For sure... anyone that does some research would easily find that these prices are way out of range and the details given (or lack thereof) are either false or hype. BTW... I have noticed there seems to be some seller(s) which operate under similar names and are posting multiple similar items at inflated prices to imitate the market value of the items to be higher than it should be. Then... I feel other persons are listing there items just slightly lower... but still somewhat inflated. OR... I could be off completely on what these items are worth and I should list mine at these crazy prices.
There are two dealers in Japan that have been my major go to for the Bandai equipment and their mechanisms. When I have stumbled onto Ebay I have found the same equipment seriously overpriced, sometimes almost by four times the going price for an item over there. And that includes international shipping costs from Japan and it is still cheaper to order from Japan. I have found similar pricing gouges on Amazon where the same set of cars is listed from one supplier at the same price as the Japanese dealers, and a little further down the page I have found the same item again going for 3 to 4 times the price. Once in a blue moon I think it is decimal point misplaced but the greater part of the time I think it is sucker fishing on both sites. At least on Amazon I can set the page to show the lowest priced items first, I haven't seen that or I haven't found that on Ebay which basically forces one to go through numerous pages in a search. Bottom line is that there have to be some folks who are just to lazy to do a little research before buying an item thus the sucker fishers are still flourishing. Amazon seems to do a better job keeping it's dealers in line than Ebay as far as pricing.
They just keep coming... https://www.ebay.ca/itm/N-scale-Can...548256?hash=item441b0c0360:g:o60AAOSwXeJaxWEs
Well it seems that inflated prices are not just in the realm of Ebay. I was looking at Tomix cabooses and discovered some at very reasonable prices on Ebay of course those were coming from Japanese firms selling on Ebay. They ranged from $17 to $27 which is what you find dealing direst with Japan. However on Amazon there is a listing for the exact same caboose at $127.
The item is shown as discontinued on my Japanese website so he must have figured he would make a killing for someone desperate enough. Thing is there are still plenty out there and it is only one roadname that was discontinued. Pays to do research.
The link is from ebay.CA so it gets converted to Canadian currency. If you change CA to COM, you get US dollars: https://www.ebay.com/itm/N-scale-Ca...548256?hash=item441b0c0360:g:o60AAOSwXeJaxWEs You can do this to most listings to see country-specific ebay pages.
Now the listing shows US $380.00 and they are no longer available. I hope that nobody got taken. 380.00 Canadian dollars converts to 295.55 US dollars.
I agree. Value of car now, only for the trucks/couplers, and a shell to strip. $5.00 is a hard sell for me here.
I would need two of them and since they only ran in New Mexico and Arizona I could run them as the Road Runner 'beep, beep' (usually with a load of Acme boxcars bringing deliveries for the coyote).
I think there was only one "Baldwin Geep" and it now resides at the museum in Barstow, California. I just caught a glimpse of it as we rolled by heading for Los Angeles behind the SW Chief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beep_(locomotive)