Hot Rods Successful Ebay purchases

I know we all have had both bad and good luck buying parts for our hot rods off eBay. Let’s hear about your goods ones and I’m sure some not so good ones.
I will start off with probably the best eBay purchases I ever made and they were almost by accident.
I have a 1953 Chrysler New Yorker Town and Country (wagon), definitely not the easiest car to find parts for. A couple of weeks before Christmas I was having my tires rotated on my daily driver and sitting in the waiting room bored to tears. Playing games on my phone got boring fast and the other people in the room didn’t look like they wanted to take those great action shot you see on the cell phone adds so ( there was this one blond......never mindI reverted to looking for car parts on eBay.
Since the wagon is pretty much like the car I usually look at the 53 Chrysler site figuring that a wagon part would show up there. This time I noticed the wagon tag under the Chrysler site and thought what the hell I’ll give it a try.
I ended up with a NOS l/r fender molding $$200.
A r/h tail light lens for $87 also NOS and a l/h NOS. Tail light lens for $90. I had bid $300 last year for a paint of good used lenses and didn’t win the bid.......
The l/h seller was from Venezuela and no sooner did I place the bid when I got an alert from Pay Pal that it was a possible scam and ask me if I had placed the order. Since these lenses are pretty rare and almost non existent as NOS I let the buy stand.
All three parts arrived in excellent packaging and the parts were 100% as described...........
That’s the best luck I have had with EBay share yours....
I still ant figure out how the Venezuela seller could possibly have that part or even know what it was.......they only made 1300 of the wagons in three years but at least on must have made it to Venezuela.














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I bid a 1949 Mercury glove box door up to $201 and got outbid at $203.50, very disappointed. Not too much later I won the bid for a '49 dash shell with cluster bezel and glove box door for $335 plus shipping, I took my glovebox door off and resold the dash for what I paid, including shipping. Very pleased.

I've sold over a half million dollars worth of old car parts on eBay over the years and it's a big part of what my shop does, with 100% feedback glad to say. Have bought lots of good stuff for my builds there as well. As much as people love to trash it, the hobby would be pretty lost without it.

 

One of the best eBay purchases I ever made was when I hit on an add with no pictures that listed " A BUNCH of OLD HUBCAPS" I asked the seller for pictures and he said he had no way to send them. I then asked what all the caps were and he had no clue, but a lot of them had come from a clean out of an old GM dealer. Since he was only about an hour away I went to check them out. I ended up with about 100 NOS 40's 50's and 60's caps and wheel covers, mostly Chevy, Cadillac and Pontiac and a shitload of misc. used various other caps. In the NOS caps were 5 53-56 Pontiac acc, wires, a set of four 59-60 Cadillac Eldorado wheel covers and a bunch of other treasures. I left there with my 3/4 ton truck with high top cover loaded to the gills. The guy wanted $100.00 and a 30 pack of Blue Ribbon. I told him that this stuff was probably worth a lot more than that but he said he didn't have a dime in it and just wanted to get rid of it. I sold most of the really good stuff to the tune of over 5K and still have some of the more common stuff. Goes to show, some days you get the gold mine, some days you get the shaft I have also got screwed quite a few times on Ebay but shit happens.

 

How about a Mallory "flattop" for a 331-354 Chrysler in good shape for $35. The seller didn't know what it fit and didn't want to bother looking up the number (quite easy on the internet) and neither did an of the other prospective buyers. I did.

 

I never thought to buy parts off there, just sell. But it is fun to watch guys dig through milk crates of old carbs looking for the Strombergs I sold on eBay ages ago.

 

I was on there yesterday surfing and I noticed a banner that said ebay no longer accepts Pay Pal. Curious. Just credit cards now.

 

Ebay has some strange inner workings. I had placed a bid on a 6x2 carb linkage. An email showed I had the high bid. In the morning I got an email stating I had been outbid.....Went online and could not find the auction...Ok....went to my email to look for the item.......(this is weird) Both of my emails were gone, and there was no trace of the part in sold items or the original sale site..it vanished. This also happened when I bid on an old carburetor....strange
I have bought many carburetors for very cheap on ebay.......

 

I very happily recently found (on Ebay) the last wire wheel hubcap needed for my 1931 Dodge Brothers coupe. New old stock and in the box!!

