly, I've never seen a poster crowing about winning an item at far below their maximum bid ever refer to themselves as a "cheap SOB".

KL

"The Old Man" wrote

Sounds more like simple greed to me (or looking for innocent newbies)

Rob Gronovius wrote: : : The higher starting price is often based on the seller seeing what : they previously went for. He then prices his collection at the amount : he'd be willing to sell it for. : And every auction that I watch seems to go for more when the starting bid is low, vs same condition item where the starting bid is about what the seller will accept for it, and any additional is gravy.

The other interesting thing about ebay is morons who get in a bidding war over the first item the find, and ofter pay several times what the second item sells for. Yes, even when the second item ends minutes to hours (< 12) later.

Bruce

ROTFL!

WmB

Back when I was selling on the bay I often ran sales for a friend who isn't as computer savvy as I am. Let's just call him 'clueless' as he never quite got a hold of the idea of what an auction is. He had some lousy examples of 40 year-old model cars. To his mind they were highly valuable because they were 40 years-old. He set his asking price accordingly and I usually couldn't talk him down. We didn't sell a lot of his stuff that way.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr

Well I guess that I'm a Cheap SOB then. Most of my purchases on ePay are as low as I can make them, I don't get into bidding wars anymore. I post my opening bid with the cash I willing to spend, if I get it for less great, if I'm outbid, I mumble under my breath and hobble out to my workshop for some quality time. I spend too much time on the computer anyway, just ask my wife!

That's the whole point, isn't it. The subjective trick comes with the decision of how high is "low enough". If this matches the seller's subjective assessment of how low is "high enough", value is created by things of unequal value being exchanged.

Well, you might be able to work out better strategies for making successful purchases, but nothing wrong in essence.

Don't get sent to a rehab center in China, is all I can advise :-)

Happy modelling! Gernot

Maybe the order should be "clueless" followed (causally perhaps) by "not so computer-savvy" :-)

He's the only guy I know of who walked into Ollie's and tried to talk the manager into selling him cases of models at a discount. Ollie's is one of those places that sell overruns, bankruptcies and surplus so they've already got the stuff marked down to case discounts.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Gernot Hassenpflug wrote: : : Don't get sent to a rehab center in China, is all I can advise :-) : I never realized that paying $1,000 to be beaten to death counted as "rehab".

Oh well, I guess it WAS the last time that person spent too much time with his computer, so it was a success from that view point.

"...frankly, he is starting to turn green, and the staff are complaining about the smell..."

Bruce

I was just at ePay checking some of my auction bids and I was alerted to this one - auction #150363997533.

It's a Pyro "Design-a-plane" intact and complete, with a good-enough- looking box.

It can be yours for $500,00.

That's not an auction but a Buy-it-Now or Best Offer sale. Don't quite see how you were able to bid on it . . .

Anyhoo, have you given them your offer for what you think it's worth? All he can do is say no. I have offered much less than the asking price before, and after a couple of re-listings and no sale, the guy contacted me.

KL