Am I missing something on this auction?

[delamaize]

About 4-5 years ago when I started accumulating my B&O rolling stock from Ebay auctions, I ran up against a guy like one of these two. I couldn't win an auction for anything. A few times I tested the waters just to see how high this guy would go and it was well beyond what I thought was reasonable. I ran a plain jane MTL B&O box over $50 one day and he still had the winning bid. I didn't want to chance going any farther and actually having to buy it myself at that price. He lasted about 4 months and then disapeared. After that, I picked up the same boxcar for $12.00. He was buying so much that people were noticing and more and more B&O started showing up. After he disapeared, there was a glut of B&O stuff for auction, prices tanked and I took advantage. I have a feeling it was somebody contracted to build a layout where money was not an option and he had to get it done in a specific time frame.

I feel your pain on that one, for a while there, when the shay came out I had the same issue with logging stuff, I watched Micro-trains log cars and disconects go for $30 and $40 a pop. and log car kits fetching about the same prices. Once the frenzy for the shay died out, the prices tanked, I got 4 log cars for $25. Northern Pacific stuff was the same thing for a while, sometimes I wonder witch is worse, people who have too much money to spend, or people who set unrealistic reserves.

Beleive it or not, back in the early 2000's I had a guy who was trolling me. Every train auction I bid on, he would out bid me. This was back in the days when you could see who was bidding on what, not just the first and last letter of their user name. It didn't matter what it was, he always bid on the stuff too. I thought I was being paranoid, so I went and bid on some parts for my car, Lo and behold, that jerk followed me there and bid on it also. I finally had enough, I went and found some stupid little statue of a unicorn farting rainbows or something like that, contacted the seller and devised a plan. The seller went along with it, what I did was got in a bidding war with this ********, then retracted my bid with probally one minute left on the auction. At the same time, the seller canceled my bid, leaving the troll with the stupid statue thing. Witch cost him $1000. He messaged me and threatened to sue. Never had a problem with that guy again, nor did I ever see him again.

[Puddington]

There is something fishy about this......same two bidders killing each other for three $25.00 Life Like...... I smell something here, besides sheer stupidity........

[Mark5]

Beleive it or not, back in the early 2000's I had a guy who was trolling me. Every train auction I bid on, he would out bid me. This was back in the days when you could see who was bidding on what, not just the first and last letter of their user name. It didn't matter what it was, he always bid on the stuff too. I thought I was being paranoid, so I went and bid on some parts for my car, Lo and behold, that jerk followed me there and bid on it also. I finally had enough, I went and found some stupid little statue of a unicorn farting rainbows or something like that, contacted the seller and devised a plan. The seller went along with it, what I did was got in a bidding war with this ********, then retracted my bid with probally one minute left on the auction. At the same time, the seller canceled my bid, leaving the troll with the stupid statue thing. Witch cost him $1000. He messaged me and threatened to sue. Never had a problem with that guy again, nor did I ever see him again.

I love it - Beautiful story.

[Brakie]

About 4-5 years ago when I started accumulating my B&O rolling stock from Ebay auctions, I ran up against a guy like one of these two. I couldn't win an auction for anything. A few times I tested the waters just to see how high this guy would go and it was well beyond what I thought was reasonable. I ran a plain jane MTL B&O box over $50 one day and he still had the winning bid. I didn't want to chance going any farther and actually having to buy it myself at that price. He lasted about 4 months and then disapeared. After that, I picked up the same boxcar for $12.00. He was buying so much that people were noticing and more and more B&O started showing up. After he disapeared, there was a glut of B&O stuff for auction, prices tanked and I took advantage. I have a feeling it was somebody contracted to build a layout where money was not an option and he had to get it done in a specific time frame.

I can relate to that when I was massing together a rather large flock of HO P2K GP7 and GP9s for $25-35.00..I finally gave up and waited..He disappeared and I resumed buying the needed geeps.

[seusscaboose]

i have seen this happen with NKP cabeese  ;D

regular Atlas caboose goes for 5x the value.

crazy to watch from the sidelines.

EP

[pnolan48]

Bidding wars certainly happened with Kato PAs, which were pretty high-ticket to start with. For a while I could get Kato PRR A-B sets for about $60-75, and then zoom! Even for the undecorateds.

And watch LL Erie-Builts when they show up.  I traded one B unit for a whole bunch of broken Bachmann DD-40Xs. It was a good trade in the end, as I needed the D-D trucks for a project, and finally found eight axles without split gears--or rather, eight axles whose gears hadn't split yet.

But the plastic framed version of LL E-8s? I had a bunch of fun with them in torture tests that eventually caused the flexible tubing between the motor and the gear heads to fail. Replaced with crimped brass tubing, they can still run on.

[SkipGear]

Hmm...

 I have an Intermountain KCS Southern Belle F7A setting here. I know they don't show up very often at all. I bought it to put in front of my Circus train, pretty colors for the N Trak crowd and all. IM has the excecutives on the way...wonder if I can throw this in the water, feed the sharks and make enough to pay for the whole executive ABA set...???