Jump to content
Juggular

Best RC deal of your life?

Recommended Posts

I love the "boxes of random stuff" finds. My two best ones were:

2 RC10L boxes from a thrift store in Longview WA, for $20; one box contained one and a half RC10Ls, and the other contained RC10 buggy parts including a rare and sought-after RPM Worlds suspension kit, brand new in package (sold for $120);

and a big cardboard box from a garage sale for $10, which held an entire Chevy-badged Clod in reasonable shape, a bunch of Optima parts (including two unbroken lower chain guides; if you know vintage Optimas, you know this is a big deal), and some cool old racing stuff like Litespeed Lite-Sinks and a Paragon bearing blaster and pinion gear holders. Also found a full 100-count box of brand-new X-Acto #11 blades in there; that's more than ten bucks by itself.

  • Like 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

LOL, this entire thread feels like some sort of confessional group therapy or something :lol:

 

Like many of us, I've been on the hunt for RC treasures for more than two decades, and I've definitely had my fair share of "steals". I've also had my fair share of fuzzy photos that turned out to be worthless junk, but if you tally it all up, I believe I'm definitely ahead in terms of my money-spent/enjoyment-had ratio.

  • Found on eBay late at night: a lot of 12 NIB motors, 6 Black Sprints and 6 Black Endurance, with a BIN price of  $20USD each, shipped.
  • Found on Craigsist locally: a NIB 959 body set, listed simply as "Tamiya Porsche", with the eye-watering price of, wait for it... $8USD. Convinced that it was a typo and figured the seller intended to have a zero on the end, I messaged that I'd be by to collect ASAP, and didn't even discuss the price. When I arrived the guy answered his door with the box in hand, and said, "here it is, can't believe you drove all the way here (more than an hour) for this thing", and then added, "hope eight bucks isn't asking too much" :blink: It wasn't.
  • Found on YJ (Yahoo Japan): countless amazing bargains for Tamiya and similar rarities that no one seems to notice. I'll admit that I have zero-capacity to learn other languages, but learning my way around Google Translate has been the key to multiple single-bid wins on the Japan-only auction site. Some of the rarest items in my collection were purchased on YJ for less than $30USD, even after all of the fees and shipping. I feel so fortunate to be alive in this age of widely accessible and amazing technology.

 

 

  • Like 6
  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, racer1 said:

downstate Illinois a few years back and drove by a small resale shop in a small town

This story is relevant to me B)

I grew up in rural-central Illinois, and before I moved away 20 years ago, it wouldn't be uncommon for me to cruise around the tiny towns looking for forgotten thrift and hobby shops; never once did I ever find anything quality in terms of old RC stuff. Sounds to me that you were very fortunate to have stumbled upon something like a vintage Bruiser! Do you by any chance remember the name of the town? Southern Illinois is gorgeous and spent quite a bit of time down there myself :wub:

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
21 hours ago, Hibernaculum said:

@nowinaminute I can honestly say I have never come across either that Shinsei Hydrofoil or Hovercraft. However, that doesn’t really count it out :) Because after all these years, there are still items shown in Nikko and Kyosho catalogues also, that I have never actually seen in the wild and which nobody seems to have...

And then one day, one of them just comes up. And you’re like “Oh, so they DID manufacture it!”. I can think of a couple like this that I have spotted for the first time in just the last couple of years. 

There’s no limits to the mystery of rare Japanese R/C toys and models :)  Also, boat models tended to be low volume sellers, so tracking down rare ones like those two could be a 5-10 year wait. 

This is true, I've seen a few Nikko vehicles in catalogues but never in the wild. I remember a dragster with a 540 motor, a very nice looking mustang plane and a white land cruiser body on a Scorpion type chassis (maybe called mountain cat?) Also many colour variations I've never seen in real life.

Searching German and Italian ebay was an eye opener too, many unique colour variations and body/chassis combinations. 

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
20 hours ago, OCD said:

LOL, this entire thread feels like some sort of confessional group therapy or something :lol:

  • Found on YJ (Yahoo Japan): countless amazing bargains for Tamiya and similar rarities that no one seems to notice. I'll admit that I have zero-capacity to learn other languages, but learning my way around Google Translate has been the key to multiple single-bid wins on the Japan-only auction site. Some of the rarest items in my collection were purchased on YJ for less than $30USD, even after all of the fees and shipping. I feel so fortunate to be alive in this age of widely accessible and amazing technology.

