Sometimes you just get lucky on Ebay

Hey folks,

I got the kit in as promised (with shipping ins.) on the side of the box are 2 other kits that were released

L101 Steam cannon

http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/experiments/steamCannon/ArchimedesSteamCannon.html

L100 Movable Crain

I tried to find the kits but no luck as of yet, here is a link to an interesting site on old Leo.

http://www.lairweb.org.nz/leonardo/guns.html

Thats all good advice, and often the inflated shipping cost is a way for the seller to keep eBays commission, based on the selling price, low.

I use a service like Bidslammer which usually wins it for me. I mention this from time to time, if you are interested go look at their website. It bids once, right at the end, you don't have to be there, and it's not expensive, usually $ 1, or $ 0.50 if you buy your snipes in their occassional 2fer sales.

Oh, and use Paypal as much as you can- it offers you an extra layer of protection, plus I don't trust sellers who won't let you use it.

Hi MM,

That was my MAXIMUM Bid, so I would not have to keep bidding all day. I knew I was not going to be by a computer, so the automated bidding system would have continued to place a higher bid for ME until I hit my limit of $25.00.  I felt that it was worth that much to ME, so that was my limit.

There are several rules of thought or things that you may want to do when trying to win bids on eBay, I'll let you in on a few SECRETS, (Don't tell the rest of the BB )

If you find something you like, save it in your "favorites" so you can refer to it later. Then do a general search using a (*) Wild Card in the search string, this is in case someone listed theirs but spelled it wrong.  If you find more than one, compare prices and look for to see if there are any listed with BUY IT NOW, sometimes they don't know what the items are worth and are selling it lower than they should.  This can be a bargain, SOMETIMES, depending on condition.

NEXT read the sellers DETAILED FEED BACK,  if the seller has long history and is selling a lot of items he should be in good standing. Most complaints generate from NON PAYING BIDDERS, who like to bid, but never send in the money, I've had one or two like that over the years.  But if there are complaints against the SELLER for non shipment I may not bid.

NEXT, this is IMPORTANT!!! READ EVERY WORD OF THE listing and the shipping cost, sometimes they try to make a few extra bucks on shipping to offset the lower than normal price of the item.  (example) the "1 cent" items usually have retarded overpriced shipping charges. So you really are paying the correct price, but just THINK you got a bargain.  You can send the seller a question to explain any negative, or ask why so high a shipping charge, sometime they change the shipping price, if they don't respond, don't bid.

NEXT try not to place a bid early, figure out what date and time the auction will end and try to wait until the last 5-10 minutes, this keeps the price from bumping up if others are watching the item. Sometimes they may have a friend who is WORKING the bidding by placing a bid so you feel you need to bid more to make sure you win, that way they get the maximum amount, I think this is called "bid shilling". I was high bidder on an auction for a model, my $30 bid was matched by another. E-bay rules are that if two bids are matched then the first one is the winner.

If you decide to "buy it now" or win the bid, PRINT out the page so you have it in writing what you paid for, then when the item(s) arrive, CHECK what the shipping charge was or if they put shipping insurance.  If you read the ad I was required to buy the shipping insurance

"We ship via the USPS using Priority Mail plus Insurance for shipment with in the United States and United States Priority Mail International plus Insurance for all world wide shipments, but we reserve the right to switch to UPS for better service for odd size and or heavy weight packages. If you take issue with our shipping practices please do not purchase or bid on our items."

In my case it was only $1.85, but you can be sure that I will check to MAKE SURE THEY bought the insurance, ALso that they make it out to ME, NOT THEMSELVES if it gets lost.  if not I'll get the money back and maybe the item cost as they intentionaly misled!

Check out this link, click on my name for the item I've bought a few months ago (some hard to find antique hub caps for my 1960 GMC truck), click on the BIDS and see how many times K***i bidded, he put in a max bid and the Ebay bidding system placed the bid for him until he reached his LIMIT.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&viewitem=&item=330207586700

It's easier than you think and I hope this helps you find some SHIP MODELS!

the maximum you are prepared to pay. Big Jake got lucky here and only had to cough up $5,- which would seem an excellent price for a bit of model making nostalgia.

Julian

$5 is a real deal for a historic prototype boat. You said you put $25 in the bid, what's that for when the winning price was just $4.99? You got 5 boxes??

Now that you mention it I do remember that Civil War balloon - but I don't think I ever bought it. 

I do remember the two Hindenburgs.  As a matter of fact I have a Revell one in my stash.  It's on 1/720 scale, and one of these days (yeah, right) I'm going to build it and hang it over my Italeri/Revell 1/720 Graf Spee.  The Hindenburg is bigger.

It sticks in my mind that the AMT Hindenburg was bigger than the Revell one - but I'm not sure about that.  What I do remember about the AMT version was that it included an incredibly tiny DC-3 on the same scale.

I think the AMT one was released in conjunction with the movie, "The Hindenburg," which, according to the TV movies book I have in front of me, was released in 1975.  (The book rates it "Turkey."  I had a slightly higher opinion of it than that.)  The Revell one is much more recent; I think it was still in the Revell Germany catalog fairly recently.  Not a bad kit, though some of the small parts, such as the props, are rather blobby.

I'll try to do a review and a photo album.

I remember a Ornothopter? (sp) (spiral man powered helicopter) can't seem to find a pictures on the net now and The rotating 4 cross bow type weapon but that was a real item.  Also AMT put out a nice Civil War Ballon called the Intrepid, hat was a little different.  Anyone remember the Hindenburg both Revell and AMT punched that one out in the '70's.

Jake

I know there was a small series of these da Vinci inventions from AMT at about the time when I was working in a hobby shop (the late seventies).  I'm having trouble remembering what the others were.  I don't think I ever saw what was inside any of the boxes - and I have no idea where the molds originated.  In terms of subject matter they sure do have a European flavor, but for all I know maybe AMT actually was the originator.

That was a period of real turmoil in the plastic kit industry - when the pundits were predicting that the era of the American plastic model was just about over. The companies were trying all sorts of odd things in their effort to survive.  This was, for instance, when several of them were bringing out "diorama kits" (i.e., recycled old kits with vacformed or cardboard bases), vast numbers of "licensed" items that had little or nothing to do with reality (remember Revell's "Charlie's Angels Van"?), repackaging of foreign kits (AMT was selling Frog and Hasegawa kits for a while), "dumbed down" kits (remember the great Monogram "Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel"? Or the Revell Goodyear Blimp - complete with crayons to make your own illuminated signs?).  That da Vinci series, if I remember right, was one of AMT's entries into the "maybe we can come up with some new idea to attract new people into the hobby" sweepstakes.

Jake - when the kit arrives, please let us know.  I, for one, will be very interested to hear just what the contents of the box look like.