Small Scale Military Headquarters

FOV Tiger went for $175
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0318250805

It appears one guy kept jacking up the bids. Last year, I saw the FOV 1/18 Tiger at a local Target for $30 and passed on it because it looked too toy-like.
I wonder if he confused it with the 21st Century 1/18 Tiger.

that is ridiculous.

It's a nice toy for $30 but not worth much more. And i thought there was a recession on...where are people getting $175 to spend on a cheap toy tank model?

I was bidding on that but it aint worth 175

Hasn't eBay always been a home for a determined bidder to pay outrageous prices for something he/she really wants. Of course eBay has also been the home of shills bumping up prices for friends or co-workers with a bidding war.

I had one on a MC I was selling for my son. The bike was a low rider Harley that looked nice but was a dangerous rider. We figured it was worth about $1,000 (with my accurate description of problems riding that bike) and two local guys starting a bid war that brought the selling price up to $1,850. No sense in that but we were happy.

TTT

I'm suspicious every time I see the same bidder bid against himself and jacks up the price of a model from $5 to $100.

Recent Ebay prices seem to indicate a belief among bidders that the "end is near" for 1:18 scale and "buy now, don't wait."

I just watched a red-nose Me-109G-6 go for over $170. Holy pi$$!!!

dragon53 wrote:It appears one guy kept jacking up the bids. Last year, I saw the FOV 1/18 Tiger at a local Target for $30 and passed on it because it looked too toy-like.
I wonder if he confused it with the 21st Century 1/18 Tiger.

No
One of the bidders had a bot on the auction
everytime you bid it says you were outbid
I hate those things because you dont know where it ends and what the true price is on it
I did really want the tank but for that price I could get a RC one and probably will in the near future

Sounds like maybe he got a buddy to shill for him.

Dauntless wrote:Sounds like maybe he got a buddy to shill for him.

it could have been but his buddy now owns a 175 dollar tank

well, i forsee xd prices coming down in the next few months, not going up. Once word gets around about 21c's demise, many people are going to start losing interest in the hobby and start dumping their collections. That plus the economy and some people needing the cash should put a glut of 1/18 items on the market in the months ahead.

Many year from now these things will be going for a lot but for the next few years, excluding the short term where prices are spiking as we've seen, prices will tumble, imho.

usmcchet9296 wrote:No
One of the bidders had a bot on the auction
everytime you bid it says you were outbid
I hate those things because you dont know where it ends and what the true price is on it
I did really want the tank but for that price I could get a RC one and probably will in the near future

That's not a bot it's just the way that eBay proxy bidding works. If one bidder enters a fairly high max bid and you are bidding in increments eBay will continuosly bump his bid just a little higher than yours until you give up or until you have bid above his max bid. There are bidding bots but they are usually used to place a bid in the last few seconds of an auction. That type of bidding is called sniping.
http://ebay.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/gs_bids.htm

kduck wrote:

usmcchet9296 wrote:No
One of the bidders had a bot on the auction
everytime you bid it says you were outbid
I hate those things because you dont know where it ends and what the true price is on it
I did really want the tank but for that price I could get a RC one and probably will in the near future

That's not a bot it's just the way that eBay proxy bidding works. If one bidder enters a fairly high max bid and you are bidding in increments eBay will continuosly bump his bid just a little higher than yours until you give up or until you have bid above his max bid. There are bidding bots but they are usually used to place a bid in the last few seconds of an auction. That type of bidding is called sniping.
http://ebay.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/gs_bids.htm

That makes sense though I wish they wouldnt allow proxy bidding

I almost feel bad that that guy had to pay so much ... er well not really

I would not expect prices to "tumble" in the next few years, save the stuff that has been clearanced out by 21C. More than ever, planes that were readily available at essentially MSRP are going for collector money. 190s, 109Gs and P47s for example. Add to that the crazy Huey and Cobra prices, the rarity of the FJ, the elusiveness of the pioneerpanzerwagon, and you will see hefty prices for a lot of this stuff.

that was true while 1/18 scale was a going concern and new people were coming into the hobby and wanted to catch up on the things they've missed.

With 21c gone, this scale and hobby will stagnate, possibly for good....one new tank every couple of years from FOV or a new plane here and there from BBI or AT is not going to keep this hobby thriving. So new people won't be coming into the hobby and many who are in it will leave over the years to come. As these people leave, many will want to dump their collections to fund whatever new interests they've taken up.

Plus, crazy high prices, like now will cause many people to sell of their items, causing a glut of them to be available and thus driving prices down.

This is what i think will happen over the next several years. After that, then prices will start to rise again as these things become truely rare as many of them will be lost, destroyed etc.

I hope you're right Aferg.
Still missing a couple of pieces. I would like nothing better than to pay a fair price for some of it.

It's hard to say though if any of the Huey's, Cobra's, Spitfires will come down much though.

usmcchet9296 wrote:

Dauntless wrote:Sounds like maybe he got a buddy to shill for him.

it could have been but his buddy now owns a 175 dollar tank

He probably just drove the price up during a feeding frenzy, then bowed out when it got really high.
Something that ebay would have a hard time proving, at least the first time.