Ebay Prices Gone Nuts

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

I watch Ebay quite a bit, looking for very specific hand tools, primarily planes, that I have been looking for.

Lately it seems that the prices are going a lot higher, and have been for a while, even compared to a year ago. Does anyone know what gives?

I am a fly fisherman, and I know that the movie "a river runs through it" made fly fishing a lot more popular..........for a while, until folks began to figure out that it wasn't nearly as easy as the movie made it look, then you started to see a lot more fly fishing and fly tying stuff for sale on Ebay. Fly tying isn't as easy as they thought either.

Is this being driven by collectors, or are there a lot more hand tool users than I think? Is hand tool woodworking becoming much more popular right now? Driven by retiring baby boomers? I think that they will find that it isn't as easy as it looks on Youtube or the TV shows either.

One trend I do see is a lot of "buy it now" offerings that are totaly out of reason, price wise. I don't think that they will sell any time soon for those prices.

Any thoughts?

Stew

[Keith Pleas]

Haven't looked at tools, but I'm quite familiar with eBay trends. Some of this is seasonal. Lots of folks are coming out of hibernation and thinking of projects to do.

The BIN is complicated. Sure there are WTF prices - but some of them are artificially high to set expectations. Then they come in with something that is 1/2 WTF and someone snaps it up as a bargain.

[Jim Davis]

Handsaws have taken the same price jump. I think some of the upper income folks have taken an interest in hand woodworking tools. Saws that used to go for $25 now go for $75 to $125. Just glad I got my saws 20 years ago, for the most part.

[Reinis Kanders]

Does seem that prices are higher. Even crappy looking chisels. I just bought some Berg chisels because I like how thin they are, they were in pretty bad condition (rounded lands, someone basically wire wheeled them), still they went for about $20 each, Bergs in better shape seem to go for $35. I was able to quickly fix-up my chisels because I have the right tools for that, and they are fine users, but still seems that they should have been less than $10 each.

[Chuck Hart]

I had been looking for a rip saw. I watched prices for $40 rip saws go up to &125. Put a little shine on one and they go for $80. I think certain things are going up. Planes are diving

[Jim Matthews]

If you're looking for a quality rip saw, buy from Mike Allen right here in the Creek.

If you're wondering why prices climb on eBay - look at the money supply versus mutual fund performance.
It's the latest 'Beanie Baby' craze that always ends the same way - a glut followed by price corrections.

It makes no sense to put these high dollar values on mass produced items from an industrial era -
they're not scarce. While there may be intrinsic value in a useful tool, rarity isn't part of their value.

[Brian Holcombe]

Russell Jennings bits seem about 2-4x what they were from posts that refer to them in years recently past. I paid $80 for a set that I honestly think was worth about $25, but unfortunately it's easy to hide ugly cutting edges with photos. To get a really pristine set I'm looking at $300-$400....which is about the same as a newly manufactured set.....so yeah the prices are higher then I think they really should be.

I think with similar things that it is only volumes that have been suffering, fewer people are willing to sell at a loss or small gain, instead they would prefer to wait out the market and sell fewer pieces. I think that because the high end pieces do not seem to move very quickly at all.

[george wilson]

Some of these ebay sellers seem like they are trying to retire on what they can get for some old piece of junk!!

[Robert Norman]

To add my over valued .02: A friend of the family runs an antique shop in Katy and had a Millers Falls 4 1/2 and an old panel saw w/ a Disston medallion both in such sad shape I ignored them and both priced around $60 each.
They each sold within 3 weeks to foot traffic after I told him I thought the prices high by a factor of 10.

[Mike Brady]

Ebay has fundamentally changed the way antiques are sold. One of the effects has been to make items such as tools appear to be more scarce then they really are. They are more scarce in antiques shops, because antique dealers now use eBay to sell those types of items. There is a long-standing belief among dealers that iron and glass don't mix well in a shop environment, so they sell of the iron items on the Bay. We all know folks sometimes tend to overpay there, but those aberrations don't necessarily raise the category values. Truly rare items hold value no matter how or where they are sold.

