RE: IML: Great collection of Imperials for sale

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- 5^th 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".