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jonboy1

has the world gone mad?

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Now, I'm not being bitter here - but about 2 weeks ago, I "gave away" on ebay a mint King Blackfoot for £118. 

Today, I nearly got gravel rash on my chin as it hit the floor when I saw a M06 "with upgrades" (which appear to be bearings, a nimh battery and some cheap alloy dampers) for - wait for it - £874. :blink:

The prices people are asking for some stuff recently is just criminal. I appreciate that to a large degree supply has been outstripped by demand for many RC items due to lockdown spending, but this sort of thing is just insane!

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I think certainly a lot of people having a go on the off-chance that someone will bite at these prices.  There was someone I saw on ebay selling off what looked like an old collection.  Nothing was really special but everything was top money.  And where they had kept the original box and manual they were selling these separately - like £50/box and £25/manual.  Nothing wrong with that of course but I guess they saw what some things were going for and wanted a piece of the action.  Ultimately it's the buyers who will decide the market rate.

Not a great time to be buying if you just want a cheap runaround!

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33 minutes ago, jonboy1 said:

Today, I nearly got gravel rash on my chin as it hit the floor when I saw a M06 "with upgrades" (which appear to be bearings, a nimh battery and some cheap alloy dampers) for - wait for it - £874. :blink:

Anything is "worth" whatever one person is willing to pay for it, but I don't think even a NIB M06R sells for that much.

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The stuff from Japan is especially high, I'm not sure if it's (1) exchange rates (2) greed/desperation. As far as I can tell, most of the suppliers have kept prices steady - they're just out of stock as demand completely overtook supply during the lockdowns. Individual sellers (and a few weird actors) on eBay have jumped into the void, hoping to cash in on otherwise unremarkable sets.

I wish there was a way on eBay you could 'react' to the postings, then we could just :rolleyes: or :lol: at all the crazy listings.

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As an added thought, I'm worried how the developing crisis in HK will affect the hobby. Granted in the scheme of things the loss of personal freedoms is vastly more important. On a selfish level though I wonder how it will affect the RCMart / RCJaz / WahWah etc. sites that previously enjoyed HKs privileged import/export status.

 

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8 minutes ago, ChrisHGTV said:

....And where they had kept the original box and manual they were selling these separately - like £50/box and £25/manual. 

I was outbid on a "58001" Black Porsche manual despite bidding 350 USD. And I was recently outbid on a 58033 Ford C100 manual though I felt pretty confident I would get it for less than my 120 Euro bid. GBP 25 is nothing for some of the older and/or rare manuals, but a lot of money for a couple of printed pages from Tamiya. Especially now that virtually all manuals can be downloaded for free, but nothing beats an original manual.

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I've seen some daft prices on ebay too, but everything is seeing an uptick in prices I think, I've seen TL-01s with battered shell/wheels go for over £100 snd even bare chassis with bits missing for over £60. Bare stock TT01 chassis with a mk2 escort body go for £200-300+, a on road chassis with a E30 BMW shell for £600 and so on.

My perception is that sold prices are starting to drop a little and there's alot of stuff with high "buy it now" that go unsold. I see quite a lot of stuff relisted.

I haven't bought anything recently, but did buy a few cars a little while back, but I passed up many that were just headed to silly money.

I reckon some people have looked on ebay and seen rare NIB kits for hundreds and just assumed the dusty, trashed, common model in the loft is worth the same.

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A lot of the Japanese Yahoo sellers have started to sell on Ebay as well as Yahoo. You can find the same kits on both for sale. It doesn't look like they have done any research on prices though as they are wildly (in most cases) over priced. Prices (for nitro) in Japan are starting to fall again but the Yahoo drop shipping market has been affected by Japan Post no longer shipping anything with an engine, new , used or otherwise. Plenty of cars in Japan have instantly lost a market for sales.

As ever though I can't blame the sellers because if someone is willing to buy at that price then the seller has done a good job. Most of it I bet, wont sell.

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..... I blame the Sellers, to an extent. At the risk of sounding like a total Nerd...

I've always tried to live by a single line, slipped into "Star Trek 4" by Spock. "Just because someone CAN do something, does not mean they SHOULD." I found that one of the most profound statements I've ever heard!! A lot of Rioters should have that thought...

But I digress. When I got my Stimulus Check, I was anxious to finally buy a Wild One! However... NONE for sale in North America. 😞 Japanese listings were INSANE!! $535.00 USD was the best deal I could find. 😖😠

I was anxious, but not desperate! I was looking at 12 of them back in January, for between $225 and $255.00 USD. Even if those $530++ Kits came with GIRLS - I wouldn't buy them if I could!! 

It's truly sad, how People so readily take advantage of others in times of Crisis.

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Sometimes I look around on ebay when I want to buy something RC and I always end up buying something new at my LHS. I don't want to support idiot people, I'll support my LHS instead... 

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That's a nice idea when you have a LHS.  Up here in Cumbria there isn't a single one for RC gear. Not is there over in the north east either

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Like most things, the truth lies in an amalgam of views 

@Mokei Kagaku and @acprc are pretty much spot though 

Things are worth whatever people think is good value - and, for the last few months, there’s been a ‘carpet bagging’ / seller’s bubble that probably won’t pop until sometime next year ?

Good value also varies, not just in terms of supply vs demand, but also by actual (not claimed) rarity - noting the expense of truly scarce vintage manuals / parts has always been eye watering ...

More broadly, Japan still holds the bulk of Tamiya rarity - and sellers have found the usual brokers / exporters hamstrung by local post rules ... so they look West to eBay and other sites to replace lost sales 

And the issue there is they’ve currently little experience - so currently think grossing everything up = good value 😂

Whether that changes obviously depends on how many buy - but I fear it won’t !

