EBay Now Very Expensive For 1/32 Model Stuff?!

[DeanKB]

2 hours ago, cbk57 said:

WNW or other collector kits and out of production kits are not the fault of ebay for high prices.  Buyers have long over paid for WNW kits even when WNW was in business the prices were high on ebay.  Any bonafiedly rare and high relative demand item is going to find high prices on a general market place whether eBay or something else.  By high relative demand, I mean that as 1/32 modelers were are a niche market but the WNW kits have a broad enough appeal they are high demand within our niche.  If they were suddenly cheap I would buy them up as would many others so price goes up until one person will pay the price for one kit.  This is just free market economics and is not ebays fault.  

 

Someone posted the kitty hawk king fisher, now that one, with patience I bet you could find a deal, someone will under price that kit if you wait long enough and you could get it cheap.  But WNW is an outlier and those are going to move on to the collectors world if they are not there already.  I am not interested in being a kit collector as they don't store well.  Really you have something that will very quickly degrade if not well protected.

How does a kit "very quickly degrade"? Plastic lasts for ever, even decals last for decades? 

[cbk57]

1 hour ago, DeanKB said:

How does a kit "very quickly degrade"? Plastic lasts for ever, even decals last for decades? 

Compare a collectible kit to a collectible coin.  If you put the coin in a simple case that takes up minimal space it should roughly last as is forever.  A model kit by contracts is subject to fading, heat, humidity, crushing and all of the things that can go wrong with storage of breakable parts and decals in a paperboard box.  So unless collectible kits are exceedingly carefully stored, the plastic may last forever but the value of a collectible kit is in it being minty condition which is much harder to preserve.  Plastic can also get broken if not handled carefully.  As I rule I am not a fan of treating models as collectibles for this reason.  However, collectors still like model kits.  Relative to many collectibles plastic kits are more susceptible to degradation.  It would even be easier to look after comic books because they can go into storage systems easier than plastic kit collections.

[Redcap1960]

On 4/17/2023 at 1:02 AM, DeanKB said:

It's getting more stupid by the day.

 

WNW Duellist RE8 & Halbersdtadt.

 

£800.

 

And that's just a starting bid!!!

 

Plus £11 shipping.

 

These people must be smoking something.

 

 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166035534540?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=9sulGeQ_Tma&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=4UKRxqbYQoS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Dean,

 

If truth be told, most non-modellers would be asking the same question of modellers.

 

P.S. As I work in the NHS I don't need to get the cheap 'street' stuff, just pop down to the Pharmacy for the good stuff. Trust me you don't need an aircraft to fly!!! [just joking, honest].

 

Warm Regards from the Kingdom of the Rheged.

 

Gary  

[Sabrejet]

On 4/17/2023 at 1:02 AM, DeanKB said:

It's getting more stupid by the day.

 

WNW Duellist RE8 & Halbersdtadt.

 

£800.

 

And that's just a starting bid!!!

 

Plus £11 shipping.

 

These people must be smoking something.

 

 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166035534540?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=9sulGeQ_Tma&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=4UKRxqbYQoS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Pfft. You could have mine for £600 and I'll pay postage!

[DeanKB]

I've noticed an encouraging trend on EBay, at least regarding WNW kits.

 

Some kits that have been starting off at stupid prices - single seaters wanting £175+ - have now been relisted with starting bids of £99. Still high, for sure, but far closer to their original selling prices in the UK. It seems reality is slowly biting that, despite being very well regarded and in demand, WNW kits will generally only sell for relatively small premiums. The days of doubling or even tripling your original investment are well gone.

 

The WNW kits that seem to be me to be most in demand, and hence have the highest prices, are the Jeannin Stahltaube, DH.2, some Fokker D.VII's, Fe.2b, Hannover Cl.II & the various Duellists box sets.

 

Having said that, it's still possible to see those kits going for a lot less, and also see them going for a lot more - it all depends on whether there is more than one bidder, and that comes down to potluck sometimes.

[vince14]

13 hours ago, DeanKB said:

The WNW kits that seem to be me to be most in demand, and hence have the highest prices, are the Jeannin Stahltaube, DH.2, some Fokker D.VII's, Fe.2b, Hannover Cl.II & the various Duellists box sets

Not really - almost all the kits you listed were part of the recent 'great missing warehouse sell-off' so the market is pretty small for them, and the high prices are really due to people buying them recently and then thinking they'll make a quick killing by selling them on eBay.

