Random thoughts

From ChapmanCentral

eBay

I've bought a fair bit of railway stuff from eBay; I guess my experience is pretty typical, mostly OK but one or two disappointments. At the moment my guidelines for eBay are:

• Never pay more than half the new price for anything, however good.
• Always check the P&P charges.
• Check the axle type - needle or straight-through. The latter are hopeless and should be avoided on any current layout unless you really need that specific item.
• Never buy engines. I tried it, they were all crap for one reason or another. All have had the old thick wheel profile, which runs less well on modern track and points, and none have had good motors - they have sparked, smoked, stalled, had worn brushes or whatever.
• Avoid buying in lots of one. Trucks in lots of five or more and coaches in three or more gives better value for P&P, and usually lower average price.
• When you decide on your maximum price, never exceed it - lose the items. If you win most items on which you bid, then you are almost certainly paying too much.
• Beware the car boot sale wonders. Look for pictures of the items on a layout, and ask if they have been run by the seller.
• Ask if the item has been modified in any way. I recently bought a Gresley teak coach that had a Mk II bogie on it. It runs OK, but is useless in practice for obvious reasons. This was unexpected, so one to add to the lessons learned.
• Ask about anything that is not 100% crystal clear in the description. Especially double-check the manufacturer; Hornby is not Tri-Ang Hornby. If possible get the approximate date of manufacture.
• Be prepared to do some work. I expect to junk one in three trucks and re-wheel everything. I still spend a fraction of what it would all cost new; it may not look great but the play value is there.
• If you are at all dissatisfied, email the seller straight away. No eBay seller wants bad feedback, many will bend over backwards to please.
• DO NOT assume that if you don't like the thing, you can sell it on. You will probably make a loss, if you can sell it at all. Buy only what you know you want.
• Second-hand points require extensive cleaning and testing before they can be re-used, if you buy them, make sure they are no more than half of the new price, preferably much less.
• Weathering is hard to do well. If the item is weathered then you need to look doubly hard at the quality of the work.

There are definitely bargains to be had. A set of 50 small files, of which easily 20 are really useful, cost me £5. I bought many trucks at an average of only just over £1 each - by the time they are re-wheeled and the duff ones thrown out I'm still only averaging £2 per truck, a lot cheaper than new.

As a rule, I avoid the eBay shops where everything is at "but it now" pricing with no auction. If I want to buy something from an online shop, then I will buy it from a proper one, preferably with a bricks-and-mortar back end. About the only things I buy at fixed price via eBay are Linka and RailZip, because both are otherwise hard to come by in the UK.

There are many absurdities on eBay. I have seen second-hand items change hands for more than the new price on many occasions. People have paid small fortunes for rare stuff only for the manufacturer to release a new batch (the Bachmann NRM Deltic DP1 springs to mind here). You have less protection and less comeback than with a shop, so the old adage "never gamble more than you can afford to lose" applies.

Never assume that you are seeing what you want to see. If there are two versions of something, one good and one indifferent, always assume it's the indifferent one - or a third truly terrible version of which you were previously unaware. The more you bid, the more sceptical you should be.

And if you get a bargain and it's a great model, then well done!

Safety

Use a complex password, and use a different one for PayPal. If possible get a second credit card with a low credit limit just for internet and PayPal especially. Change your PayPal password periodically. Report anything suspicious, and absolutely never click through any email purporting to come from PayPal or eBay without first double-checking that it is what it seems. I do not display HTML email, I display all email as text only, so phishing is blindingly obvious.

Cognitive dissonance

I've been reading a book called Mistakes were made - but not by us! which deals with the concept of cognitive dissonance. It's very thought-provoking, and it challenges my preconceptions. I like to think that I am open-minded but not to the point that my brains fall out. I have been persuaded on many occasions to change my views, even when I have previously been outspoken on one point of view. Much less often, I have been persuaded to change back. I'm lucky that my circle of trusted friends includes many who are less passionate than I am in speaking for what I know. John Franklin, for example, ensures that I remain solidly pragmatic on matters of cycle safety. I can see why he is in demand as an expert witness: he is calm, thoughtful and thus persuasive. And he, much better than me, makes space for doubt in his assessment of matters. I can learn from this. JzG 23:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)