Car boot finds

[novicelad]

Hi All

Just wondering? 

Has anybody been successful at car boots? is it worth me spending a morning at a muddy field? 

 

[Prescient]

No, yes, maybe but usually no. 

There are plenty of bits and kits there, but sellers are really savy these days and often price check using eBay / forums before selling, unless it's an indistinguishable box of bits, and chassis parts. 

It's always a punt on electronics so take a radio system, battery and ESC/motor so you can test parts.

Recently I find eBay cheaper and more fruitful. You are unlikely to be the sole RC picker either so get in early and move fast and you may get lucky. 

[TWINSET]

It's like any lucky break, you may have to kiss a fair few toads to get a princess
I don't think I've ever had any luck at boot sales but get the odd gem from charity shops.

It depends a lot on the boot sales too - a lot up here seem to be populated by dealers who know what their stuff's worth, which means no bargains.
You're better off looking round the smaller ones than the 'Massive Every Sunday' ones, as they're just pop-up antique sales - I've sold at a couple of big ones and the first 10 minutes of trying to unpack is spent fighting off dealers who want to buy anything resellable (if that's even a word)
 

[AndyjcClod]

It used to be a good place to get R\C bargains and I picked up quite a few R\Cs in the past from car boots but for the past 3 years I have still been attending car boots and not seen anything "proper" R\C related. 

Same with Star Wars toys (which I also collect) they all seem to have gone from car boots now days.

[graemevw]

I havent seen anything rc at a bootsale for years. Ive had some proper other bargains though. Bought a pair of old speakers for £10 that I sold for £350.

[Percymon]

I trawled a  few local boots for over a year and found nothing bar horrid £10 Asda / Argos specials, often just the cart with no handset, battered and not worth 50p really even for a toddler to push along

I did drop on one Nikko, a Subaru WRX 1:10 without handset - a quick change of crystal , a set of cheap bbs gold rims and tyres and in fairness it was pretty darn good - gave it away to a friend afterwards but even after buying the wheels and tyres i don't think it owed me more than £8 ! 

I've never seen a Tamiya , Associated or Kysosho car, or parts or any radio gear - not once.

eBay used to be OK for buying cheap parts cars, but today the prices are a little silly - add on the fact that replacement parts are nowhere near as cheap as three years ago  (Banzai not stocking Tamiya, exchange rate, shipping rates etc), and its at the point there's little point buying a £40 'wreck' from ebay unless you already have a stock of parts for a rebuild.

 

[MadInventor]

2 hours ago, Percymon said:

I trawled a  few local boots for over a year and found nothing bar horrid £10 Asda / Argos specials, often just the cart with no handset, battered and not worth 50p really even for a toddler to push along

I did drop on one Nikko, a Subaru WRX 1:10 without handset - a quick change of crystal , a set of cheap bbs gold rims and tyres and in fairness it was pretty darn good - gave it away to a friend afterwards but even after buying the wheels and tyres i don't think it owed me more than £8 ! 

I've never seen a Tamiya , Associated or Kysosho car, or parts or any radio gear - not once.

eBay used to be OK for buying cheap parts cars, but today the prices are a little silly - add on the fact that replacement parts are nowhere near as cheap as three years ago  (Banzai not stocking Tamiya, exchange rate, shipping rates etc), and its at the point there's little point buying a £40 'wreck' from ebay unless you already have a stock of parts for a rebuild.

 

+1 on all that. I was amazed just looking at the price of Tamiya wheels and tires, you're looking at about £25 just for replacement set of oval blocks these days. I think boot sales are pretty much a waste of time as far RC is concerned, certainly from a tamiya point of view, I've certainly not seen anything for 5 or 6 years at least.

It would be more productive scouring the Sales forum on here and look for the cars that were for sale a year or more ago and see if they're still for sale, as you'd probably get a good deal on them.

[Phil_H]

18 minutes ago, MadInventor said:

+1 on all that. I was amazed just looking at the price of Tamiya wheels and tires, you're looking at about £25 just for replacement set of oval blocks these days. I think boot sales are pretty much a waste of time as far RC is concerned, certainly from a tamiya point of view, I've certainly not seen anything for 5 or 6 years at least.

 

I've just bought a new set of wheels/tyres/inserts for my M03, £28 all in.... it's easy to buy some £9.99 ones from China...but the amount I've broken i could have bought 2 sets of Tamiya ones.

On a positive note...Tamico had their bargain M03 XB Swift the other week for £68 delivered, so selling off the Shell, wheels, TX/RX & ESC has funded my Wheels and a Mini Shell   Always nice to get  FREE stuff! 

[Prescient]

It also depends what sort of thing you are after at them too. E.g. for a personal collection, to buy and sell on etc.

House Clearance / Proffesional Picker companies are often the ones who get the loft find kits etc. 

As noted above by others, a lot of car boots are full of business, pro booters or outlets for their main businesses junk. 95% of the ones by us are either more markets or geared towards businesses.