 

The real rarities are the Gotha G.IV, FE.2, Junkers J.I, Pfalz D.XII, and Roland D.VI, as these were never re-released after they went OOP. The Gotha will set you back several hundreds of pounds if you want one.

[Grissom]

I agree.    EBay has become greedy and (in my opinion) it's no longer the most desirable place to sell items you've had for many years.   Personally speaking, I think they've got their equation wrong - I don't  think it's fair to charge a private seller a 13 to 15% profit margin for a sale, especially when consider that eBay are an entity managing the sale of millions of items.   It wasn't that long ago you could pick up a 70's vintage Hasegawa kit for about USD$25.   Now, many of these kits are starting at USD $50 plus, which is ridiculous for such antiquated kits.   As some have said, however, don't blame the vendor, blame the purchaser for the stupid rise in prices.   As a wine connoisseur in Australia once said, 'the problem with wine prices is that they're being driven by people whose intelligence is inversely proportional to the depth of their wallets!'    I think this is also true of many of the people who buy older or vintage kits.

 

Cheers,

 

Wayne 

[Woody V]

2 hours ago, Grissom said:

EBay has become greedy and (in my opinion) it's no longer the most desirable place to sell items you've had for many years.

 

Yea, they extract their 15% pound of flesh, but you're reaching a global market.

 

Edited April 25 by Woody V

[DeanKB]

On 4/22/2023 at 8:38 AM, vince14 said:

Not really - almost all the kits you listed were part of the recent 'great missing warehouse sell-off' so the market is pretty small for them, and the high prices are really due to people buying them recently and then thinking they'll make a quick killing by selling them on eBay.

 

The real rarities are the Gotha G.IV, FE.2, Junkers J.I, Pfalz D.XII, and Roland D.VI, as these were never re-released after they went OOP. The Gotha will set you back several hundreds of pounds if you want one.

I based it upon a look at which WNW kits were selling for the most money, as opposed to those just being listed for stupid money. I agree with the FE.2b, that's why I listed it. The other kits you list do go for a lot, but they are so rarely available on EBay as to not have much data to base selling prices on. I sold my Gotha G.IV a couple of years ago - on EBay - for around £750. In my humble opinion, that kind of money is just nuts and I'll always sell at those prices, as that £750 allowed me to buy around 20 Roden kits WWI kits, which will give me far more modelling time & enjoyment than just the one kit, however good it is.

 

There's going to be a lull in WNW prices, as the grifters who bought up Eduard's stock try to flog them at frankly stupid prices, flooding the market. You see them being re-listed, week after week, at the several hundred pound starting price. Some of them are slowly lowering the price with each re-listing, but it'll still take them some time to get down to prices where they'll actually sell.

[Grissom]

18 hours ago, Woody V said:

 

Yea, they extract their 15% pound of flesh, but you're reaching a global market.

 

Hi Woody,

 

Yes, you make a very valid point - eBay provides global reach and, accordingly, an enormous market.   I'm not suggesting for a minute that they're not entitled to a fair and reasonable profit but it ultimately comes down to what exactly is 'fair and reasonable'.   As a former small business owner, I felt there was always a pressure to increase my  profit margins but, as so many failed business owners will attest, there comes a point where your customer base will decide that your profit margin 'threshold' has been exceeded and, ultimately, the business stares down the barrel of failure.   EBay is a wonderful platform for the sale and purchase of goods. and I sincerely hope it continues to flourish.   Having said that, however, they must be careful to resist the temptation of greed.   I remember hearing some advice from a very, very successful business owner who said words to the effect of, "it's a much better business model when you have a smaller profit margin that garnishes healthy sales, rather than larger margins that result in fewer sales."    Oh, by the way, love your work, Woody, and I'm saddened that I can no longer buy your products.  

 

Cheers,

 

Wayne

[Woody V]

12 minutes ago, Grissom said:

Having said that, however, they must be careful to resist the temptation of greed.

 

Couldn't agree more and as I like to say "All forms of economy work in theory until you factor in greed and corruption." 

[jeroen_R90S]

On 4/22/2023 at 9:38 AM, vince14 said:

Pfalz D.XII,

If people play the $300+ prices I see for both that are on E-bay, at that money I'd seriously considering selling mine...

[F2G_lover]

Gotta say, the 1/32 stuff I'm still looking for is out of control. I was bidding on an Obscureco F2G Corsair conversion kit on eBay. I bid what I considered a ridiculously high amount, and it went for almost double that. Same thing for Fisher kits. I have managed to snag a few, but the couple I'd still like to get are way too much now.