Featured History What is the point of outrageous asking prices for common vintage parts

Is it the same as with cars ? So the seller can tell the missus the ad is up but interest is low .
This is not a rant because what i am about to show involves two Model A Ford headlights, nothing special at all. Except they're not even model A but a local antique store selling them thinks so with their fantastic AI sales text saying special gl*** with Ford logo and import from Texas. The chrome is nice, wonder if they are replica.

They only want €800 for the pair and shipping extra which would'nt even be a tenner for the whole country. What you see are 1934 Ford headlights with curved gl*** .
btw, the Dutch Model A club founded in 1956 has more than 1000 members and headlights are a common sales item for no more than €200 for nice pairs. Here they are.

Anyone else come across outrageous priced items ?

 

See this all the time, uneducated folks search online and find the highest price they can for a similar item and put theirs up for the same.

Then there’s folk who just plain expect too much for things, there’s a guy who comes every year to the NSRA Supernats in England, hauls out the same stuff EVERY year and expects top dollar for it all. I see stuff in his junk that has been in and out of his van for 5yrs plus!!!!

 

Sometimes, people pay them.

 

Old rim don't know what car it goes to
$100
From Marketplace.

 

I think those lights are repro. Antique dealers are the worst, my mom was an antique dealer so I saw the inside workings of many of the dealers.

 

What is the point of outrageous asking prices for common vintage parts?

GREED! HRP

 

I hear this gripe over and over on the vintage bicycle forum. in both hobbies the knowledge we have is unique to a very small group of people in the grand scheme of things. a seller can always lower the price but it is difficult to raise it when the bargaining starts.
you guys would love my brother. he buys and sells antiques and junk and sets his price based on what he paid. never looks anything up. if he got a complete cherry 32 grille for 40 bucks and sold it for $100.00 he'd be happy with that. when he goes to the antique flea market all the other dealers come running with dollar signs in their eyes.

 

It seems to me that car parts at antique shops are mostly overpriced by quite a bit. But sometimes they are really cheap. Of course, they sell quickly when that happens.
I used to have a few pickers that would bring car stuff to me. Before the days of smart phones. If it was shiny and old they thought it was valuable. The funny thig was they thought Ford parts were worth the same as Packard and Cadillac. So sometimes the odd car stuff was cheap.

 

Hey - I know what I've got........ They don't want to leave anything on the table. If it doesn't sell they can drop the price until it does.
It's like the guys who put their pedestrian used cl***ic on the market for BIG money because they saw a Foose or Kendig build of the same car sell for 10-20 times what their POS is actually worth.

 

Scammers fishing for ****ers

 

Old Willys Jeep. Been on a old Ford drum, thats why the big centre hole is bent around the bolt holes.

 

I was at a yard sell a week ago nothing priced .there were some things I was interested in and asked about she had to google them to see what she wanted.she probably has all of it still

 

I was thinking Jeep or IH Scout. Thought about messaging the seller with what the wheel was from but figured why? They obviously think they are sitting on gold.

 

Right…..he doesn’t go home with the parts, made money, is happy…The next guy may load and unload for years and when he’s dead his kids will throw it away!

 

I remember years ago I’d go to the Monroe WA swap meet. Twice a year, Spring and Autumn. This one dumb*** had a set of “wings” for a ‘42 or ‘46 Chev trunk latch. $300 for both. After about the sixth year he still had them and wouldn’t budge on the price. I told the ******* I had been the only guy to ask about them and that he’d probably have them in his casket when he croaked.

I was PISSED off and I guess I looked it as I was looking at another area of the swap meet a younger guy asked why I was so grumpy looking. I explained the whole story and then he asked what the parts looked like. I looked down at his table and he had a set for $2.00! I asked if he’d take $10.00, paid him, and then went back to the old ******* to show off what I’d just bought and to gloat over the price!

 

I’m sure we have all seen this countless times. Just enquired if the seller would sell these tires separately from a modern quick change rear diff that was part of the package. She said no. Replied I was looking for tires for my vintage Ford wide-five rims. She had no clue what I was talking about so asked me to send her pics. I did, and never heard back. lol!

 

good job missing the point.

