Can't get rid of my old parts

[Desoto291hemi]

When I lived back in Missouri, I took a bunch of good Mopar parts to a general swap in, I think it was Lincoln, maybe Omaha. I took a piece pf PVC and a concrete block and had a MOPAR flag. It was 99% GM as always. MY first time to do such. It was funny to look across the crowd and see a guy see that flag and haul buggy toward me! This went on all afternoon and I sold everything, but my prices were always very fair.
Back decades ago, when I hauled parts to Mopar Nats, I sold out but again I was cheaper than anyone and had good parts.

This right here .

If you have good parts at a fair price,,and the guys can find you ,,,you will sell a lot of stuff .

And back on an earlier post .
I buy stuff and pay shipping all the time .
I have never balked at paying,,,a fair shipping price .
Once a guy was selling me a crank .
The shipping was more than the crank,,,,that’s impossible .

And I have purchased parts and paid the shipping .
And then the package arrives with the shipping label marked several dollars less than I was charged .

It all goes back to being fair .

Tommy

 

[Cranky]

Another problem I've had no matter how I advertise something I want to sell is ""I'm too far" or "you're way out there"? I'm about an hour south of Chicago, when CL was big I'm in the middle, in the fringe of 3 maybe 4 CL listing areas, but not really"part of" any of them.
When is list CL would come back with "you're part of the Chicago listing area, you sure you want to list "here"? Yet what I did sell was out of these other listings areas more than Chicago.
Yet when I was looking to buy I'd have to make the road trip to wherever, whatever I was buying, was. Sellers were never "headed my way", they wouldn't meet me part way, etc but buyers weren't interested unless I trucked whatever It was right to their driveway. And that was with them not having a clue as to whether or not I had the capacity to do so..
I have a bunch of Mopar stuff that should go, not selling any of my truck stuff until my truck is completed, I've done that before and then had to go re buy parts at much higher than what I sold what I had, for. I have an F body (volare) in my garage that's been apart for too long and I haven't touched, that I probably should start trying to advertise. I'm still in the "I'll get to it" phase but it's become a storage rack. I still occasionally buy something for it but I haven't worked on it in. Too long. I'm onto my d250 and am currently pushing hard for that one to be done.

"

CL is crap here now but might be better for cars and advertised right? I get guys that want to meet but I don't do that unless I need to go in that direction but, now that I'm headed for 75 soon...I'm not interested in getting on the Houston area freeways. And I don't know if you remember me talking about my 66 Belvedere 2dr sedan but it now sits outside of the shop....

When I lived back in Missouri, I took a bunch of good Mopar parts to a general swap in, I think it was Lincoln, maybe Omaha. I took a piece pf PVC and a concrete block and had a MOPAR flag. It was 99% GM as always. MY first time to do such. It was funny to look across the crowd and see a guy see that flag and haul buggy toward me! This went on all afternoon and I sold everything, but my prices were always very fair.
Back decades ago, when I hauled parts to Mopar Nats, I sold out but again I was cheaper than anyone and had good parts.

When I was doing the swap meet deal, I usually showed up just a little bit on the late side and there would be guys waiting on me to arrive lol and always did pretty good even though Houston is NOT a Mopar town at all but Dallas was much better. Do you remember the Dallas Mopar site? IIRC, it came on line shortly after Moparts did and Moparts did their best to take them out. Can't remember the name of the guy that owned the Dallas site but he wasn't willing to fight them. I was!! In the early days Moparts was run by a group of aholes.

This right here .

If you have good parts at a fair price,,and the guys can find you ,,,you will sell a lot of stuff .

And back on an earlier post .
I buy stuff and pay shipping all the time .
I have never balked at paying,,,a fair shipping price .
Once a guy was selling me a crank .
The shipping was more than the crank,,,,that’s impossible .

And I have purchased parts and paid the shipping .
And then the package arrives with the shipping label marked several dollars less than I was charged .

It all goes back to being fair .

Tommy

I try to use the 'if it fits, it ships' boxes which are good going to ALL 50 states but, shipping a crank ain't cheap especially these days plus none of their IIFIS boxes are big enough. Can't remember what a 440 crank weighs but it's not light!!! 80 lbs?? AI crap says 68 to 70 but I'm thinking that's a cast crank. Never weighed one of them though.