I agree that saws have taken off in values and sales. I'm not sure that means that antique tools are on the rise in general. Plane prices are flat and have been for many years. Actually, tool prices were higher in the 90's than they are now. If you doubt that, look at the John Walters guide to Stanley tool values. My copy is from 1996 and I think it was the last edition. I wish I could sell for those prices today.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

There are still deals to be found, but certainly prices have gone up. I think the popularity of eBay has simply put more bidders out there, even for speciatly things like fine woodworking tools. Lie-Nielsen and Veritas tools go for only a few $ less than new ones. It does seem to come and go, however, and sometimes the buy it now's are the real deals. I just bought a brand new Chosera 10k for $200, and saved a ton on other grits of Chosera stones. I got a super buy on a LN 97/98 set and a No.2 bronze. Those were all buy-it-now, and you have to pull the trigger fast.

Lately I have found the most deals here on SMC!!!

[Jim Koepke]

In the past ebay was something watched regularly. Now it is occasionally. This time of year seems to always boost the prices. Between Christmas money and the tools not "under the tree" to the tax refunds driving a lot of people to buy, the prices tend to go up for a while.

ebay is no longer the market place where it is easy for the average person to sell a few spare items found when cleaning out a garage. They seem to take a big bite out of every sale making the seller ask more to start.

jtk

[Mel Miller]

I've bought and sold on Ebay for many years. Prices can fluctuate wildly from week to week nowdays. I think this is the main reason many sellers list items at "Buy It Now" to make sure their item won't take a dump and sell too cheap.
Used to be, I would start everything at $9.99 and let it run, knowing the ones worth a couple of hundred would get bid up to that amount. Sometimes it would appear bidders got caught up in the bidding frenzy on an item that started way under the money and end up paying way over what I had expected.
Now, I start my listings at the lowest I would sell the item for and hope for a few more bids, or a BIN that would make me happy to try to catch the impulse buyers.
Ebay fees run ~15%, but where else are you going to get that kind of exposure for 15%? Craigslist certainly doesn't get that kind of exposure and I only use it for items that are big and too expensive to ship. I've sold things all over the world thru Ebay.

[Marinus Loewensteijn]

I'm new here, been lurking for the past year or so. In my view it is a combination of things and not a simple cause. In my case we moved into a lifestyle village just over two years ago. At the time there were only four dwellings and when we moved into ours the nearest was about 75 yards away so I happily used a router and skill saw. But now with neighbors 15 yards away I cannot do this anymore and had to go "silent" which means hand tools. All my power tools went to the son-in-law who lives 580 kilometer away so no quick visit over to do something.

With our population of around 4.3 Million people over the whole of New Zealand there is not a great choice for hand tools of high quality so one resorts to using the internet and searching for quality used ones. There is a younger generation who is unemployed, or mothers at home, who think they can make a nice extra income by going to local "garage sales" (people selling stuff off from their garage on a Saturday morning, often when someone passed away) but who have not got a clue about what they are selling. "In perfect condition, just needs a bit of TLC" and you look at the picture and under the dirt you can see a deeply pitted and rusted #4 plane of unknown brand and they think they can get 60 USD equivalent for it, sometimes it is "rare" and they want 100 - 120 USD equivalent for it.

It does not help that over the past few years there was not a large choice of good stuff available outside Lie Nielsen or Veritas and with Stanley quality not being what it once was, well it does not help. And there is quite a lot of people finding themselves in the same spot - lifestyle and retirement villages are something that have really come into vogue in this country over the past 10 years. And some of this stuff is expensive to ship from overseas. However I feel things are going to change quickly once people realize that the Chinese are starting to make decent stuff at prices marginally higher than this clapped out second hand stuff.

I remember the days that I thought that anything coming out of Japan was junk but later it was regarded as quality. The new Chinese made Wood River V3 planes are getting quite respectable. For me it is an affordable alternative to the niche market manufacturers.

In my opinion it is a just a phase that the market goes through before it comes down to realistic levels again however at my age I do not have the time to wait for that to happen and do without anything in the meantime. I had thought I would be happy to leave woodworking behind me having the no power tools / no disturbing noise levels regulation but hey what is one going to do all day? I like make things for the grand kids.

Marinus in New Zealand

[Jim Koepke]

Marinus,

Welcome to the Creek. You might consider including your location in you profile. It might escape my memory the next time you post that you are in New Zealand.

jtk