FA eBay One of only 125 Hornby NRM Evening Stars R330 Mint Boxed

John,

well yes it is pretty meaningless, OO is a gauge rather than a scale.

Paul

In message , ab writes

I've got one of those. I painted it green, put some decent wheels, a decent motor and a decent gearset on it, and it now looks and runs much better. I'm not sure whether to convert it to DCC, though.

So why not just buy something closer to what you wanted in the beginning? It must have cost a fair bit to completely change it.

Eddie

You could have mentioned that there was a £100 or more reserve on it , and not wasted other's time...

turbo said the following on 31/10/2005 09:23:

At the time of the original post, the reserve was not known (but obviously at least £50). In fact,it still isn't known! For all you know, at the time of writing this the reserve might be £85.

There's nothing pxxxes buyers off more than playing 'guess the price someone else is thinking'

"Paul Boyd" wrote

I don't see the point in 'reserves' on items on eBay. Why not just start the bidding at the minimum price you're prepared to accept and then everyone knows where they stand.

John.

John Turner said the following on 31/10/2005 10:29:

There's arguments for and against that. A high starting price can put people off bidding, so it never takes off. A low starting price encourages people to bid, whilst the reserve protects the seller. Personally, I can't stand reserve price auctions, as a buyer or seller! When selling, I will look at historic prices for an item, set a relatively low starting price, and hope for the best. Usually I get what I would like, but some people have had bargains from me! The "silly" prices make up for the ones I lose out on, and it has to be said that there seems to be a lot of spare cash in the model railway world!

What I don't understand is why people bid a maximum of, say, £2.50, on an item with a reserve which is going to be a £50 minimum in the UK. I can only assume they don't realise this £50 minimum.

In message , Edward Bray writes

I did! What I wanted was one of those "Nellie"-type locos that didn't rush round the track at 250 scale m.p.h.

Actually, it has been and still is a good test bed for trying various things out. Oh yes, and it's got Kadee couplings (see

At least on eBay you know if the reserve has been reached or not.

I'm guessing that if an item doesn't quite reach its reserve, there's always a sporting chance the seller will accept the highest bid anyway. In a real auction, the auctioneer has quite a bit of discretion over the starting price and whether to sell to a high bidder at less than the reserve.

Cheers, Steve

I quite agree, John. I tend to avoid reserve price auctions, the only problem is theres been several items I'm despertate to have which have hidden reserves, which makes me think I might be either a) be conned into paying over the odds, or b) wasting my time bidding up to my maximum, which is below the reserve.

But John, how desperate is "desperate"? And if I or another bidder is even more desperate, then what is the "odds" price for any item at any moment?

In what way could you be "conned"? If you get lucky, and pick up something on a slow day for less than the usual going price, do you feel you owe anything to the seller for getting it *under* the odds?

At the end of the day, this is an auction. The seller has a minimum selling price, you the bidder have a maximum buying price, so do other bidders, and the outcome of the auction depends on the relationship between those prices. All other factors are incidental.

Cheers, Steve

True, but its just a question of whether my head rules my heart! If my heart gets the better of me, I can sometimes end up bidding more than my maximum - which is of course good for the seller, but not my bank balance!

Strangely enough, one of these has just been put on ebay! Although since there was over 10,000 built, its not exactly a rariry.

"Steve W" wrote

A postmodernist writes: "authentic" is a debased and pointless word now. Authentic is a comparative, so it should be used as "authentic to [something checkable and evidence based]". Instead it's now freestanding, indicating "quite nice and has a recognisable brand/label so hand over your money", If it were already selling well without needing to prove itself, it would qualify for the other free-signifier, "classic".

Don't trust anything Hornby does. Regrettably, don't trust the NRM either; they're a branch of the entertainment industry and need the money, certainly at the shop front if not in the library and archives. You want an accurate model, you need to check your own sources and modify as appropriate.

As for any adjective used on eBay - how come the whole of railway modelling, fundamentally a practical discipline, gets slung in under the ugly category "Collectables"? Collectors are evil: give them the boxes to chew and run the models on track, preferably with properly set wheels....

Tony Clarke

Personally, I can't stand auctions.

Another good reason for avoiding auctions altogether.

Like when GM replaced their long-lived North American "New Look" bus, first marketed in 1959, with the so-called "Classic" in the 1980s.

Refurbished "New Looks" aka "Goldfish Bowls" are still running in Toronto, years after buses intended to replace them have disappeared - just like the Routemasters.

In message , turbo writes

During the auction, the reserve was freely available to anyone who asked. Some did, some didn't.