MTFCA Forum

I see a lot of new and mostly used model T parts for sale, but, where do you get the prices?
I look on the forum and don’t even get me t bay prices, can never figure out what some of these people are thinking. You may have a part with a price and right after that someone posts the same part for either twice or three times or half the price, huh? A lot of times someone is selling a part, it’s brought up two or three times and the next ad reads, I am looking for this part that no one seems to find and I am desperate to have one. Why is it that people don’t read ads before posting for sale or wanted ads? I know I am going to be raked over the coals for my radical opinions but I am stating what a lot of us have been thinking many times but just ignored it. Signed, the troublemaker.

Frank, scarcely anyone reads prior posts. Mostly the boards are here to post stuff. As to attention span ? Squirrel !!!

As far as T used part prices go it’s who needs what you have and how bad they need it. Some people want reasonable prices and some not so much. Don’t know how long you’ve been in the hobby but after a while you kind of get an idea what a part is worth.
Same thing at swap meets. One guy has a part for 25 dollars and on down the line the same part is 4 dollars. Just how it is.
I was needing some body to frame brackets and just as I entered the Swap area at Chickasha a guy had some for $20 each. I bought them because I had been looking for some for a while.
About 15 min later and 4 rows over a guy had several in a box for $5 each. But that’s the way it goes.

My guess buyers react to a selling price based on what they're willing to pay/purchase intent (need, better than what they have,to resell etc) and availability of the item. Example Model T 6 volt Fun Projects Voltage Regulator sold for about $65 but is no linger available. IF a NOS was up for sale: who would buy it a $30 vs $60 vs $90 On the other hand if you were the seller what would you charge based on what you know and/or attitude towards the product? There is only one applicable rule for sellers: you can always lower the price. And only one rule for buyers: If you don't like the price negotiate it or walk away from it.

I think most sellers who are “true Model T guys” are influenced by perceptions of rarity when they offer parts. Oddly, locale has some bearing on that - some items that are scarce in one part of the country are more plentiful in other places.

I have been selling my excess parts on the classifieds for a few years now. As far as prices, it's a crap shoot for me. Most all of my stuff has been bought at swap meets, auctions, antique stores, junk shops, etc., mostly many many years ago. I haven't been able to go any of those for a few years now, so I'm kind of shooting in the dark. Sometimes I price a part, and it sells very quickly, other times I repost it many times before it sells, if at all. I'm not trying to make a ton of money, just trying to get back a bit of my investment and mainly getting the parts back out there where they can be used. I would be tickled to death if someone would come by here with a pickup(or two) and I would make them a heck of a deal. I won't let them go to scrap if I can help it. Me and my now deceased old buddy for 53 years have been scrounging up T stuff since the early 60's when we were kids trying to save everything that we could. Scrapping T parts just ain't in my blood. JMHO Dave

Rich is right about location. Where I am anything made out of iron before WW2 is rare. There were so many blast furnaces going here they ate up everything.
Even later iron is hard to find. If the price of scrap goes up, stuff disappeared. Dan

I look at it this way, rare is just that, rare. Not many made or available. Now put into the equation as an older friend told me me I highly respect, "Are you pricing it to sell or pricing it to hang on to"? As we know economics, personal finances, and other social/culture events way very hard on hobby interest. I try to be as fair as possible and even test the waters so to say. Our great hobby is ill so sacrifices in my eyes on certain items must be made to keep it alive and these girls going!

Just my $0.03 Worth,

Hank

I have had antique cars since I bought my 19 Star touring when I was 16. Been to many antique car swap meets like Bakersfield and Anaheim and many more over the years and even was a seller in my twenties and thirties. I am appearantly are not too smart since I could never catch on. I saw prices all over the place in different venues for the same items and sometimes right next to each other but the more expensive one usually went first except when I was trying to sell it. Like right now, I have been restoring my 12 and 14 for the last four years, finally finished both but I promised myself I will never do a restoration again but buy a car that is immaculately restored that will cost me about 25% more and save me several thousand hours of labor/headache and most importantly the wife off my back for taking on a project that I should not be doing. I have had many opportunities to buy for dirt cheap but did not want to take advantage of the seller and came to find out the seller learned from my kindness and sold it to the next buyer for double or more. My loss. Well hopefully I will learn by the time I kick the bucket. Frank

A hobbiest sells me something and takes my money, and we're both happy with the deal. He gets to spend the money on something he really wants, and I now have something I really need.

