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Preface: I've been an avid eBayer since it was called AuctionWeb, so yes, I've had my share of the koolaid [;)] eBay's been hit and miss for me in terms of finding what I want. I'm an SP guy, and there's prescious little of it to be had at the LHSs, so eBay is the next easy target for me. I'm pretty selective, so I stay away from the buy-it-now auctions for $4 under Walthers prices and items that look sketchy. I grabbed a very nice brass Balboa/Katsumi Pacific for about $100, the remainder of the Rivarossi Daylight streamliners I needed to make the Coastal for about $7 per, an MDC shay kit with all the NWSL parts for $39, P2K GPs for $40 shipped, and Peco switches for my yard for about $6 each, all darn good deals in my opinion. You need to watch shipping, as others have said. I've turned down a bunch of golden oportunities to get short-run or long gone cars because the seller wanted $9 shipping on a $7 box car. Of course, nothing will touch the Athearn super-powered F7A I picked up at the last train show for $5 (new in box) or the 'big heavy' engine I bought last year for $30 sight unseen that turned out to be an Akane AC-9 (2-8-8-4, worth ~$400) in need of a new paint job, but those are the once-in-a-lifetime deals you can get locally. If you shop carefully, avoid sellers with low feedback, and always pay with a credit card via Paypal it's a safe, fast way to get things done. I have a personal rule about not buying from any seller that has negative feedback in the last 6 months, no items sold in the last 30 days, or a feedback score under 98% (>100 feedback points). I only bid on auctions I can pay for with Paypal or local pickup, and I never ever accept COD shipping (FedEx or USPS for me, thanks). The biggest thing is to research what you want and stick to a self-imposed limit on how much you want to pay. It's easy to spend the last 5 minutes of an auction bidding madly because you want the item, and realize 2 seconds too late that you just spent $45 on an engine that Trainworld has for $29.99. An educated and controlled bidder will clean up on eBay. Trust me, I'm one of 'em [:D] -dave
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