What would you do?

Hi Robert;

    I haven't sold a kit in years. I swap even with someone who is looking for mine IF he has what I am wanting. That way no money except postage is involved. I bought the kits with the thought in mind that I would build them when I retired.Hah!

 So It's set up if anything happens to where I cannot or I don't have a physical form anymore, That they go to Disabled Vets in the V.A facilities near me. And that's everything.Models,Glues, Paints and all the tools my Landlady cannot use.

When I was a young man stationed in Germany, I ran across an old hobby shop that had a bunch of motorized Japanese kits. The exchange rate was quite reasonable and I bought them all up. I did build a few of them and the rest followed me around from fort to fort.

One day I got a wild hair and decided to sell them. I probably made about a thousand dollars selling these kits that I paid around $50-75 for the lot of them. They were big with the Japanese collectors on eBay.

This is also the same shop that I discovered 1/35 scale armor kits by Tauro, an Italian company. They had the A7V and a Fiat copy of an FT-17. Interesting subjects, but the kits were very poorly engineered. I still have those two kits.

It doesn't bother me that some kits are OOP or overpriced on Ebay. There is this super awesome Delorean model kit that Eaglemoss offered in their once-a-week subscription magazines. I passed thinking it was a waste of time, and now when I see the finished product on YouTube, I want to die inside. I truly hope that kit starts again in South Africa. Retail works out to under $1000 USD, but if you missed the boat, don't worry! You can get all the parts unopened on Ebay.co.uk for a tidy $2700+ (the price of a real car, as someone pointed out).

Regarding that and a few other models I'm having a hard time either finding or finding cheap: it doesn't bother me because I do believe we'll be 3-d printing everything in a few years. I may be opening a can of worms, but I think 3-d printing shouldn't be dismissed the way Kodak dismissed the digital camera. I think the tech is only going to get better. I'm finding it hard to justify how these plastic model kit companies, awesome as they are, are going to survive in the next 10-20 years.

I sold some models a few years ago and wish I would not have done that.  I felt like I would not get around to them and I may never have.  The kits are hard to find now.  I will never sell another kit unless I have at least three of the same kit.

That's why I usually did my model shopping at local model shows.  People usually have more reasonable prices, no shipping and usually no taxes.  Too bad model shows will probably be a thing of the past.

Gary

I'm with GM. Generally speaking, there's so little money to be made reselling models that there's no point. I sell them when my interests change, but with shipping, packaging and the time it takes the "profit" is finite.

It's easy to get exited about what sellers are asking on the Bay, but a quick check of actual selling prices is worthwhile, especially now. eBay sales are slow and probably won't get much better until the economy improves.

Auction prices are iffy things.  People get into stupid bidding wars all the time and some people will bid to raise the price for the guy that outbid them.  I've seen stuff that averages $50 go for $90 - $100 as a one-off, so I would check the sold prices for the kit before committing to selling one.

That being said, even though I've got more kits in my stash than I can ever build, I'd look at a kit that skyrocketed in price as one to hold on to rather than sell.  I buy to build (in theory), so I would look at it as a kit to hold onto to build since the replacement cost would be prohibitive.  In the early 2000s my wife got me an Estes Space Shuttle model rocket at a thrift store for $2 (she's an enabler and a keeper).  I could easily have sold it for probably $50+ on an auction site at the time.  The built kit is sitting on my model shelf and will probably fly one day if I ever get to an area where I can easily launch rockets again.

Keep in mind too that unless the molds were destroyed or lost, there's always the chance that "rare" kit gets re-popped at some time in the future, driving down the price again.

Doug

I'm with stickpusher. If it holds some interest or facination for me, I would keep it. If its just another kit, out it goes. Many years ago I fell into the trap of hanging on to unbuilt kits, thinking one day they would be valuable. However, the reality was that newer and more accurate kits became available and no one wants the old junk. As for profiting from a sale, if I have no relationship with the puchaser, I have no problem, couldn't do it to a mate though.

Tosh

As they say, one mans garbage is another mans gold.  Anytime the word collectible comes out, it's only worth what the other person is willing to pay.    In the end, do what makes you feel fantastic!  Because that is what counts the most, your satisfaction my friend.

Your friend's, Toshi & Ezra

 

As they say, one mans garbage is another mans gold.  Anytime the word collectible comes out, it's only worth what the other person is willing to pay.    In the end, do what makes you feel fantastic!  Because that is what counts the most, your satisfaction my friend.

Your friend's, Toshi & Ezra

I believe that selling models for profit is silly.

Bought it for $ 4.00. Sold it for $ 20.

Wished I hadn't? Priceless.

Bought it for a reason- to build.

Buy it again. $ 20.

If you even could find it.

Bill

Bob,

I don’t think it a foolish purchase.  Finish the first model, then you have a intact unstarted kit in the correct box.  Win-win I think.

Then there is the opposite conundrum. You have a kit that you are building, one that you bought after a long search because it represents an important incident in your life. That's what I'm doing, building a Revell model of the hospital ship SS Hope as the USS Repose, on which I was a patient after being wounded in combat in Vietnam; both Hope and Repose were Haven-class ships. Then I found an unopened box of Revell's USS Haven, made from the same molds as Hope, for half the price I paid for the one I already had.

Should I have bought the Haven model? I didn't need it, but I wanted it, just in case I screw up the Hope model! So I bought it. Was that a foolish purchase? I really don't know, but I have it and I often imagine ways to avoid the mistakes I've made with the Hope model.

Bob   

If I truly want and plan to build it, I will hang onto the kit. And one day down the road, build that kit. If not, I’ll seriously consider selling it, or disposing of it some other way.

An intetesting coincidence!  I was looking to thin the stash, and wondered what I could get for the Bandai 1/35 Batman Tumbler.  I was shocked to see FleaBay prices around $125, over 3X the MSRP.  That is just nuts.

So I wondered if I should try to hock it off at a slightly lower price.  BUT!  You still gotta find someone desperate enough to cough up $100 for a tiny model.  That’s the reality of it.

    I think I would sell the kit. I personally would not try to profit from it as " sentimental value" really doesn't have a price.