At least I’M excited!
Just won a Testors 1/48 YF-12A. It’ll be $50 by the time it gets to my door but I finally have one. It’ll look good next to the SR. When will I start it? No idea. I’m battling with the idea of adding all the scratch stuff like I did to the SR. This one may just be OOB.
You need to go to contests. I saw two of them in San Antonio last weekend and they were both under $30. I saw two 1/48 C-130’s for less than $50 each and they are harder to find. EBay is not worth the money in my opinion. I’ve not seen many folks get really good deals off that site.
Most contests will cost me considerable gas money, so that helps with the cost. Besides, how many contests will you go to before you find that kit you really want?
Generally, as John said, I’d spend the difference getting to the show, eating, admission. And maybe not find what I’m looking for. I have a source for the show circut that I recently put into action for two kits. We’ll see what he came up with tomorrow.
Alot of the time anymore I am finding I can order from online hobby shops or go to the local hobby shop and get models cheaper than ebay. I did get my first P-61 from ebay for .99 and shipping was 7 bucks but now I see them starting as high as 35 bucks plus shipping. I know of one place a 61 can be had for 12 bucks. Sadly the so called ebay stores are pricing them selves outta business. Haven’t gotten a model from there in months.
Evil bay sucks!
Glad for you though that you at least got what you wanted, dont really hear that to often.
I’m sure there is some truth to that. What I use ebay for is mainly stuff that’s OOP, the subject of this thread being an example. Many things that can’t be bought in stores any longer can be found there. Occasionally I’ll find a kit there that is still in the shops and bid on it, my limit being something short of buying in a shop with shipping. If I get it, cool. If not also cool. Last week I won a kit that the LHS carries but I got it for $4 less, including shipping, that I could have in the shop. And I didn’t have to drive the hour and a half to get it.
Arguments can be made that the kit I want can be had for less and sure it can. But if a table in San Antonio is giving hundred dollar widgets away for a dime but I can’t get to San Antonio, it does me little good to even know about it.
Glad you finally found one Troy!
Did you see this on building that kit? No where near as much detail as you are doing, but cool to see anyway. [yeah]
If I find a kit that I like that hasn’t hit a price point too far out of line I will bid. Once the bidding war starts, I withdraw. I have scored some great deals on eBay. As Dirty Harry would say…You just have to know your limitations. Too many get caught up in the moment and bid way too much. Let them pay the price, I know my budget and I stay within it.
As as seller I offer my starting pricepoint at a price I think fair. Generally I end up getting what or slightly more than I would have selling to someone at a show or direct. There has also been the time when I took a kit I listed with a starting price of $3.00 and it fetched $150.00. Was I surprised! But I simply turned that sale back into acquiring kits I wanted or needed. Nothing lost but much gained. Again know your limitations and avoid the bidding wars. Another kit will come along and it will sell for much less because the two dummies who drove the price of the first one up got what they wanted or deserved.
I once bid on a kit that started at about $15.00, by the time I pulled out of the bidding it was over $40.00 which was $10 more than I had intended spending, but I really needed the kit. It ended up selling for over $80.00. A week later I picked up the same kit on another round of bidding for under $20.00. More in line with what I was comfortable spending.
I’ve never had any bad issues with eBay. As with anything…situational awareness and understanding the game, you’ll shouldn’t ever have a problem. [2c]
Evil Bay can be a good or bad place, depending on what you make it. As Gerald said, set a price limit on something that you are intersted in and then don’t go over it. If you just absolutely MUST have something, you will probably pay an excessive price for it.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
I’m with hkshooter, I use eBay to look for out-of-production kits, like some Monogram subjects, or for castings by makers who are out of business. But I have just about everything I set out to collect at this point, so I’m not as avid an eBay shopper as I once was. Also, the new searches do not allow as fine a selection as the old category searches did, they return too many records and it’s more of a pain to sift through them.
You might want to take a peek at Hyperscals there is a Building the SR-71 and its Variants in 1/48 scale in six parts. Just a conciendence today the fourth installment is about the YF-12. http://www.hyperscale.com/2009/features/sr71df_4.htm
I’ve been watching the series since it started. I even quizzed Brett when the series stopped because of photo bugger ups. Nice feature but not nearly as in depth as I’d like.