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4 hours ago, slimleeroy said:

That's a nice idea when you have a LHS.  Up here in Cumbria there isn't a single one for RC gear. Not is there over in the north east either

Ebay is the most expensive place to buy stuff... its even cheaper to order from Tamico or RCMart... Don't get me wrong, sometimes I buy parts from ebay, but only the ones that are not available anywhere else. 

People went crazy with the prices on ebay... and there are some poor idiots who will buy a well used, beaten up  lunchbox for 300 bucks... just because it's decorated with police decals and labeld with fancy keywords like; "rare", "vintage" etc... 

Poor guys could order it NIB with al RC gear for less than 200... 

 

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10 hours ago, jonboy1 said:

Now, I'm not being bitter here - but about 2 weeks ago, I "gave away" on ebay a mint King Blackfoot for £118. 

Today, I nearly got gravel rash on my chin as it hit the floor when I saw a M06 "with upgrades" (which appear to be bearings, a nimh battery and some cheap alloy dampers) for - wait for it - £874. :blink:

The prices people are asking for some stuff recently is just criminal. I appreciate that to a large degree supply has been outstripped by demand for many RC items due to lockdown spending, but this sort of thing is just insane!

His M06 hasn't sold for £874, nor will it. He's also got 3 other hugely over prices RC's for sale.

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I was wondering about the crazy prices people are paying for stuff on the online auctions way back in the first few days/weeks of the lockdown?  considering about a year or so ago I put a fully kitted out associated rc10 re-release on Ebay and I got about £130 for it now I look and they are going for £400+ just the car no electric's and one person on Ebay has one on for just short of £1,300........absolute madness:blink: mind you I very rarely sell my rc but I need to fund a BS avante so i put my fighting buggy on Ebay and got a very good price for it enough to fund the BS avante from tamico which was at least £200 cheaper than the crazy prices on Ebay and only £13 p&p!  but I'm thinking when everybody is back at work and the lockdown rc project is getting in the way we are going to see a lot of half built kits on ebay ?

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All things go in cycles. I am confident that the shocking prices and stock shortages of today will be gone when the kit factories re-open and the bored buyers go back to work post-coronapocalypse. 

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I quite often see kits and built models for ridiculous prices on ebay, they are listed 3 or 4 times with no bids. Then they get listed again at a sensible level and strangely enough, they sell.

If several people want something badly, the price will go up, but if only one person wants it, its not worth much.

Just before lockdown, i listed a complete set of NIB Tamiya Volvo, trailer, MFU set, and extras on ebay, and only got one bid. The whole lot sold for £550... Thats just the way it goes sometimes.

J

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If people are willing/stupid enough to pay overly high prices for things they want then fair play to the seller. If they aren't then the seller is stuck with something that just don't move.

I know how much I am willing to pay for something that I value. I really want a set of of TG10 alloy front arms and I am willing to pay double the retail price for them. I've been hunting for a set of them for 2 years but I am not willing to pay stupid amounts for them.

 

I 'missed' out on quite a few eBay items that I was winning as I refuse to pay more than my maximum bid even if it only £1 over.

 

At the end of the day....

 

They are just toy models. No matter what anyone says and they are only worth what I want to spend.

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13 minutes ago, junkmunki said:

I quite often see kits and built models for ridiculous prices on ebay, they are listed 3 or 4 times with no bids. Then they get listed again at a sensible level and strangely enough, they sell.

If several people want something badly, the price will go up, but if only one person wants it, its not worth much.

Just before lockdown, i listed a complete set of NIB Tamiya Volvo, trailer, MFU set, and extras on ebay, and only got one bid. The whole lot sold for £550... Thats just the way it goes sometimes.

J

Yeah that's how I ended up winning a TB02.

 

I stuck what I thought was a low bid with the hope to be out bidded as I didn't really want to win it. But I was the only bidded and ended up winning it at quite a good price to be fair.

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14 hours ago, TDanny said:

Sometimes I look around on ebay when I want to buy something RC and I always end up buying something new at my LHS. I don't want to support idiot people, I'll support my LHS instead... 

Yeah I'm totally with you on supporting LHS or any local shops to be fair! But the problem I have is you can't get a lot of the old tamiya items I look for? So I have no option but to go to the likes of Ebay! Prime example is the tamiya super stock RR motor I got the other day I'd been after the limited edition gun metal case one for years and one turned up on Ebay at I don't mind saying a stupid expensive price but I thought do I pass on it and never see another one unused mint or do I go for it? And i went for it knowing it's no way worth £100 but in my defence i have all the super stock different versions so my collection of them is now complete! 

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It seems to me that prices are reasonable on SOME of the vintage cars that have been re re’d.  Tamiya Fox’s and Optimas to name a couple. 

In some cases I’m surprised that the re res are going for more than the originals (RC10s).

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You can ask for whatever you want.

Doesn't mean it will sell at that price.

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Having just come back to the hobby I've noticed he ebay prices are pretty crazy now. 

I was looking for a top force, all the ones I saw were around £200+ luckily I managed to get one off Facebook Market for less than half that. 

Yz10 and Egress /Avante prices are just out of this world, I'll probably never get to replace the Egress I foolishly sold :(

 

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Kinda suits me, the bonkers prices-stops me buying things I don’t need to be honest. 

I bought a SRB job lot and a Super Champ in May just to sell on for a bit of fun and pocket money which went well.

Prices have started to turn again so they are slowly but surely starting to come down and I guess not long from now there will be a lot of part built, used once bargains 👍

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15 minutes ago, Wez-li said:

 

I was looking for a top force, all the ones I saw were around £200+ luckily I managed to get one off Facebook Market for less than half that. 

 

 

Looks like I’ll have to join FB 😳

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