Has anyone noticed the prices on EBay lately? They are really low. I just sold a Caltar-S II f6.8 360mm lens for $399, and that was the third listing. I paid over $700 for that silly lens a few years ago. There are many other examples.
Has anyone noticed the prices on EBay lately? They are really low. I just sold a Caltar-S II f6.8 360mm lens for $399, and that was the third listing. I paid over $700 for that silly lens a few years ago. There are many other examples.
And a week or two ago somebody paid over $200 for less then half a speed graphic. Just the rear back with no glass. No bellows. Nothing.
Ebay has been funny lately...it has turned into a buyers market now.
I think the current economic situation has something to do with it, as well as EBAY no longer being a "new" thing anymore.
People have realized, that 95% items will show up again and have stopped bidding like there is one left in the world.
But as with anything, it is how you go about it....I routinely start my auctions at $1.00, take nice pictures and spell everything out in my auctions. 90% of the time, my end prices are equal to or higer than the "norm" prices on ebay. In some cases I acutally make a profit. I bought one lens for $225.00 used it for 2 years and sold it for $290.00.
In my 4 years of EBAYING, I have noticed one thing....take two identical items, start one at $1.00 (with no reserve) and the other at $400.00 and most of the time the $1.00 item will end at $550.55, and the $400.00 item will end at $410.77, or have no bids. I think it is a psycological thing, the early bidders feel "they are getting a deal" and the late bidders take notice at something that has 23 bids, instead of 2.
There really is a skill to it, knowing what day to end on, what time to end on...these are things you must take into account. Little things like that make the difference between getting $399 and getting $575.
Yeah but sometimes things just do not make sense, which is part of the fun. I got me an x rite 369 for $89, now the 361T which is the one Herbst mentioned in his article is always going for upwards of $400 and is the same thing as the 369. Go figure....
James is right about starting with a low price and no reserve. Plus eBay takes a huge charge for the reserve auctions. My experience is that if you do nice pictures and a "full disclosure," informative description, you'll almost always come out ahead. The problem is buying from people who decribe everything as "minty" with vague descriptions and photos. Also, I start auctions on Thursday nights for ten days so that they end on a Sunday evening around 10pm EST. That gives them two weekends of exposure. I copied most of this from dagor77 - except I can't write as well as he does - but if you put some effort into your listings it does pay off. I sold a banged up 360 Symmar for $650 to a European this summer.
Not sure about the US, but at the moment, the prices on UK Ebay are silly. Many items are selling for more than you pay for them in a dealers, which is daft. When bidding, I usually set my limit at around 2/3 rds of what I would expect to pay in the dealers, and with the exception of a 6x9 back I bought in March, all the items I've bid on this year went way beyond my limit. All but one item went for more than the typical dealer price. Until things settle down, I've stopped buying on Ebay.
Steve
www.landscapesofwales.co.uk
I agree about starting at $1 but I don't understand coupling that with no reserve. That seems a little risky. Is there some way besides fake bidding to make sure the item doesn't sell for almost nothing if you start with $1 and have no reserve?
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
Steve is right about the U.K.E-Bay. 5x4 filmholders are fetching silly prices. They are far cheaper at camera fairs for those of us who can get to them. The same applies to most other items.Pete.
I agree about starting at $1 but I don't understand coupling that with no reserve. That seems a little risky. Is there some way besides fake bidding to make sure the item doesn't sell for almost nothing if you start with $1 and have no reserve?
Brian, you have to do your homework....putting up a Linhof at $1.00 and no reserve is not risky....within 2 days it will have 17 bids and be up to $333.57.
Putting something with a more "limited" demand up for a $1.00 may be a little more on the risky side. If you put up a Plaubel 4x5...you will run the risk of getting $125.00 for it.
Properly research an item before selling it (research it on ebay, not seller sites) and you will have an idea what it will go for. Certain items, will go for big money (relatively speaking), I have been selling a large stock of old (not super old) instruction manuals for mainly 35mm cameras on EBAY lately. The real thing pops up so infrequently, that i was selling these damn things in the $40-$75 range!!!
The real strategy, lies in deciding when to put something up. (and this also goes for buying to) A few months ago a pamphlet called "Linhof Data Sheets" popped up on EBAY. I loved the design, and watched it get bid up to $117.00!!! This is PAPER!!! Within two weeks, there were five of them posted- the sellers who had them thought they could get $117.00 and the market was flooded with them. I picked one up the other day for $15. An esoteric item such as the above...will usually get big money the first or second time around...then cool off. Something like a Linhof 4x5 tech IV, will almost always go for $500-$1300 depending on the condition. Even if you start at $0.01 with no reserve. Something like used 4x5 film holders....set a reserve or just let market value take over. I am a fan of the "true" auction style. I started a P2 at $1.00 with no reserve....and just watched it go up and up with absolutly no fear.
On the other hand, I just watched a Voigtländer Apo-Lanthar 210mm/f:4.5 go for 636 Euro. You could buy a new, better lens for that!
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