 

 

Thank you for letting me know about this one, amazing find!

 

if I have know about this one I would have save so much money on my F103 build.

4xzen foam wheels for a f103 NIB only 18.50$ shipping only 5$.

 

And so much nice rollers on sale, might buy a new car if the price is right. B)

  • Thanks 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A few of my $50 dollar deals.

1) I was buying an optima that was in really bad shape.  Saw another rc in the pic which i had no idea what it is.  It was a mint  avante. One of the gears was wrongly assembled made weird sounds. It was only tested but never ran because of the gear noises for $50. The optima was $50 dollars too. 

2)Blackfoot found at the auction with bad pics surprisingly it came with a thorp diff. $50  

 Found a used  hotshot 1 with box for $30 shipped.  Next few hotshots were all like new i was just looking for parts cars i ended up with 2 mint ones used only a couple of times.. Those were $100 each but still a deal i think it was also before the re-re came out. 

A super wide superchamp for $50 my 1st srb ☺

Found a blazer for sale for $150 or $170 looked at it the first time thought it was too expensive for an old truck didn't buy it missing the wings.  A week or two later the seller asked me if i wanted  to buy it so we met again he told me he was just going to use the money to buy some traxxas stuff. I was still having second thoughts of buying it. Eventually bought the blazer. Didn't know much about the blazer that time. 😮😮  

 

 

 

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 7/27/2018 at 5:39 AM, Juggular said:

I'm starting to think I should hit thrift stores

You should . A few years back I picked up a RTR vintage Sand Rover with all vintage radio ( it's in my showroom ) for £45 from a second hand store

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A mate texted me to say he'd seen I was into RC's via Facebook.  He said he was moving house and chucking lots of stuff out, did I want his old RC gear ?  Without knowing what it was, of course I did.

A couple of weeks later, he turned up with this Skyline and Hi-Rider-2, plus a box full of wheels, chargers, radio gear, catalogues and spares.  I tried to force beer money on him but he wouldn't even take that.  :D

dan1.jpg

dan2.jpg

  • Like 6

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 7/27/2018 at 3:02 PM, OCD said:

This story is relevant to me B)

I grew up in rural-central Illinois, and before I moved away 20 years ago, it wouldn't be uncommon for me to cruise around the tiny towns looking for forgotten thrift and hobby shops; never once did I ever find anything quality in terms of old RC stuff. Sounds to me that you were very fortunate to have stumbled upon something like a vintage Bruiser! Do you by any chance remember the name of the town? Southern Illinois is gorgeous and spent quite a bit of time down there myself :wub:

Town was Staunton IL. if I recall.  If not it was right in that area. 

  • Thanks 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's one that got away.

It was 1990 and I just moved to a rural part of NC and was looking in the phone book for places to buy RC parts and maybe even a track.  Found a nondescript add in the Yellow pages for an RC track.  Called the place and a lady told me her son ran the track years ago and basically closed shop and moved on to other things.  Everything was in a storage shed if I wanted to check it out.

Got there and she opened the shed for me.  First thing I saw were dozens and dozens of sealed kits on shelves.  Associated, Tamiya, Kyosho and kits I didn't even recognize at the time.  Being a poor college student and not being able to see the collectability value in the kits at the time, I just bought some parts for my RC10 and left.

I still think about that shed on occasion and wonder what happened to all those kits.  If it's still there with all those kits in it, that shed is a gold mine.  I'm no longer living there, but I might have to check one of these days.

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Re-reading this thread has bought back another memory. Pre Y2K one of my work mates wanted an RC. Took him to the LHS after work and he walked out with a TA03F Subaru, Radio, charger and batteries.

Gave him a hand building it and also gave him a Reedy FireHawk motor and Futabu ESC to give it a bit more go.

About 4 yrs ago he calls me to say he is cleaning up his study room and asked if I would take the TA03 off his hands as it was just gathering dust on the shelf... otherwise it was going in the bin!!!!

So I took him up on his offer.It had hardly been used and it sat in the shed for a few months until I got inspired to convert it to a TA03R for my son to use.

 

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My BIL had 2 Super Hornets he wanted to sell. One had been built and used rather well... the other partially built. He knew the Super Hornet was my first car (can't recall what happened to it), and he only wanted $100 so I snapped them up. Both cars came in one box.

