More eBay Humor - HO Scale

For all you know, there are no motors or gears.
You fell into the seller's trap. You'll bid it up to far more than it's worth, and end up with his garbage...garbage he hasn't even tried to run. When I first looked, there were 4 photos of the engines alone, no coaxing any more.
The Cotton Belt box...somehow trucks nestled up under the shell doesn't look right. The MKT caboose, long roofwalks missing (platforms there?), stack broken back against the cupola, end ladders gone. The Tex-Mex, stirrups gone. Real nice equipment for the price.
Last time I tried to get any parts I needed out of Athearn, had not much success, especially BB stuff.
At least the caboose end ladders are listed, as are long and short stanchions. Spend more than they're worth buying the parts and paying shipping, but, hey, they're worth it.

 

Well, if I were going to be willing to bid higher than I already have ($50 including shipping) I'd ask on almost all of those items. In particular the motors and gears. He says to ask questions. Without having actually asked. I won't judge. If I asked and got a useless answer back, then that might be different.

Stirrups? Replace em with wire. Most do anyway. Again, I think I evaluated the price accurately. Someone willing to haggle would do better, but then I only offered UP to $50 including shipping $30 without on 12 Items. So I'm offering far less than I said they could be worth.

I never have problems getting blue box parts. Again, I rarely go to Athearn for them, because there's a lot of back stock out there, and if you're the person interested in projects like these. It's as likely you'll go for after market stanchions and wire anyway.

I'm not suggesting that any and every HO modeler should be dying to buy these, but I don't think that that lot represents a box of junk. Especially compared to some of the other mixed lot auctions I saw on there.

And For the record, I have that Cotton belt car. the Chassis appears to be set on there correctly to me.

 

Okay. I have several of that style car...Cotton Belt...they don't seem to sit like that.
I have exhausted all my back channel Athearn parts suppliers on anything I could use for repairs.
Glad you have had good success at it.
My last buy was 4 or 5 HiF F units....rebuilt for Christmas presents.
I tried to rebuild several of the old everybody-has-a-dozen Athearn cabooses....never did get all the bits to fix them, gave up.
Box of junk...well, like you said, until you ask the pertinent questions, his "out" is they are untested.

Anything stored like those appear to have been, and missing all the external bits, makes me wonder (aloud) just how badly what we can't see was treated.

Now, we all await your report on how well they run when you get them!

PS...had a guy bring me a pile of evilbait H0 stuff....the side they took the picture of was fine, matched...the other side, doors missing, shells cracked, scraped up.

But, cleaned up, find and install the missing bits, fix the roofwalks, ladders and steps...you'll end up with some wonderful stuff.

Dave

 

Well, I won't be getting it, because as I said, his reserve is too rich for my blood.

I see Athearn with missing handrails all the time. It's like assumed if you're buying at a train show and the handrails aren't on, they probably are gone. Beyond that they only significant missing part was a step side on the BN shell.


Again, Were I willing to bid higher. I'd likely be interested to confirm pictures of the other sides of the cars.


Incidently, I asked about the motors and gears. His response was that he knew the motors were in there, but was unsure about the gears. I'd be pretty surprised if the gears were missing.

 

Or stripped, or broken gears.
I just dug out a late BB UP GP7/9, got it about a year ago at a train show. Missing two stanchions..had everything else (I had spare stanchions)....ten bucks.
Biggest job was ripping off the Kadees.

The other fun job was the dual-geared Athearn Geep I picked up. End steps..virtually the entire pilot, gone on one end. Somebody sent me a spare shell, no cab, blisters, lenses...I sectioned the end in.

It's all do-able. But my experience is ten bucks fairly complete, five bucks in the condition shown.
Obviously, your mileage varies.

Any more with BB gone, maybe they think this stuff is "rare and collectible".

If the seller is going to ask what he apparently is asking with his so-far undisclosed reserve, the correct thing to do is at least apply power to the wheels with that power pack that is in the lot, and tell you what they do.
Maybe even oil them up.

THEN maybe it's worth it.
I just have a real problem with pigs in a poke.

Just me.

