Crazy Auctions / Prices Thread

[katoftw]

They aren't even out of production/stock!

[cteno4]

Kato, damn you! You ruined my scheme of ordering the 6 available from plaza for $5 and selling them for a $1150 profit!

 

Or I could even order 8 of them from newhall station at $20 each and make $1400 and that's a feat making a profit from buying something from newhall and selling it (love they charge 4x plaza for these!)

 

Could even make a $280 profit ordering 9 of them thru amazon for $172 and selling them for $200!

 

https://www.amazon.com/Tomix-Gauge-3126-Container-Pieces/dp/B001B2DMXS

 

Man I have to get into this business!

 

Jeff

[Suica]

Anybody looking for a Tomix DE10 for 450€?

Edited April 14, 2017 by Suica

[railsquid]

Anybody looking for a Tomix DE10 for 450€?

 

I'll take two then - I presume it's the ultra-rare hand-crafted version with gold plating on the inside?

[cteno4]

No those are my jrf containers that are gold lines. Working on a platinum lined line here for $350.

 

Jeff

[nscalestation]

I stumbled on this listing the other day, amazing !   It's been re-listed several times.  They even offer a monthly payment option !

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tomix-Tomytec-Japan-Train-Track-RailWay-JNR-JR-N-Scale-92136-SANRIKU-Type-36-HTF-/132156230677?hash=item1ec5200c15:g:6hcAAOSwm8VU1DMJ

 

A friend has this set that he was running on the layout during a week long exhibit so I took him a print out of this page the next day and we had a good laugh.

[JR 500系]

And he had the cheek to ask for shipping.. for that kind of price, I can buy a to and fro ticket with extras and the set to hand deliver to the buyer!

[cteno4]

holy bird crap batman! i think that takes the cake!

 

jeff

[railsquid]

I think it takes the whole damn patisserie.

[kvp]

Checked the sales. Most items are 2nd hand but sold as new, he buys a lot of stuff too (mostly for resale). All recent items were best offer prices at around 10 to 30% of the advertised price and he does accept them. Just make a 10% offer and he'll probably accept it. Or try 5% first...

 

I understand that this is a business model,  but imho not the honest kind.

Edited April 15, 2017 by kvp

[cteno4]

Ok my next get rich scheme! Chinese architectural figures. I can get them for about $2.50/100 on ebay and set up an Amazon shop and sell them for $200 (to undercut this other store)! I'll be rich!

 

https://www.amazon.co.jp/Painted-フィギュアs-Street-Passenger-100pcs/dp/B00IRYUJIE/ref=sr_1_94?ie=UTF8&qid=1492620148&sr=8-94

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Could you please share the 2.5 usd / 100 ebay link?

[cteno4]

Nutz the price has gone down! now $1.66

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-pcs-Painted-N-scale-ALL-Seated-People-Sitting-Figures-1-150-/231922504389?hash=item35ffa892c5:g:i-gAAOSwXj5XG5hI

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Painted-Model-People-Figures-Train-Building-Street-Scenes-Scale-N-1-150-/251812648254?hash=item3aa134153e:g:Go4AAOSwzrxUynP0

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Painted-Model-Train-Passenger-People-Figures-Scale-1-150-AD-/112249368795?hash=item1a229570db:g:N-AAAOSw5cNYYa49

 

these figures you can find in a variety of how well painted. the cheapo ones are pretty bad and only good for crowds at a little distance. you can easily spruce them up with a few dabs of paint, fine tipped markers and a little carving for flashing here and there at times.

 

great on platforms as you can put them in the middle of the platform and sprinkle nicer tomytec around the outside and the eye tends to go to those and the rest of the figures become background and in the minds eye they get graded up.

 

also great for interiors of vehicles and trains as you just see the outlines there. snip to fit where needed...

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[kvp]

 

 

This seller doesn't ship to your location. Change your address to continue.

Jeff, i think this do seems like a valid business model as many people can't buy from these sellers. If you know any similar sources that do sell to the EU, please let us know.