 

[Desoto291hemi]

The crank I was talking about was a SBC crank,,,and the shipping was 250 bucks .
This was 10 years ago .
I have bought several cranks and never paid anywhere near that .
Lol .

Many times the seller wants to over value the insurance and that will really raise the costs a fair bit .
I still have a wooden crate that one guy sent me a crank in .
It was an awesome package job and a fair cost .

Tommy

 

[Cranky]

The crank I was talking about was a SBC crank,,,and the shipping was 250 bucks .
This was 10 years ago .
I have bought several cranks and never paid anywhere near that .
Lol .

Many times the seller wants to over value the insurance and that will really raise the costs a fair bit .
I still have a wooden crate that one guy sent me a crank in .
It was an awesome package job and a fair cost .

Tommy

I've shipped a couple of 440 cranks over the years in a wood box covered with cardboard (the cardboard cover makes it cheaper) and don't remember shipping being anywhere that high!! That's nuts! And well, do ya really need insurance on a used crank?? I usually ask the buyer if they want it on stuff like that....and go from there.

 

[barbee6043]

USPS insurance is cheap, but where they can get ya is measuring a box that is a little "oversize".
I can get parts off FeeBay shipped cheap because they are "commercial" shippers and some want to sell and not lose the sale! But you can't to watch them all!!
@Cranky. I did not pursue that 66 Bel as I had sold all my Mopar engines/trans plus I will be 78 in a few weeks and I have health issues building cars anymore, just need to finish the two I have or "sell them". (Yea me, good luck with that!)

 

[Bob Jasinski]

I have lots of HO stuff.

Rusty,

I have a lot of HO scale stuff, I've been into HO since I was 10, and have a shelf layout. I've had good luck selling items I no longer need on eBay. Pretty much everything I have listed sold in one listing period. A good strategy is to do an auction (as opposed to buy now) start with a low start bid and good pictures. You may not get as much as you think its worth, but its gets good exposure and generally there's several bidders at the end.

 

[RustyRatRod]

Rusty,

I have a lot of HO scale stuff, I've been into HO since I was 10, and have a shelf layout. I've had good luck selling items I no longer need on eBay. Pretty much everything I have listed sold in one listing period. A good strategy is to do an auction (as opposed to buy now) start with a low start bid and good pictures. You may not get as much as you think its worth, but its gets good exposure and generally there's several bidders at the end.

Oh I know all this stuff isn't worth much at all. It's all 70s and 80s stuff. Although some is new, still not worth a lot. I do have a couple of new Proto 2000 HO locomotives new int he boxes that are worth "some". But being only dcc ready and not dcc equipped, even they aren't worth a ton. I may put everything on ebay in auction form and start it off at $1. That'd be better than chunkin it all.

 

[Bob Jasinski]

Oh I know all this stuff isn't worth much at all. It's all 70s and 80s stuff. Although some is new, still not worth a lot. I do have a couple of new Proto 2000 HO locomotives new int he boxes that are worth "some". But being only dcc ready and not dcc equipped, even they aren't worth a ton. I may put everything on ebay in auction form and start it off at $1. That'd be better than chunkin it all.

All Proto 2000 are desirable, you can easily ad DCC with sound to them. Go to eBay and type in what you have, that'll give you an idea of values. I have several Proto 2000 locos and love them for the quality and detail.

 

[Jim Kueneman]

All Proto 2000 are desirable, you can easily ad DCC with sound to them. Go to eBay and type in what you have, that'll give you an idea of values. I have several Proto 2000 locos and love them for the quality and detail.

Anyone interested in a set of D&H PAs in HO?

 

[Woody500]

You need to pay someone to haul it off... Through the years I've given away a lot more than I've sold... Funny, when I need it nobody seems to be in a generous mood... Actually that's not true, some folks have been very generous.... I tend to give a lot of stuff to younger guys & friends... Every time I try to sell something someone makes such a low ball offer that I'm inclined to destroy the part in front of them outta spite..