Let's say he could have sold it for more somewhere else, but didn't, and that was his choice. He doesn't have the money for what he really wanted and I don't have the part that I needed...who took advantage of whom?

I do not advocate cheating widows out of their last valuable thing after their husband's death, nor do I advocate buying a Rembrandt from an itinerant street seller, who's life course would be changed by selling it at auction for $500,000 rather than to me at the asking price of $5. However, when dealing in the hobby to other hobbiests, where a Stromberg OF is sitting on one guy's table for $40 and two isles over, the next guy has one for $200, I'm not inclined to negotiate the $40 carb UP to $200 just to be "fair". Parts reflect their purchase cost, interest and speed of sale, and knowledge of goods. There have been plenty of times that I've bought a load of stuff and gotten my $ out of it and am just tired of carrying the rest around, so if I want to get rid of it, I undercut the other sellers and sell at bargain prices. I've never had anyone negotiate "up" or remotely feel sorry for me.

This topic comes up occasionally and it is always treated as though (for instance) open valve engine blocks have a MSRP (just try to find an original!), or a Hudson Pickup truck windshield on one side of Hershey for a low price and the other side of Hershey has a high price, and the high price guy is "robbing" someone...there is no MSRP on that either. Such Angst!

I enjoy coming to the forum, because the troubles here make the world's troubles pale by comparison, and I'm able to face each day anew.

Good point Steve! You can see your point pretty often by following the forum.
Can we talk about motor oil now?

If you think T prices are outlandish, be glad you're not restoring an antique Harley, Indian, or Henderson. I got into that part of the hobby as a kid because it was affordable (kind of like T's back then), now I see stuff that truly makes me sad for kids who want to get into the hobby, as prices are silly crazy... One guy on fleabay is trying to sell a headlight - nicely restored but with a few dings - $2500. a pair of restored cylinders - one front, one rear selling separately - $2250 EACH.

Steve Jelf wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 1:08 pm

I thought I was being generous when I offered a guy ten bucks for a rusted-sharp Hayes rim. He was furious, and bawled me out for ruining the hobby. Prices, like a lot of other things, are subject to all kinds of opinions and attitudes.[/size]

Ruined it because you were putting too high a price on junk, or that to the seller the "hobby" is how much you can scalp someone for?

I price things to quickly disappear. My theory is the more people that kick the tires and you go back and forth with , the less you make. Instinct gives me my prices, and some may disagree with my instincts, but I do price things hoping they go quickly. Henry made $$ on volume.
Also, RARE does not always mean valuable. I practically gave away a NOS speedometer for a REO yesterday. I’ve been looking for a new owner for it for years.

As with many others here...T's are not my only passion.

There is something that I had wanted to add to one of my other passions and the on line price-fixing...err...'competitive capitalistic approach' shows more than a few willing to part with the item in question at about 3 times what it was worth to me even in a weak moment.

I decided to just peek and poke from time to time and eventually got to a mindset of, 'anyone offer a sale of even a few bucks difference' and I'll be the buy-it-now guy.

Never happened, months on end and then one day there there is one...priced but 1/3 what the market has been getting as a closing price....vendor comment was 'new in box'...and I'm sure every skeptical wannabe ran for the hills and warned others. I went for the 'buy it now' immediately...within a week had the item new in a box for sure and the guy just tossed in some other items relating to that side of that hobby with a note that he was liquidating and these were his final items.

S-W-E-E-T. Sometimes it pays to wait.....

Suzanne is right about old Motorcyles going through the roof as for as parts and prices go.
As far as cars go Fords from 1932-48 the sky is the limit.
Comparatively speaking Model T’s overall are the cheapest antique cars there is to restore. Probably because parts are pretty much avaliable. BrassTs are fairly high of course but the rest not so much! Depending on how much is much!