I found out on my birthday that the reason they only came in one box was because he had kept one box and had the lid framed to give to me. Still have it hanging on the wall. 

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My father called me and stated there was ‘one of them cars you like here for £4’ at a local charity shop. I asked what it looked like, and the description was vague  other then it looked new.

i arrived home to expect a pile of rubbish but my eyes lit up in excitement when I saw this!

vCd76Cg.jpg

 

  • Like 7
  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Bargain finds, love those needs some patience and luck.

My best buy, not really cheap but for 170€ think was ok.

DSC01008.thumb.jpg.f343385923f4749f3febac1c581cc975.jpg

Fun is to win eBay items for almost nothing like 3-8€  managed to score a couple of technigolds, nib hiCaps and spare parts for the before mentioned.

  • Like 6

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

When I fort got into Cars was around 1996. I wanted a Tamiya Escort RS but they where £££ at the model shop. They had another car that was on sale for £75.00. I didn’t really want it as it wasn’t what I was after and it was apparently old. The car I bought was a Toyota Celica GrB. At the time I didn’t know much about it other than it had special bits on over others. Sadly it got used and abused and it’s not till recently I’ve seen how rare that are ☹️

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All the real bargains I got before the internet, Holiday buggy for £20 out of the 'loot' etc.

I got a re re Bullhead, complete rtr for a shade over £100 , not a mark on it. 

 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My theory is that the mid 90's was probably the best time to score deals on vintage RC stuff.  The theory being that all the 10-14 year kids in 1987 who had Frogs, and RC-10s, and Blackfoots, etc were now out of the house and in college.  Their parents clean out the kids room or garage and they get rid of the RC stuff via garage sales, thrift store donations, flea market sales and it probably went for pennies.  It would be the time that it wasn't nostaligic yet, the technology would be dated, and nobody thought they'd be collectable or hold their value really well.  Same thing happened with skateboards from the 80's.  I could also be totally wrong, lol  :)

  • Like 5

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
18 minutes ago, 78Triumph said:

My theory is that the mid 90's was probably the best time to score deals on vintage RC stuff.  The theory being that all the 10-14 year kids in 1987 who had Frogs, and RC-10s, and Blackfoots, etc were now out of the house and in college.  Their parents clean out the kids room or garage and they get rid of the RC stuff via garage sales, thrift store donations, flea market sales and it probably went for pennies.  It would be the time that it wasn't nostaligic yet, the technology would be dated, and nobody thought they'd be collectable or hold their value really well.  Same thing happened with skateboards from the 80's.  I could also be totally wrong, lol  :)

I think you’re absolutely bang spanking on.... all we need now is a time machine. 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, ALEXKYRIAK said:

I think you’re absolutely bang spanking on.... all we need now is a time machine. 

Lol, thanks, but I forgot one key element to my theory: this was time period was before eBay.  Waaay more deals to be had out there before eBay became huge.  People couldn't instantly look up how much something had sold for in the past.  Man, those were the days!!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 7/31/2018 at 11:39 PM, 53HRA said:

My father called me and stated there was ‘one of them cars you like here for £4’ at a local charity shop

This is familiar, and might be an interesting off-shoot for this topic ^_^ - i.e. Have your parents ever found you a good R/C bargain/deal?

Most parents are probably guilty of throwing Blazing Blazers and 959s in the bin. But some have been known to find R/C gold and bring it home.

My father found at least three or four I can think of, as he used to frequent thrift stores and markets. He was a great fan of R/C models, and he passed away in 2005. But in the years from about 1992 - 2005, he found various old cars (both vintage RTR models and kit models). I think he found an old Marui Hunter one weekend for something like $5 or $10. Another time, he found a LaTrax Hustler (wonder if any of you know that one). I'm glad to say that everything he found, has either been restored already, or is being restored. I couldn't bear to part with it. Nice memories.

@78Triumph Yes it's true that the 90s and early 2000s was the best time to find bargains, at least as far as Hobby Shops went. I think those days are now mostly over, but bargains will continue to come up among second hand sellers, for many more years to come.

 

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I guess the most memorable good fortune I’ve had buying RC stuff was the D5 front end part for my Dyna Storm which came with a broken one. Scored this by buying a TR15T stadium truck chassis off eBay for next to nothing, grabbing the part and then selling the rest for parts needed by a fellow member.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...