I had a Boatshop repairing wood boats, and had been buying chrome, engines and parts for many years before that & parting out trashed Chris-Crafts and others. I ended up owning almost 30 engines, and around 2000 pieces of chrome, flagpoles and other miscellaneous parts.
I started going to large Boatshows, like in Mt Dora Florida in 2003. The first year I sold $1800 in parts in 2-3 days and people were smiling and happy to get the parts they needed. Sold less 2nd year & people started saying I was asking too much, so one year I took a hammer to a part from an old wood boat in front of the guy , and then told him he could have it for the price he offered.
By the 4th or 5th yr we decided to quit taking parts & just went down to enjoy the show & vacation.
After having a heart attack in 2012 made a deal with an east coast boat shop for most all my parts & remaining boats where they were to restore one boat for me as payment. They also got tools lumber & more after I closed my shop.
I'm still waiting on my boat to be restored. It's been 14 years since deal was made.

 

[1WildRT]

I had a Boatshop repairing wood boats, and had been buying chrome, engines and parts for many years before that & parting out trashed Chris-Crafts and others. I ended up owning almost 30 engines, and around 2000 pieces of chrome, flagpoles and other miscellaneous parts.
I started going to large Boatshows, like in Mt Dora Florida in 2003. The first year I sold $1800 in parts in 2-3 days and people were smiling and happy to get the parts they needed. Sold less 2nd year & people started saying I was asking too much, so one year I took a hammer to a part from an old wood boat in front of the guy , and then told him he could have it for the price he offered.
By the 4th or 5th yr we decided to quit taking parts & just went down to enjoy the show & vacation.
After having a heart attack in 2012 made a deal with an east coast boat shop for most all my parts & remaining boats where they were to restore one boat for me as payment. They also got tools lumber & more after I closed my shop.
I'm still waiting on my boat to be restored. It's been 14 years since deal was made.

People Suck....

 

[rmchrgr]

Like everything in modern life, selling parts is not the same as it was however many years ago. I usually do OK vending at Carlisle but that's a bit of a unique situation where people are (mostly) looking to buy. I bring things I believe people will be interested in and price them to sell. I often end up giving stuff away for pennies on the dollar but I'm just happy if I don't have to bring stuff back home.

I laugh when I see a part I sold being flipped with an asking price of double what I let it go for. You're gonna hold on to that for a bit there, Chief. It's been this way for a while now. I still have plenty of parts to sell but in some instances its not worth the effort of loading my truck up with stuff that I know I'll be bringing home.

There's parts and cars on my local Craigslist that have literally been advertised for sale for 20 years. No joke - a friend of a friend just sold a car last fall that had been advertised on CL since at least 2005. Who knows if the other parts were ever moved but the same ads often still pop up with new dates so presumably not. Ebay is similar.

Anything that's actually worth something usually gets bought and sold through private transactions. If you're just trying to sell random parts that you have laying around it's an uphill battle.

What's really frustrating is when you hold on to stuff for years that you literally can't give away but if/when you go to scrap it then you're the worst person in the world and you're killing the hobby.

Can't win either way.

 

[1MeanA]

We don't even a have a swap meet in our city of 1.2M people. The nearest one happens twice a year and is 2 hours away. Typically there are a couple of Mopar tables with overpriced stuff. I don't have hoard of parts and couldn't make a go of it anyway. On another forum where I have non Mopar parts listings of a greater value I am trying the Dutch auction approach. I might end up giving away some stuff with questionable demand but that's ok.

 

[Killer6]

When my MIL had to go into assisted living, my wife and I cleaned out the house. She had enough stuff to fill THREE houses like the one she had and it was nearly 3000 sf! I won't go into detail but she had enough magazines to fill up the bed of my Dakota 4 times and I'm not talking about a flat load. I heaped them up and drove slow to the recycle dumpster at the library so none of them would blow off. Just glad it was close. On top of that, she was a 4 pack a day burner. One day I counted 3 cigs burning in different rooms....hated going into that house! Got a storage building for the excess because NONE of that smokey stuff was coming into my shop.

F○○k that, I'd have built a burn pit the shape of an ashtray, & let it all burn.........