Dave

 

See, to me, that's the whole point. Looking for diamonds in the rough. I detest the prices demanded by new old Blue box stock. And the fact that good condition used demands similar prices like it were a BLI or Genesis or current RTR.

I guess I need to go to the trainshows you go to. Out here. $10 might get you a dummy loco. Assuming we're discussing narrow hood Athearn. Those GPs you mentioned are the wide hood units. Much lower value.

I see an auction with late model blue box. Stuff that when new was quality stuff. I see a lot of rough edges on the engines, but I also see what were some of the most kitbashed shells out there. I see frames and truck side frames. Yes, the Caboose and tank car are rough, but the rest of the cars are in decent shape to my eye.

There's value there. Especially compared to the typical auction like this where it's nothing but Tyco crap.

 

Try fining a factory pre-bent handrail kit for an old BB Geep. Look in the current Athearn catalog. They now have long and short stanchions, no handrails. You can bend your own and be better off...but try to find the old style stanchions. None of my suppliers have any, so you get to change them all to new style.
I am still puzzled. You say, with all missing stanchions, with messed up dynamics, with shell mounts cut off, with tape on the chassis (to hold the shells on?), unknown as to where they run, unknown what the OTHER side looks like,$15 each?
The newer BB Geep I bought was ten...so these are worth 50% more than that, in the condition shown (at least)?
For your (hopefully) fifteen bucks, you get to buy new shells, or patch those and try to match the paint, locate and install handrails, make them run.
These must be rare, all I can think.
I really have no interest in new stuff. I found the wide hoods are fine..UNLESS you mix on ONE narrow hood, then the illusion is gone.
Like running a full scale freight car (or passenger car) on a postwar Lionel layout.
Not sure about Lionel H0 being imported from the usual cheap suspects. Athearn made a lot of it. I have a Geep...shells direct interchange with my old BB Athearns.
Late, yes, but not always.
Now, I do see stuff at shows priced like you said. And walk right past.
I find what I want elsewhere than the high priced dealers. It's out there.
Got a Rivarossi Heisler for ten bucks..passed on the second as I had no need for two. It's out there.....
For me the fun is resurrecting, kind of like you do, but I would never pay the prices your shows charge just for the privilege of fixing them back to running right.
Dave

 

I have been looking for underframe details for 50' Gondolas for years, ended up parting out a perfectly good kit just to get a roadname I wanted on the layout.

I have a couple GP7's that need handrails, ill probably just part out and sell as parts on eBay for next to nothing.


Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2

 

Precisely. When they dropped the BB line, they dropped all the parts.
4 or 5 years ago, my Brother reminisced that he missed his Athearn Hustler.
So, I looked on the Athearn website, saw everything I could ever need (in fact, you could BUILD a complete unit with all the parts, including shells).
Bought an old Hustler, called for parts. The one D ten T on the other end of the line said they didn't have any of that old stuff.
I challenged him, as it was currently ON their website.

Got a call back several hours later, had all the stuff and shipped it.
Two or three weeks later, ALL the Hustler parts were GONE from the website.

Then they dropped all BB parts. Handrail kits. Motors. Old trucks and gearboxes.Freight car parts.
I know..what planet do we both live on?
All my Athearn suppliers tell me the parts are gone, not available, so I quit looking.
You want dogbones, there seem to be dozens of styles.....screws up the kazoo...if you want old BB horns or HiF bands, they're there...altho last time I needed bands, they were out-of-stock, I used colored hairbands, worked better. Even color coordinated to shell color!
But for anyone to say there are all sorts of parts...when all you have to do is look at the Athearn website to see what little there is....is a tad narrow in vision.
My dealers always used to tell me they had available what was on the website.
Are there stacks of old parts in some outlets?
Probably. They had to go somewhere when Athearn dumped them.
I haven't found a good listing for wheelsets for early BB Blomberg gear drives...nor internal parts..nor snap-together plastic gearbox cases.
Finding couplers for old F units is a trip. They were a special shaft length. I had to re-drill the frame to mount normal units.

I picked up two shipments of HiF F units just to rebuild and have some parts.
I don't pass up scrap boxes at shows anymore.

Oh, well.

