Welcome to the world of OOP Selling. I previously stated that this hobby will suffer when OOP Kits take off in insane amounts of profits to the Ebay seller. Why?
Because they continue to be out of production.
I sold the Walther's Barge and Float set and took advantage of the hot market for them some years back. The profit I saw on those items were quite substantial. I love the American Auction system as the Bidders themselves set the market.
The day Walthers (or anyone else for that matter) gets out of bed and brings back the OOP Kits, there will be a rush of air going out of the rapidly deflating ebay sales when they realize they can get the kit once again at the LHS retail for a heck of alot less than ebay.
In fact, I think some ebayers already established themselves with a bankroll, buy a garage full of kits, store it until it goes OOP, wait a year and then issue them onto ebay one by one for very nice profit margins.
Just did a quick check on eBay for a Walther's Blast Furnace (HO)
Buy it now price: $599 (This thing was like $120 when it came out) Walther's Car Shop $299 (It was like $40 when it was out) Even to someone with somewhat deep pockets, like me, this is insane!
Checking this persons "other" OOP auctions reveals they are all also vastly overpriced.
What I'm seeing here is not a collector of trains who happened to have an extra kit he's not going to use. He's purely a greedy speculative buyer.
Yeah yeah I know. If he has it, he has a right to charge what he wants for it. But in my book he's no better than a scalper. It's just not an honest way to do business.
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!