I reckon with most people, anything worth selling at a car boot goes on Gumtree mainly or one of the other selling sites. Even your local area will have a potential market of a hundred thousand people plus. Better than a few hundred at a boot sale. I suspect a lot of household things that used to drive boot sales gets binned / clothes recycling / charity shopped.

Much less hassle than getting up at 530am to stand in a field with limited buyers too. 

What's left on tables of personal sellers is just their real tat. Plus buyers can get so much at the discount shops like poundland, Amazon or even eBay that writes off a load of things you can sell and the punters will turn out for.

Quite a lot if RC bits (assorted boxes) go to the auction houses these days then to eBay resellers or collectors. 

The chance of that holy grail find is really slim and prob no different to that million pound painting for £10.

If you are buying then eBay is a good way to get things these days and much more time efficient. Even if you want to buy low and sell on again.

I have loads of examples on a weekly basis. @Jason1145 got his new built FF Alpha for a song the other day.

I got a 'loft find' King Blackfoot off there a couple of months ago. Badly advertised, listing only said chassis in the title but showed the body in pics, oh and such terrible terrible photos. The tyres had disintegrated but that's not overly uncommon. 

What turned up for £50 was a virtually unused KBF but metal parts were a bit corroded. Bit of effort with the Autosol and the metal parts came up like new. 

[graemevw]

The bootsale house clearers are great. They check nothing! I got more hifi from them too, £250 worth of stuff for £30.

Ebay is a curse as it pushes up prices but also a godsend as the stuff is available in the first place! Bargains can be had, in the last month or so I got a kyosho tomahawk for £30 and a nice terra scorcher for £35.

[moffman]

I've stopped buying and selling on eBay now especially selling, the final straw was a (supposedly) collector who bid for my ranger and as usual I put a perfect description about it with loads of photo's good for a 40 year old model etc etc and when he received it he said it wasn't worth it and asked for a discount! Then that very same day I just happened to be randomly looking on eBay and he had taken it apart and was selling the parts! And before that I had a guy that claimed he never received the parcel people are getting more slimy these days!

[VagabondStarJXF]

25 minutes ago, moffman said:

I've stopped buying and selling on eBay now especially selling, the final straw was a (supposedly) collector who bid for my ranger and as usual I put a perfect description about it with loads of photo's good for a 40 year old model etc etc and when he received it he said it wasn't worth it and asked for a discount! Then that very same day I just happened to be randomly looking on eBay and he had taken it apart and was selling the parts! And before that I had a guy that claimed he never received the parcel people are getting more slimy these days!

I totally agree... (although I've only stopped selling on there)

and It doesn't help that Royal Mail (and other couriers) aren't doing their best when delivering packages. Just today I received a package that was supposed to be 'Signed For' but it was just put through the letterbox like normal mail. When I checked the tracking on the RM website I'd, apparently, signed for it. Maybe I'd managed it through demonic possession or, maybe, subconscious digital telekinesis, or something. Either way that scribble that was left wasn't even close to my signature but it was attributed to me. I'm sure a less than honest person would be seeing this as an opportunity to try and claim a refund. Instead I've sent the seller a message and, if they want to lodge a complaint with RM, I'll be able to send them pics of the packaging.

[moffman]

1 hour ago, VagabondStarJXF said:

I totally agree... (although I've only stopped selling on there)

and It doesn't help that Royal Mail (and other couriers) aren't doing their best when delivering packages. Just today I received a package that was supposed to be 'Signed For' but it was just put through the letterbox like normal mail. When I checked the tracking on the RM website I'd, apparently, signed for it. Maybe I'd managed it through demonic possession or, maybe, subconscious digital telekinesis, or something. Either way that scribble that was left wasn't even close to my signature but it was attributed to me. I'm sure a less than honest person would be seeing this as an opportunity to try and claim a refund. Instead I've sent the seller a message and, if they want to lodge a complaint with RM, I'll be able to send them pics of the packaging.

There is no excuse for signing a packet without your permission and I'm not making excuses for said delivery guy but time and time again we are told that they are under a lot of pressure to deliver so I kinda feel sorry for the foot soldiers (so to speak) paid peanuts aswell so I dare say the pride in the job disappear's it's the greedy parasite share holders I firmly put the blame on (profit before service,) anyway enough of the rant! My so called missing parcel miraculously turned up with a neighbour after telling them "not to worry I work for parcel force so I can find out exactly what has happened to it" total lie but it did the trick!!!

[Country Mike]

On 16/10/2017 at 10:40 AM, novicelad said:

Hi All

Just wondering? 

Has anybody been successful at car boots? is it worth me spending a morning at a muddy field? 

 

badword yes, earlier the better too. I had an overlander 3300 nimh battery and ansmann charger for a quid, all kinds of things and an hitachi 3d superwoofer in perfect order for £12.