Sjcm

Has an odd motor by the looks of it with a pole sticking out the back of the magnet?? Can't say I've seen a K's motor like that - all the ones I've seen are those puny things that the builder invariably doesn't bother with.

Yep, the chassis probably fell apart with mazak rot. Now me, I glued it back together and touch wood in 15 years it's got no worse, but then they knew how to make mazak rot back in the 50's. none of this modern cheap rubbish😉

Oh that's normal at least with mine. It's when they start glowing red and the knobs starts melting you need to be careful😉

Reminds me of my misspent youth. Back in the 1980's me and some friends decided to walk the Hampton branch to water orton in search of railway memorabilia. Of course we were blissfully unaware that the wooden bridges were gone, not to mention the M6. Don't think I've ever been so wet in my life, but I did find a Midland railway chair and also a milepost sign that we tried in vain to remove - hadn't occurred to us that tools would be required.😯

That, or eBay are now offering an AI feedback option

Just seen this gem on his feedback. Quite frankly, the seller represents a rare class of pro, whose passion for what he sells remains strongly at its core, along with the integrity and knowledge to accurately evaluate all that he sells according to the most principled—rather than opportunistic—of influences. Carrying some of the finest model trains, offering premier shipping, packing and speed, this business ranks among the loftiest competitors—of which there are few. paid 1,950 pounds. All I want for Christmas is his customer address list😂

Gostude has one for 400 so I'm guessing the seller clocked that listing and thinks his is a bargain. Schoolboy error of pricing your stuff on what the chissellers want, rather than what they actually sell for. to be fair at least the Gosmeister has decent photos Don't all bid at once

I probably would. He's said they're like new and in original boxes, so that covers you for not as described.

Interesting. Have to admit I thought there was more to PAT testing than a visual inspection so pretty useless for a controller on ebay. As I said earlier I use a H&M duette which must be 40+ plus years old. I use it because it seems to have more "oomph" with old motors than the modern stuff. I'm sure there is a modern equivalent but i don't fancy paying 100 pounds to find out. Funnily enough there is one on ebay atm, working but not checked and no proviso to get it checked in the listing and it's at 41 pounds, so you have to wonder would people pay 80 pounds for a tested re-conditioned one?

Oh it was just an experiment with a controller I got in a job lot from watching people repair old electrical stuff. I'm not insane enough to buy an old 60's controller to actually use or sell - anything before the 2000's could be iffy realistically.😉 but the fact remains anything electrical 2nd hand you sell makes you liable however new it is. A friend of mine got blown across the room by a modern plug transformer which was both scary and funny at the same time.

Yes, but isn't that the same with all electrical items? I have a working modern-ish Hornby r8250 controller. It's no use to me so I could sell it, but it's at least 10 years old so technically if I sold it and it blew up I would be liable presumably and I've seen one of those modern plug powerpacks go bang. On the plus side the components should be ok age-wise, on the other hand it's your typical made for pennies tat. The odds are better than a h & m duette but I use one of them everyday😂 A while back I fed an old controller through about about 3 safety cut-offs and left it for 8 hours and it worked fine, but I certainly wouldn't sell it. To be honest, the whole metal case aspect of the older controllers makes me twitchy.

My last buy before Christmas arrived yesterday, a Hornby Dublo 8f, a Kit built GWR railcar, a Hornby class 47 and a Triang DMU for the grand total of 42 pounds including postage. The motors work on all of them so for 10.50 a pop i'm quite happy with that.

It's a difficult one with controllers really. I have thought of having a go myself as they are simple things and once you change out any capacitors, resisters, failed wiring etc.. it should be safe, but I wouldn't trust myself to sell them even if I did the PAT course. Seems to be a grey area selling them, and I think I have sold a working one in the past, but with the proviso that they needed to be checked by a qualified electrician. Also, what is the cut-off for selling them? 5 years old? 10 years? If they have a CE mark? Plenty of "modern" electrics from the mid90's now have failing capacitors..

Yeah but even with the VAT added it's about 20 pounds cheaper than the cheapest one sold on ebay and seeing the cheapest are usually over 100 pounds so probably minimum 40 pounds cheaper. So for the sake of a missing buffer👍 The pricing is, as you say, bewildering from actual steals to stuff no-one sane would buy

Have to say the tyseley trainpack looks a bargain compared to ebay prices. The cheapest one on there went for 86 pounds. Odd that they would mark down something like that when they still sell broken tat at top prices

Whenever I see these knock-offs I always get the urge to form a charity and campaign for harsher sentences for doting granddads or banning the international trade in Thomas faces

Ah right. One of those sort of true, sort of urban myths that appear in those " 10 priceless things you could find in a carboot sale" internet lists along with a penny black and missing Faberge eggs😉

Could be wrong but the 1st edition was only printed in very small numbers because unknown new author...

Presuming he's buying them new they're 18 pounds, so the labour is 42 pounds. No idea how long it would take you to build one but even if you're an expert I would assume a bit of time and patience is required? Unless you can knock them out in a hour it's a lot of work for not much return.

Seems to be demand led. I had some tat on sale that I thought I'd get around 45 pounds for in total but made 75. On the buying side quite a few job lots I was following went miles over any sort of actual real value for the items - probably would have been cheaper to buy seperately. I've given up buying now till after christmas and concentrating on flogging the stuff I have.

I think Hattons has a different customer base than say Ebay. There are bargains on there usually down to their lack of checking the stuff, but the majority of buyers probably aren't the type searching for a bargain. If you want something, don't want the hassle of bidding on ebay and missing out, then paying 10-20+ pounds over the odds is fine if you have the money. They also have the time to leave their tat on there for months waiting for "that" customer. Plus you have their no quibble tat return service. Tbf, even on ebay the prices have noticeably jumped the last 2 weeks in the run up to christmas and I went to a small exhibition over the weekend and bargains were very thin on the ground in the stuff I was interested in.

What a nutter. Does he think people have an obligation to buy his stuff?

Ah, the Lady Di conversion😉

Got my latest landfill job lot yesterday, and after a quick examination I may have got lucky. Looking at the locos I should make 30 pounds minimum on ebay prices. There's also a load of wagons and coaches from 2 rail Hornby dublo/Triang to more modern Hornby lima stuff that should bring in another tenner. One thing I didn't factor in when I bid was the kit built crab because I couldn't see a tender, but low and behold it has one. I'm guessing it's a wills(?) . At some point it's met the floor hard as the cab roof is bent and broken but repairable. I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff so will keep this.

I doubt it. Thing is most people who have a niche interest tend to look eccentric to others whether that's trainspotting, collecting old records, repairing old tv's. I catch videos on all those subjects even though I have no interest in doing it myself. To go out in all weathers to video trains for a few hundred people takes time, commitment and an element of fanaticism that most people haven't got probably to the detriment of "normal" life. I'm sure even some of the model railway creators that I watch would be found hilarious by a casual viewer as they go into minute detail on how superb the lining is. Actually I've been sort of toying with the idea of doing a spoof on those unboxing videos you see, usually titled "Hornby/Bachmann ETC LET ME DOWN" where they get a broke/useless model for 300 pounds and then proceed to fix it