Well, you?ve all
heard me on this subject before, and most of you think I?m crazy (maybe all of
you, and maybe you?re right), but I?ve now sold 2- 81 Imperials, 1- 82
Imperial, 1- 67 Imperial Convertible, I ? 69 Newport Convertible, 1- 55
Cadillac Coupe deVille, 1-1950 Packard Super DeLuxe, 1 ? 99 GMC pick-up, 1-
5th wheel RV, and probably a few more that I?m forgetting.
I?ve also sold about 100 other items from my half-vast collection of old junk,
mostly automotive.
In each case, I?ve
run the auction with no reserve, and a very low starting bid (usually $100 for
the vehicles, and often 1 cent for the other items). In every single
case, I believe the buyer and seller both got very fair deals except for two
cars which sold for way too much (the 55 Coupe deVille and the 50 Packard),
but there was a LOT of action on those two.
Typically I have 25
to 30 bidders on the cars, and a real frenzy at the last minute. I have
never been approached with anything that sounded like a scam attempt.
I keep a count of the
hits from people who ?click? on a link within my auction to a very exhaustive
description of the history and condition of the cars, with many more pictures
showing every conceivable defect. That way I can keep track of the
people who are really serious about bidding on the car ? and there are usually
about 10 to 15 people who are really honestly trying to evaluate and bid on
the car. One of those is usually the winner, even if they only bid at
the last second. I only have to run them once, they always sell within
the 7 days. I only accept wire transfer or folding green for the large
items.
Maybe I?m just having
a run of luck, but if so, it has continued since eBay started and continues
today.
The number of people
who will see a car auction are in the thousands ? way more than you get
exposure to by any other method of sale. I trust that fact to set the true
market value ? what a serious, well informed and honest buyer will pay is my
definition of market value.
I think eBay is the
best thing for the automotive collector since J.C.Taylor
insurance!
Ok, back to my
cage,
Dick Benjamin
From:
mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark McDonald
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 8:34
AM
To:
mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: IML: Great collection of
Imperials for sale
Well, Ebay may be a great place to find
Imperials, but I can't say it's such a great place to sell old Imperials
anymore!
Over the last year I've run several auctions trying to sell
one of my Imperials, either my '68 convertible or my '68 Crown hardtop, and
it's been nothing but a waste of time and money. It could be that my
expectations for these cars were too high . . . perhaps . . . but I think it's
more a matter of people who use Ebay today have become more interested in
skirting the rules and trying to get something for nothing than they are in
actually buying your car.
A few examples . . . everytime I run an
auction now, I'm inundated with people e-mailing me privately trying to get me
to sell the car off of Ebay-- and always for a ridiculously low price. For
every person who puts a legitimate bid in, there are 5 or 6 who try to cut a
deal outside Ebay. And none of these folks ever follow through.
I can't
begin to count the number of frantic calls I've gotten begging me to "please
don't sell that car, I've been looking for one just like it my whole life,
I'll be there Saturday with the money"-- and you never hear from them again.
Or there was the guy from Canada who called, negotiated a
price with me, then promised to call me back at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon to
finish the deal . . . and still hasn't called. It's bizarre. Why bother,
folks? What's the point of calling or e-mailing if you ain't serious? It's
just a waste of time.
Anyway, I think the character of Ebay is slowly
changing, and not for the good. But I hope it goes back to the way it
was.
Sorry for the griping,
Mark
On Thursday, September 30,
2004, at 09:45 AM, DONALDDICKINSOND@xxxxxx wrote:
E-bay currently
has the largest collection of Imperial cars for sale that I have seen, a total
of 26 cars! To access these as a group first enter "Chrysler Imperial"
as the basic search then sort by "Price: Highest First".
