Too many wins & losses to remember now,although 2 memoriable ones was,I just got onto ebay & with 1min to go for 2 x GP40-2's in SP & a SD50 in DRGW "buy it now" for $100,couldn't believe my luck after I won them. Second one was 3 x Kato -9's in SP,nib for $120! I did learn one important rule,never go over your limit as there will always be another same item popping up again soon.
Jason, I thought I got $180 out of you for those 3x SP Dash-9's!?! Did you get three more for $120? I hope they are working well for you after the flight to AU. Cheers, Vince
Got this.. Not going to tell anybody I paid less than $5 for it. Ops.. Did I say that aloud? :zip: I have no idea what it may be worth. Anyone know? It is a Special Release comemorating the Midway. I kinda think it may be fairly rare. I found it way below the radar on Ebay, listed in the wrong area. It is N scale.
Yep Vince they are going beautifully,I forgot to mention those ones too.Although I scored these 3 un numbered ones on Aust ebay last year one was abit damaged though,18 units & counting
I do about as much selling as buying, so I'm pretty even-minded here. But the best 'steal' was an Atlas Classic GP30 WITH a Richmond Controls lighting package in it for $45. It was weathered UP, which might have been the reason, but it was an excellent Kato mech unit that I'm still running daily.
Custom Painted Locomotive I custom painted a SD-90MAC in Atlantic Coast Line purple, silver and black and I put my bid to low and I got out of it 65 bucks did not even cover my cost of the locomotive. I was bummed to say the least. It was the coolest paint job I have done so far. Ohwell live and learn.
What really sucks is you buy a custom painted unit and it dispears in the black hole of UPS never to seen again and all you get is the "sorry we can't find your package" and wait weeks for the paper work from the seller to file a claim
Like many of you, I have had some lost auctions but I have had those same items eventually come up again and got what I wanted. During those auctions I learned that one bidder in particular was often out bidding me and everone else and winning the auctions. He got his collection and I got mine, a little slower and maybe cheaper. Recently I was suprised to see a large number of these items being sold off by this very bidder noting that he was getting out of the hobby and was selling everthing off. I didn't bid on any of his items. There is a train God !!
One thing that might help alot is the ultimate ebay related website. The site is called Esnipe.com. At this site you can, for very little extra money, program this site to bid for you at the very last few seconds of an auction, therefore improving your chances of wining the auction. If you have been burned before at one time or another, I really encourage you to check out this site. Good luck http://www.esnipe.com/
Yeah I also play keyboards and guitar and mess around with sequencers. I probably wouldn't buy acoustic instruments on eBay, but for pro-audio type gear it's fine. If I were a capitalist who tried to make money buying and selling trains, I would definitely monitor craigslist. There isn't much there, and it isn't well described, but you can definitely find some lots to score on. People put up whole collections more often, and more often they don't know what they're selling.
If you have the ability to get two computers side by side, you can often beat those last minutes guys - unless that's what they are doing also. Set one up to view and one to bid with only the amount to key before clicking on "bid" on the latter
I may be a neaderthal, but I just don't get this whole "sniping" thing. Just enter your highest bid you are willing to pay, turn the thing off and wait. I cannot understand what possible advantage it is to enter bids in a complete frenzy during the last 30 seconds. If you were willing to bid price "X", why wait until the last minute? You are not "saving" any money. It makes absolutely no sense (to me :angel JMHO!
My worst bidding loss was missing one of the Piggy Packers by $.25. I also lost out on 3 CR B23-7s going for 17.50 each, though I did get one for 15.00. Prices never really get to me. Ultra rare items they you NEVER see on E-bay really bother me. Right now I'm looking for kits from some elusive resin manufactuer that made fore engines in the 80's. Apparently they did a ALF 700 series and a Mack ladder and several other engines, though I can not find anythng on them.
You can snip with just one computer. I typically open two IE windows on the listing. One to watch, and one to set up the bid to do nothing but hit " confirm bid". Alot of people do it that way. Many get irritated at "sniping", and as a buyer and seller, I do two, but am sort of a hypicrit, because when I am buying I snipe. I am on ebay for the good deal, NOT the game. If you are into it for the heat of auction, or the game, it's fun to get into bidding wars. I love those on MY listings, because yeah, it does drive the price up. But when I am buying, Im NOT into the game, so I snipe, to get the best deal I can. Two faced? Yeah, I play both sides of the coin when it comes to that. A "Double Agent" if you will. hahhah..
If everyone in the world were as logical as you, what you say would make complete sense. Thing is, there are a lot of undisciplined people out there, or people who don't really understand how eBay's system works, and they just can't help bidding again (and sometimes again and again) when they find out that their first bid isn't enough. Usually these jokers seem to have little idea how much an item is actually going to go for, and they are attracted to a currently low price, and don't seem to understand that they are going to end up paying a lot more to actually get the item. I have found out through hard experience that if I do what you say, I simply don't win any auctions, because the joker comes along at the end and keeps bidding till he wins. If I snipe, the joker doesn't get the chance to bid multiple times to find out how much my bid was. I enter the same bid amount, one time, that I would if I did as you say, I just do it at the end of the auction, and I win what I deserve to win. The purpose of sniping isn't to save money, it's to make sure you GET the stuff you want, and don't lose it to people who seem to treat eBay like it's a casino. It shouldn't be this way, but it is.
Jagged Ben, Yes what you say seems to be the case. I guess I'm just old-fashioned, and just shake my head at all of that mg: . If they want to pay too much, well, OK by me. I'm sure not doing it. Someone earlier in the thread said to just wait, because sure enough, another auction will come along. Just yesterday I won an item I've been trying to buy since 1999. I was outbid every time until yesterday! This item only comes up about once a year, so I am thrilled. I paid $45 where every single other time this item has gone for $100. But, I had to wait 6 years! I guess that's also part of the cost!
Or use Mozilla Firefox, which gives you multiple browsing tabs. Watch a bunch of items, then go to your "MyEbay" and open each link as a new tab so you can bid on items that end at the same time.
If there is something I really want, I use auction stealer. Bid goes in 10 secs before the auction ends. Works best for me. I have put bids in early and watched it keep getting jacked up till it was over my bid. On believe this......three occations...... after my high bid was beat and the auction ended, I had the seller contact me and say the high bidder was unable to pay and I could have it for my 'next highest' bid if I wanted it. With auction stealer, EVERY time I have gotten the auction for much less then my highest bid.
