Who Says modern Trains Aren't a Good Investment???

Kind of steep for a used train.

I saw that too, made me do a double take! I've seen these go for around $1,500 on ebay within the past few months. Can't believe two people have bid up to past 8x that amount.

This is a rare one signed by Mr Cowan but no warranty.

I could buy my whole collection for the sales tax alone on the Buy It Now! Hope they weren't counting on this to retire on.

Pete

If I had a throwaway account, I would buy it. Not the auction, the other Buy It Now for $2M.

I might consider selling mine for that, heck I'd even throw in the cars. 

Shipping is $22.55...  two thoughts:

1 ) wonder if that covers insurance and can you imagine punching that value into USPS?

2 For that price, wouldn't you think shipping would be free?

What, no free shipping?

I sniff the vague odor of rodent.

Pete thinks I’ve got a gazzilion engines,....even at a gazzilion, I don’t have that much in all of them combined......guess it’s time to convert a bunch of Berks.....to the paint shop!!!....

Pat

If it was only $12,000 I'd take it, but $12,300 is just too much.

Note all the zero feedback bidders. Gee, who could that be?

What a joke! Has anybody stopped to consider this auction might be a stupid scam. Over the years there have been plenty of scams on 'ebay' from sleazy sellers. And 'ebay' has been trying to stop it from happening on their auction site for many years.

there has to be some looney people involved in this.

Lets face it, this is a hobby.   The trains are not investments, they are the cost of having fun.    You might luck out and sell some for more than you paid.    But most are not going to be treasures to fund  your retirement.  

I think especially with the electronics in this stuff going obsolete in 5 years or so, the value of the modern stuff won't go up.    What can you do with it when the smoke gets out of the circuit board and you can't get a replacement?    When PW trains were much in vogue,  you could repair or have someone repair about anything and restore it.     And most stuff still ran on the same control systems.    Now there are so many controls systems, and so many no longer supported, it is hard to figure out what makes it go!

Seriously, model trains, like automobiles are a cost, not an investment.    if  you look at it that way, and you won't be disappointed and if someday you sell some and think  you did well, you will be very pleased.

Hey, if any of you are interested I will sell mine for 1/2 of his minimum bid.

Scott Smith

Look at the bidders.  The one with 35+ feedback has 56% of his transactions with this seller.  The one with 8+ feedback has 100% of his transactions with this seller.  Then there are a few others that have 0 feedback.  Smells a bit fishy, but I don't know what.

Looks like the real bidding stopped around $844

Shill(s)??

noun

a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc

Probably because it's a 'cast iron' version, and not the normal Lionel die-cast zinc.

Says so in the "Item specifics" towards the bottom of the ad. 

Guys,guys,

It should be very obvious that it is not a true auction. The top 2 guys and seller seem to know each other.  I would stay away from it at all costs. There are way too many items posted on eBay that are over priced. Not just what the op has posted but many, many others.

Remember it is the Christmas season, time of year for all the scammers to come out of thier holes. Be careful and have a great holiday season.

Dave

I guess the big question would be why and who in the right mind would post a $1,500 locomotive for $2m? I know it could possibly be due to one the season and two the pandemic but why?

Listing Update Another one  Now listed at $99,999.99 or similar with a Buy it Now for over a million???   LOL.   Has NO bidders

also there is another one 'used' for a mere $9,999.99 with FREE Shipping!    Such a deal....

I was shocked. When I checked my account. I kept asking did the bidding really jump that high?

And no, the seller (me) has no clue who the bidders are. I initially listed this with a buy it now at $1300. All I wanted was to get my money back out of the train to get something else my daughter and I could run on the Christmas layout.

Don’t jump to conclusions that I am a horrible person manipulating the hobby.

@Ryan Mc posted:

I was shocked. When I checked my account. I kept asking did the bidding really jump that high?

And no, the seller (me) has no clue who the bidders are. I initially listed this with a buy it now at $1300. All I wanted was to get my money back out of the train to get something else my daughter and I could run on the Christmas layout.

Don’t jump to conclusions that I am a horrible person manipulating the hobby.

Ryan - I've had that happen with a few auctions that turned out to be scammers too. The buyers wanted me to ship as soon as I received their check.