[cteno4]

Sorry, did not realize they don't do a lot of eu. Duties and such probably foul up small cheap packets. There was someone in Germany that was buying these figures and selling them in larger quantities (I think they got started doing work with miniature wunderland). Their prices were quite a bit higher than direct ebay sellers but not horrid as they I think we're doing all the export stuff. They tried getting into us sales but since we had access to these china direct ebay sources it never took off. I'll see if I can find their old newsletter. I think they were around 7-10 cents a figure.

 

Did you try searching n scale ebay and figures to see what might ship to you?

 

Happy to airlift you some if you can't get them.

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

So looking around on ebay.com manynof the cheapest sellers don't do most or all eh countries, guess shipping and paperwork are not as cheap (usps/china post/ebay bulk agreement makes it very inexpensive and one step for them to send to the us).

 

But some of the higher priced sellers do ship to hungry and usually have a small postage fee on top. Still only like $3 for 100.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Painted-Model-Train-Architecture-Diorama-Street-People-Figures-N-1-150-/201449874586?hash=item2ee759249a:g:XGQAAOSw5VFWIH03

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Thanks. I did some searching for sitting passengers and found one seller. The postage fee turned out to be higher than the price, but not many sellers ships to Hungary. (actually for the one i found, the UK was on the black list) Imho it looks like the EU is still not treated as a single country, not even the schengen area, where the internal boarders are as open as between two US member states.

[Kiha66]

Alright, I think I found the winner.  How much would you pay for a crossing gate?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-TRAIN-CUSTOM-2-SIGNAL-GATES-SIGNAL-RELAY-BOX-CITY-TRAIN-RAILROAD-MOC-/222471691861?hash=item33cc589e55:g:nEcAAOSw4A5YxI8h

 

And three sold?  What is this madness?

[kvp]

Since all his sales were within reasonable prices and most of his shop has the exact same price on every item, i suspect either a software (or user) error or some hacking. The orinal price seems to be 14 usd. Just click on the 3 sold link and that will list the sale prices. Most high priced items with sold items had a realistic price not long ago.

Edited May 1, 2017 by kvp

[velotrain]

Nutz the price has gone down! now $1.66

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-pcs-Painted-N-scale-ALL-Seated-People-Sitting-Figures-1-150-/231922504389?hash=item35ffa892c5:g:i-gAAOSwXj5XG5hI

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Painted-Model-People-Figures-Train-Building-Street-Scenes-Scale-N-1-150-/251812648254?hash=item3aa134153e:g:Go4AAOSwzrxUynP0

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Painted-Model-Train-Passenger-People-Figures-Scale-1-150-AD-/112249368795?hash=item1a229570db:g:N-AAAOSw5cNYYa49

 

 

While the last one doesn't have the garish colors used by the first two, it looks like the painting was done by young children, with the hair black on a lot of the clothes - and many other issues.

[cteno4]

Like I said the require some touchup if used in the open and best used as background people at a distance or in vehicles or in structures. From a couple of feet or more away they are pretty much a blur. Also putting nicer figures in the foreground helps the minds eye. For a crowd regular figures get expensive fast at min of 25x the price of these.

 

Jeff

[kvp]

I've ordered some of these cheap chinese figures, mainly the sitting variants. The shapes are not too bad for the price, although i think these are 1:200 ones but sold as 1:150. The painting process however has some problems. Mainly that they seem to be placed in rows and painted in one go with each color. If the paint is too thick, the result tend to stick together and sometimes the resulting pair or group is not really usable. Also the usable groups, where the figures are sitting on the same plane will need repainting to different colors. The random clumps of figures seem to be completly junk and the separe ones also have unpainted spots, so they seem to be split before packaging. I got 3 bags and this gave me one and a half bag of good separate figures (with around half bag split by me), around one bag of unseparable twins or triplets and the rest are the clump type seen on the image below. (sorry for the quality, my phone doesn't have a macro lens)

Edited May 10, 2017 by kvp

[railsquid]

39,000 yen for this Lima Lufthansa Airport Express set - I'll take two...

[Suica]

39,000 yen for this Lima Lufthansa Airport Express set - I'll take two...

And it's the (absolutely horrible) first release as well...

[Yavianice]

And it's the (absolutely horrible) first release as well...

Funny. I am selling the same exact item for 80 euro. Perhaps I should try to ask more? lol