 

Don't Low Ball Me! I Know What I got?
Lol
I wish my junk was worth more....$$$
Of course my junk pretty junky.

 

To me, the point is that some people like to fish more than they like to actually sell parts. They can ask whatever they want to, but it's the market, rather than the seller, that has determined at what price a part actually changes hands.

 

On a purely selfish level I feel that a lot of folks that have a genuine p***ion or interest in the hobby end up priced out of it.

Particularly so in areas where these cars/parts aren’t in any way abundant eg UK/Euro/Aus

 

Being a wise guy I can't help myself. Pulling my swap meet Radio Flyer though the aisles people will sometimes ask me how much I paid for my part, say a Weiand crossram manifold. I just p***ed the manifold dude who is always there with the super high prices. I look at the guy and say $20. The look on their faces.....

 

This. Start high.
My buddy just bought an OT vehicle, is was listed for 7500, which is an excellent condition vehicle

he has it in his driveway now, at 5k.

So much easier to come down on price.

 

@34 GAZ
If interested & want to know if original or repo ask for pictures of
Stamping
inside
the reflector
Pic of rivets on inside
& bulb connection

 

About time for the old story about a guy with a carb he wanted X dollars for. A guy offers him an insane low ball offer of 2 bucks. The seller then takes out a hammer and bashes the **** out of it and says ":now it's worth 2 bucks" Feel free to insert any part and price to match this story which has been told in many different versions many times

 

My car needs a right front turn lens. A simple online search turns up 4 or 5 actual lens ads for my car, on the bay, with them in the $150 to $175 price range (each) on the first couple of pages. By the time you dig back 4-5 pages, the price range on the same lens number has dropped to between $50 and $65 each. Many people don't search 4-5 pages deep, they go 1-3 pages deep. I suspect they sell several more $150 lenses then they do $50 lenses. Most people buy them at what seems to be the going rate, without digging too deep, but there are probably a lot that think the $150 lens must be better then the $50 lens. They may, or may not be correct.

The Capitalist system we live under says its smart for a guy to buy the $50 lens, then turn around and sell it for $150. That is considered good business. If the items are selling at each price range, at what point does the profit range become outrageous?

 

We had a oldschool wrecking yard out in the boonies here and the old guy would also break the part if you lowballed him. He would also sneak arond a few car rows away and spy on you.

 

Sometimes I will have a look at an "Olde Antique Shoppe", and snoop out an old car or motorcycle part., usually in a display case with a little paper price tag. You can tell that they have been there a long time, I reckon that they think A- "it's old, so it must be rare" and B- " it's off an old car, so it must be rare and REALLY be worth some bucks". I'm not paying $70 for a set of Stovebolt points! When the shopkeeper sees you looking, and then offers to take it out of the case for you to look at it, and you tell them that you saw the price and politely tell them that's OK, leave it there, they get offended.! "Leave it there"....for another 10 years !

 

@gene-koning I noticed that too.

I put it to the ebay algorithms, this way as you stated people just buy the first thing they see and ebay makes more off that sell of 150.00 vs 50.00.

I always dig when buying on ebay, saved a lot of money that way. Also work my way thru the ones that take offers. I don't low ball but I either offer a reasonable going price for it by looking thru the "sold" items to see what the part is actually selling for or i offer what I would pay "tops" for it.

Somethings I buy because I want and other things I actually need.

But if I sell I'm usually in the middle of the "sold" prices. I list stuff to actually sell not just to show people what I own...

...

 

On one of my trips to Poulsbo, Wa that is an old seafaring town that still is home to a bunch of fishing boats but the old down town area next to the marina is a tourist area that has some the best donuts in the state and pretty good coffee across the street. We have been there with our boat several time and go in the car and there is a pretty decent car show every year. I walked into an antique shop once and there was a Harbor freight 45 Lb anvil with a 100 dollar plus price tag on it. I asked the guy why he wanted so much for that Harbor freight anvil that still sold new for 40 something dollars and he didn't seem to like the question very well.
I think that way too many people spent too much time watching pickers and think the prices that they quote are actual going prices.

 

They confuse the asking price for what it's actually worth. There needs to be a website with actual amounts of sold stuff.