Mainly with somewhat hard to find Nintendo NES games. You figure it should sell for a $ 100 or so and suddenly its at $ 500.

So i insisted on Paypal like my ad said. No checks.

Of course, I never did see the money - but I didn't ship them the game either!

@Ryan Mc posted:

I was shocked. When I checked my account. I kept asking did the bidding really jump that high?

And no, the seller (me) has no clue who the bidders are. I initially listed this with a buy it now at $1300. All I wanted was to get my money back out of the train to get something else my daughter and I could run on the Christmas layout.

Don’t jump to conclusions that I am a horrible person manipulating the hobby.

If this is indeed your listing, I would contact ebay immediately.....now.....stop reading this and go!

@Ryan Mc posted:

I was shocked. When I checked my account. I kept asking did the bidding really jump that high?

And no, the seller (me) has no clue who the bidders are. I initially listed this with a buy it now at $1300. All I wanted was to get my money back out of the train to get something else my daughter and I could run on the Christmas layout.

Don’t jump to conclusions that I am a horrible person manipulating the hobby.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could actually get that much?

Maybe it's some prince from Nigeria that no one will contact him for the $100,000 he's willing to give away, so he's blowing it on trains.

Not to suggest this aspect applies to Ryan Mc (I fully believe his lack of knowledge of who the crazy bidders are ), but the first thing that always comes to my mind for things like this is the art auction story line in the 90's movie Mickey Blue Eyes.

-Dave

I did reach out to eBay. I have not heard anything yet.

So, I think it goes without saying but you all think I am being conned? 😂 I was going to reach out on here when the bidding shot up.

@Ryan Mc posted:

I did reach out to eBay. I have not heard anything yet.

So, I think it goes without saying but you all think I am being conned? 😂 I was going to reach out on here when the bidding shot up.

Conned or one lucky guy.

Definitely conned. Don't send that train to them. Hopefully ebay will take care of those bidders.

Don't have trains to sell....but if anyone is interested I have this bridge in Brooklyn

P.T. Barnum would be proud.

@Ryan Mc posted:

I did reach out to eBay. I have not heard anything yet.

So, I think it goes without saying but you all think I am being conned? 😂 I was going to reach out on here when the bidding shot up.

You should pull the listing and re-list it. Obviously this listing has been corrupted.

Thank you all. I tried ending the auction but eBay says I could be charged a fee based on the max bid.

Seems I am stuck until the auction ends. Any suggestions?

@Ryan Mc posted:

Thank you all. I tried ending the auction but eBay says I could be charged a fee based on the max bid.

Seems I am stuck until the auction ends. Any suggestions?

Only thing i can think of is not to ship until you get your money. I hope you take Pay Pal and not checks.

Not to distract too far from the auction discussion, but I do believe the volume of listings (and requests on the forum) suggest another release of the scale PolEx would sell well. I also believe a scale “1224” freight steam engine or early diesel would sell well to pull all the scale PolEx freight cars that have been released through the years.

I’ve said they could make the scale PE every 2 years easily and sell them. I am using my Polar BiPolar for the freight cars.

@Rider Sandman posted:

Not to distract too far from the auction discussion, but I do believe the volume of listings (and requests on the forum) suggest another release of the scale PolEx would sell well.

Nooooo!  Can't have that!  It'll destroy the $12000 secondary market value!!

@Ryan Mc posted:

Thank you all. I tried ending the auction but eBay says I could be charged a fee based on the max bid.

Seems I am stuck until the auction ends. Any suggestions?

Just let us know if $12000+ shows up in your PayPal account.

There's 3 weeks til Christmas. That's plenty of time for me to put mine up and score big.

Ebay took it off. I'm sure it was a mistake. I'm surprised  it's still on here. Our monitors usually take anything ebay off the forum.

@Ryan Mc posted:

Thank you all. I tried ending the auction but eBay says I could be charged a fee based on the max bid.

Seems I am stuck until the auction ends. Any suggestions?

The suspense is killing me Ryan. Did you end up with 5 figures in your paypal account? I suppose given the fees, this is a big payday for ebay as well.