Ebay and custom weathered rolling stock

[iis612]

With my current financial state, and the construction delay, I am thinking about selling custom weathered rolling stock on eBay. I have looked at eBay for some examples, and what the market is like.
However, that is not really a fair representation of the demographic. I know that alot of folks here avoid eBay like the plague, but for those that frequent eBay, would you pay a bit more for a nicely weathered car?

Matt

 

[nachoman]

It's ahrd to say whether it would be worth your time. But, the investment is small. Try selling half a dozen or so and see what happens. If they don't sell, at least you did not invest very much.

Kevin

 

[MasonJar]

My advice would to be aware of the level that your work has to be at in order to compete for the "big bucks". There's the "modeltrainsweathered" group, guys like Jim Six, and others who can seemingly command whatever price they like - sometimes even 10x the original, non-weathered price.

If you can compete in this arena, then you have a chance of making a go of it. If not, you'll be lucky to recoup your investment in time and money.

Andrew

 

[platypus1217]

Personally I would not pay extra on eBay for weathering. I normally look for bargains and then put the time in detailing it myself. But there may be people who would.

I think I saw someone once offering a "weathering service" on there a while ago. Basically you would send them a car, they would weather it and return it to you. That would avoid the overhead of having an inventory of cars and finding what type of car and era are popular.

Good luck with your venture!

 

[Squidbait]

I second Andrew's point. Unless you've got world-class results, and you're well known, you'll be lucky to get your cost back on anything you sell on E-bay. You'd be better off to put it on consignment in a LHS, but even there, you'll have to find the right person. If it's only average work, you're only going to get an average price.

Most people aren't impressed by custom painting or weathering, have no idea how much work goes into it, and can't see why they should have to pay extra for something that's not as crisp and shiny as the new-in-the-box ones.

 

[jbaakko]

I'd pay more, but it had to be a GOOD example, not just a simple weathering job.