 

I never said, or at least I don't think I said that Athearn still made them. I said I found them to be widely available and/or making your own was trivial. Nobody would buy that assuming ready to run anyway.

Absolutely. Assuming the other side is in similar shape absolutely. The first 3 engines are SD40-2s Athearn's first Scale width locomotive. It is worth more than a wide hood GP7/9. You may not value it more, but the market does. Look at ebay or any typical trainshow. a New old Stock Athearn BB SD40-2 runs anywhere from $40-$50 from a typical dealer. You know, the semi professional estate sale train show/ebay guy. reviewing the shells further, the Santa Fe unit looks to have something going on with the dynamics, but could just be bad paint. The BN unit has a single missing piece missing. A piece easily replaced with a Canon part.
So yeah, in the given condition, if the shell is just as clean on the other side, I could see $15. I didn't say I would pay $15. I said I could see that as being the marked price.
The GP is worth more. I looked at it again, the Dynamics are actually fine. That's a GP60 and that means it's a mid 90s at the earliest engine. That's a Railpower shell from after Athearn bought them. Highly detailed shell. There doesn't seem to be any flaws and the paint is good. That is worth more than $15 easy. The current RTR GP60 is the same shell exactly. And that's a $90 plus model. I'd guess they'd ask $20 without the handrails.

And the nice thing about all those models is that they are the exact same models Athearn put into the ready to run line. So, you could even buy the plastic handrails if you were so inclined. The SD40-2 eventually got updated, but the initial RTR SD40-2 is exactly the same.

They aren't so much rare. Ok, the GP60 is fairly rare. It's that they are better. undeniably and inarguably better models than everything else Athearn had made to that point. Yes, a Typical GP7/9. Especially an older one commands much lower prices when used, because nobody wants them, because they aren't accurate. These are not the same quality by any stretch of the imagination.
So yes, what's in that auction is not pristine, but it is worth more than an equivalently beat up wide body Athearn. To say nothing of a rubber band drive model or the older "can" motor drive units with the crappier trucks.
These SD40-2s and the GP38/40-2/50/60 were the workhorses of many a large model railroad in the 80s and 90s and still are today. They are the models that kit superdetailed to the 9s.

that's fine and bully for you. Your preference doesn't affect what the "going rate" for the scale width athearn products is.

That's fine. I'm a pretty finicky shopper. I'm telling you how they're priced, not what I will pay. Truth is, I probably would not pay $15 for most of those engines. I didn't offer in my ebay bid $15. But that's what I think the sticker on them would be. I would on the other hand pay as much as I stated for all the freight cars except the tank car and Caboose.

Given most of those engines in better condition new old stock with handrails are going to run in the neighborhood of $40 at most dealers and on ebay though... I'd at least think about any of them at $15.

That's great, an Athearn BB GP60 is without question a better model in terms of quality and running characteristics than the Rivarossi Heisler. The SD40-2s probably are too.

Of course, the odds that someone looking at Heislers is also interested in SD40-2s is probably low. The person that'd I'd expect to purchase something like this is looking for a large fleet of locos.

Good for you. But I wouldn't buy a wide body Athearn GP7/9 at any price unless I needed the frame for something. So we all have our preferences and limits.

In the context of this thread which is supposed to be about comical Ebay listings. I do not find this listing comical at all. At least not the actual products listed. They aren't in good condition and they aren't lionel, but they do have intrinsic value. I'm very curious to see what the reserve is, because That could be a source of comedy. I set my max to $30 with $21 for shipping. I think $51 for that group of equipment would be a fine price. Again, assuming no additional damage is being masked.
That's less than $5 an item.
The original notion of "priced right at $0.99" is unfair and misconstrues the nature of the models for sale.

 

What's comical are the 2-3 pages of comment started by a very typical ebay listing. :cute:

And that it took that long to somehow cough up the mandatory "Tyco is crap" line LOL.

Incredible. But please, carry on......

 

Took a concerted effort, but we knew he'd feel much better once he hacked up that "Tyco is Crap" bit.

 

Boxie, does this mean my post count is gonna go down by 1000 posts?

 

Not quite ebay, but still, thought this was rather absurd.
http://denver.craigslist.org/atq/4645193920.html