Tyco on ebay, another high dollar bid.

[joeyegarner]

This one is not as bad as some I've seen but it still seems like a bit much to me!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-vintage-TYCO-HO-4-6-0-steam-engine_W0QQitemZ6019178605QQcategoryZ19140QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[Anonymous]

i think the 60's tyco was better than the 70's and 80's- wonder what i'd get for my fallen apart TYCO 2-8-0 w/o a motor it had the powertorque motor that drove the wheels in the tender-i'll include the burnt up motor

[ereimer]

hmmm , buy that tyco or spend a little more and get the spectrum 4-6-0 . i wonder which to do ?

[:D]

[rolleiman]

That's a little too much.. Those mantua/tyco ten wheelers aren't that rare and that particular one is missing parts (top of headlight housing and the grab iron that goes from the boiler to the pilot), not to mention the red (or blue) box it belongs in.. The guy must really want that one.. To each..

Jeff

[dwRavenstar]

Have you heard the one about the Civil War buff, the Steam Power fan and the Shill?

It seems the CW buff (knifechief11) found an item on eBay that represented his favorite era. He placed a solid bid and turned his computer off for the day. During the night the Steam Power fan (billy.parrott) happened across the same item, a nice addition to his growing collection. It took him four increasing bids before he discovered KC's current limit, bettered it and went to bed knowing he was the top dog in the auction.

Waking early, KC checked his status and upped the ante to a respectable but not incredible $50. Apparently BP is running on the same Friday schedule as he bumped the bid to $62 just nine minutes later.

Enter the possible Shill (bdlee1976). No previous bids, fre***o the auctions that morning. Maybe just a new entry to the race but perhaps a creation in response to the competition, a pseudo Challenger, hoping to light the fire of bidding fever between the Buff and our Hero.

Six bids in just over two minutes, (I wonder what eBay's speed record is?), beating the Parrott by a buck ($63) and then bumping the bar up to $70 twenty seconds later. Just how badly does Polly want that cracker?

That evening our Hero sees that he's been bettered and tosses his best bet to win, top dollar bid into the ring. A few hours later the Chief raises his ante to $75, time and a half of his last offer, and sees that he's still short. Smacks down his final offer of $85.50 and concedes the win to Billy, perhaps to invest the cash into something more necessary. Oddly the Shill had his two minutes of fame and never returned.

Value is in the eye of the Collector. [:)] It seems neither of the legit bidders is a railroad modeller so the Fair Market Value of the item is immaterial.

Ravenstar

[roadrat]

It's like I always said E-bay should change its name to SHILL-BAY!!!!


bill

[CNJ831]

The real joke here is that folks are bidding on an item that is not even truly HO. The engine's superstructure is done to OO scale, with the mechanism designed to run on HO track. This accounts for the Mantua locomotive's dramatically over-sized appearance when compared to other roughly circa 1900 loco models, or to accurately modeled ten-wheelers of this supposed era!

CNJ831

[BRAKIE]

Those 4-6-0s and 2-6-0 makes a fine start on Sn3 locomotives.A close friend of mine bought all he could find at reasonable prices and now he has a fleet of sharp looking 0-6-0, ,2-8-0s ,2-8-2s and 4-6-0s. Of course you need to look close to see the roots of these engines.[:D]

[CNJ831]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BRAKIE

Those 4-6-0s and 2-6-0 makes a fine start on Sn3 locomotives.A close friend of mine bought all he could find at reasonable prices and now he has a fleet of sharp looking 0-6-0, ,2-8-0s ,2-8-2s and 4-6-0s. Of course you need to look close to see the roots of these engines.[:D]

Quite correct! The only highly obvious alteration necessary to accompli***he transition of the Mantua old-time 2-8-0 and 4-6-0 engines from OO to Sn3 is replacing the cab with a larger, 1/64th scale representation of same.

CNJ831

[ICRR1964]

I think there are allot of collectores out there that collect the Tyco line. I purchased a huge lot of items at a house hold auction a few years back, it was about half Tyco, 30 pounds worth. Most of it was in the original boxes and brought a small fortune on ebay. Made back the money I paid for the whole lot and pocketed about $150 just on the Tyco items sold. The rest of the items were Atlas, Athearn, and Bachmann, kept most of it, but sold off some of the cheap 4 wheel drive Bachmann engines, made out good on those.

From what I have seen on ebay and from selling some of the Tyco items, that there must be collectors out there, so there is a wanting of these items.

[Anonymous]

That tyco 0-8-0 almost made me quit the hobby pernamently.

Years later I had the pleasure of putting it to a proper torch.

[jecorbett]

I have a set of late 1970s Tyco passenger cars. They are lighted with silhouetted passengers. Unfortunately the F unit that came with it is long gone. It's making me wonder if I should do my first e-bay auction.

[Anonymous]

Their is no accounting for taste or willingness to pay. I have sold things on ebay that went for as much as 5 or 6 times the fair market value, simply because at that time somebody wanted it. In one case I listed a book starting at $0.99, it sold for $93.20. I could have bought one from a dealer at http://abebooks.com for $13.50 plus postage! Three days later another copy appeared on ebay staritng at $2.99 and got no bids. Purely the luck of the draw. About six months later I realised I had made a mistake selling the book. By then the dealers wanted $18.50, but I got a copy on ebay for $3.25!

Just recently I have been trying to get some of a particular passenger coach in N scale. They are rare, two manufacturers and neither makes them currently. I want about 16 of them. Two weeks ago I bought 5 for about $15 each, not bad! But right now there are two others out their wanting the same darned things and so we have been beating the 'snot' out of each other and paying as much as $60 each.

I have now got half of what I need. So I am going to sit back for a few days, let the others get what they want and hopefully prices will go back down. But I have to make sure I watch every auction for these coaches and see who is buying so I can gauge when to jump back into the fray.

If you suspect shill-bidding, then report it! But I have often see new bidders (and experienced ones too, including yours truly!) bidding like bdlee did on that auction to tease out the current bid price and then add a small premium in the hope of taking it off. But by the same token I have seen exactly the same behaviour used by shillers.

After six years of fairly serious business on ebay I still have one piece of advice. DO YOUR RESEARCH. I am looking for a particular English (British Rail) loco. The current MSRP is £89.95, a dealer on ebay has them for £74.95, a used mint in box sold on ebay yeasterday for £79 but you can buy them any day from a non-ebay discounter for £72. Go figure! I know where I will be buying mine.

John

[Bill H.]

I've done rather well on eBay, but I'll admit, I'm fairly selective what I go after.

I first decide what the item is worth to ME.

I will NEVER place a bid bfore the final 6 hours or so of any auction. (Easier to spot shills)

Highly skeptical of "Reserve not met" (Read seller feedback)

Will not bid on any item which does not offer paypal.

Lastly, I avoid any seller who claims "I don't know much about trains" but their feedback record shows that trains are 80% or better of all they deal with...

[TomDiehl]

That particular ten-wheeler model is a model of the Sierra Railroad's #3, a Rogers 1890 locomotive that's been in lots of movies, and at least two TV series. Tyco did sets based on both series, Petticoat Junction, and Iron Horse. The Iron Horse sets are much harder to find, the series didn't last as long as Petticoat Junction.

More recently, the same prototype loco was used in Back to the Future III.

Again, you're most likely looking at more of a collector's item than someone that's going to operate or kitba***he locomotive.