I look for specific items related to GN, NP, and SP&S, there might be a few more items than usual, but nothing significant.
I have actually tapered off my browsing of the bay as the last few items I "won" were just not quite up to my standards. In fact the last item wasn't even what I bid on, and even though the seller said he was correcting it, it never came to be, but I did make it work though. (It was a frame and body of an Atlas yellow box received instead of an Atlas Classic frame, the same I asked y'all about in a thread). For the most part though, I almost prefer to order online from a B&M store or other online retailer, even direct from a manufacturer, even if the price is a little steeper.
My last brass item through the bay turned out good, but I also have limited myself to the folks out of FL for those items as well lately.
Kev
GP025My last brass item through the bay turned out good, but I also have limited myself to the folks out of FL for those items as well lately.
I stopped buying brass on eBay about a year ago when two packages in a row were packaged terribly. Luckily the locomotives were not damaged.
At Brasstrains Dot Com (the outfit in Florida), they really do a 100% perfect job of packaging their models for shipment.
Also, in my experiences with them, they are completely honest and accurate with the item descriptions.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Bought a bunch of brass through the years and never a problem with shipping but then I never bought one without original box, no preferrence, just worked out that way. Like I said before, latest accusition were MTH hopper cars, they came in box as shipped from china so no problems.
Update to the OP.
I have noticed that activity has slowed as usual through the summer months, but prices seem awfully high. I look frequently since I still covet a few items that pop up from time to time, but lots of rather mundane stuff is getting bid up pretty high. BIN prices from retailers is crazy.
- Douglas
DoughlessBIN prices from retailers is crazy.
The Buy It Now prices for some Model Master paints are insane. I should have invested!
I agree with Kevin on the Brasstrains folks, top notch service and packaging. Never an issue.
Also, Hon3 Blackstone prices are through the roof. I really wish people would refuse to buy stuff at massively over inflated prices. At this point, its cheaper to buy Brass, even with re-motoring and installing DCC and sound.
Ebay activity seems to have declined rapidly in the last couple of weeks.
I have a saved search that I look at every day. It usually has 200-300 listings per day that mee the search criteria.
It has dropped to about 50 per day this week.