I guess it was always too good to be true..

[Effoh]

I've a replica of Colin's grandads hammer ready to go

....my work here is done......

[DaveB]

The hammer works Colin.. I just lost a bid!

ATB
DaveB

[ianhind]

for a friction-drive VC-10?

[DaveB]

No Ian.. I can hardly see that going unless all the buyer wanted was the box I'd been keeping my eye on a 1:400 Comet4B in BEA Airtours and happened to come to the pc with 1min to run. It was £6.50 last time I looked but it had gone up to £17.50.. still a good price so, in for a penny.. in for a pound.. I placed a quick bid at £18 which wasn't enough and a further one at £20 which still wasn't enough. I felt the imaginary hammer falling and left it at that. It eventually went for £19 (I think the high bid was £22.50).. still a good price it has to be said. Had I not been getting things through the post on an all too regular basis as I have over the past fortnight, I'd have ditched the hammer and gone a lot higher on my last bid. As it is, I had something arrive yesterday.. something else arrive today and I still have one more to arrive.. this time by UPS. I'm at the outside of the envelope and do not see the need to go beyond

ATB
DaveB

[Archer]

Some Ebay listings are completely silly. I was after some documents a few weeks ago that shot up to some crazy prices in the last five minutes. If you compare the anonimised names for the bidders you can sometimes tell that it's the same person pushing up the prices on several items. Did any of you guys perhaps end up with some booklets about the Autonav fit on the Super VC10?

On the other hand, I just might know where that performance manual ended up

I know the situation Dave, my better half has been looking at me suspiciously lately whenever an envelope or package arrived with strange stamps on them. And there's more on the way! Oh well, I still think it's a healthy hobby and as long as I'm not buying up parts and bits of aircraft I should be safe I guess.

[Chris Trott]

If you see odd patterns, report it to Ebay. If they're artificially running up the price of an item, Ebay will go after them. I had it happen to me on a part for a laptop I was fixing for a friend. Guy came in at the last minute and tried to run the price up. I saw the pattern that every part from a certain seller did this right at the end of their bidding periods reported it to Ebay. They went after the seller (who happened to be in Canada) and forced them to give me (and everyone else who'd lost their bids) at our last bid price before the run-up and then removed them from Ebay. Was kinda nice because I actually ended up getting the part for a bit less than what I thought I would have.

[DaveB]

hmm.. now you mention it, there seemed very little bidder activity despite the constantly increasing high bid in the last few minutes. I never thought to look in any detail at the list or if the seller/bidder was one and the same. It didn't look right and no mistalin'

Jelle.. another 3 items arrived here while I was at Brooklands today.. 2 postcards (BEA Vanguards.. one being PEP in BEARS at LHR) and a Corgi Routemaster bus.. BEA blue/white with BEA Titles. I've just eaten my dinner and feel no ill effects.. yet The Vanguard from the U.S. still hasn't arrived A few timetables and a BEA Airside bus still in transit. I really must leave Ebay well alone

ATB
DaveB

[ianhind]

Used to be easier to tell when they didn't wipe out so much of the user name. In those days, I checked on the buying history of one of the bidders - lo and behold he frequently ended up buying stuff from the seller. And it also happened the other way round. And both lived in the same town! E-bay dealt with them.

These days I just shrug if it goes past my maximum bid, even though it's disappointing to lose by £1.

Ian

[Archer]

Ian, I don't think that anyone was really pushing the price up to get me to pay more. It was more a case of someone with too much money to spend and a VC10 fascination using an auction sniping system. For some items I'm willing to pay a bit more, but in this case it was information about the navigation equipment on a Super VC10 from Decca and Ferranti. A small booklet, A5 size, maximum of 20 pages, and the buyer ended up paying almost 50 pounds for it. That is a bit too steep for me, although for my website I was really interested in that information.

Anyway, Ebay can be a bit addictive, that's for sure. I've now promised myself not to be near the computer for those 'final moments' of the auction. I'll put in a bid which is the maximum I'm willing to pay and wait it out. Sitting there with seconds to go trying to get another bid in and seeing that fail as well is not conductive to my state of well-being.

[VC10]

On the other hand, I just might know where that performance manual ended up

Bugger I wanted it to complete the set of the FE's Tech Manual & the Ops Flying Manual. I can see I am going to recalibrate my spending limits