 

Hi. When that happens (everything totally disappears) it means that ebay cancelled the listing and probably the seller for violations. In this case ebay kept you from being the victim. I sell custom bowstrings on ebay to the Archers . There I am ol-nobull. Jimmie

 

I was looking for a 1957 Chevy Sedan Delivery rear hatch when I came across an ad on E-Bay. Won the bid, paid for the item with PayPal. Item never show up, even with a 98% favorable rating on the Seller's part. After a few weeks of research, hammering, calling, checking leads, and getting a few GIs to visit his shop, did I get my money back. A month later the same part comes up, the hatch was located in NC (the first one was located in El Paso, TX) and being from NH I felt that I could travel to NC just in cast if things went sour. Won the bit, which was much lower that the same item in TX. The seller drop it off at my NH home along with extra parts. But I have to tell you, I feel very lucky and will not bid on anything that I cannot located the seller, contract the seller, and be able to pick up the item myself.

 

I have bought thousands of items off of eBay. Most often the photo looks better than your purchase, but overall I have had good luck. eBay favors the buyer so I have been able to return items that were misrepresented. One good lesson I learned buying an iron manifold. Iron is brittle and it arrived broken. I wish I had paid a little extra and had the seller bolt it to a 2x6 to keep it from flexing. It was a rare part so even a refund was not good.

 

I have learned over the years and just recently, that if there is an item you truly want on EBAY that is offered in an auction, do absolutely nothing until 2-minutes till the end of the auction, then go in with everything you got. You may have to raise your bid a few times but I guarantee you will save bucks. This is tough to do when the auction ends in 7-days, but trust me, wait it out until the final nanoseconds. You will be rewarded!

 

Ebay still takes Paypal, I don't know where (or how) you saw that but I can assure you it is not true.

 

not going to say what I had to pay for this Crestliner wheel on E***… it was listed weird... and was dumb luck I found it and was a buy it now... the price was very right !

 

I've had PP hack my debit card maybe 3 times in the past 4 years, so uck-fay PP, good riddance.

I have bought a car on eBay, deal went well considering shipping a non-op car 1800 miles. I've gotten some awesome deals on '59 Ford parts, sometimes when that item comes up, you need to strike like a cobra. I got a NOS trunk latch assembly for $125, 2 NOS horn rings for $20 each with the Ford tags on them.

I had a couple of 'wipes send me trim that got damaged in shipping, but they made good on the deal. But it took some what was good pieces out of circulation.

 

There was a Stromberg 81 on E-bay last year with a buy-it-now for $ 29.95. 3 guys were watching it, but no one stepped up except me. You snooze you lose.

 

this. Maybe this vendor is trying to scam CC information? I don't know but this is what is written at the bottom of his ad.

 

Back when I worked 3rd shift and was bored at 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, I scored a pair of complete Holley aluminum BBC oval port heads, new in the box for $899.00 shipped which were listed 15 minutes earlier. About 40% of what they were going for when Holley was selling them. They are also a nice conversation piece, not many remember they once made heads.

 

I've run into the same message in the last couple weeks.

 

I sell a ton on ebay, that's how I make my project money. I got a message some time back that ebay was going to phase out PayPal but that's still how I'm getting paid as of now.

 

Fifteen years ago I was trying to build a 1937 Harley 45, just like the one my Dad bought new. Turns out a lot of the bike is one year only, frame, tanks, and a lot of little things. I started with a rear fender and tail light, so there were lots of missing parts. I typed in Harley 45 I beam springer, and somehow misspelt something, so did the guy that listed it. I was the only bidder and won! Got the project about 80% complete and a roller then sold it to cover kids college bills. Bob

 

Ebay used to own Paypal, they sold it off a few years ago. Back in the good old days, you could mail a check or use several other payment methods, but Ebay basically phased them all out and kinda forced everything through Paypal, since it was in their own best interest. But now they're allowing direct payment with a credit card and cooking up some new method, however Paypal is still an option and will continue to be for the forseeable future.

 

I bought a "1929 model a roadster grill shell" which was really a 32 shell for 300 bucks buy it now.

And

A "Grandcore intake" aka a Grancor flathead intake for 150.

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Was looking for a 50 Merc turn signal switch..... Found one, and watched....... Bidding ended at like 1am west coast time on a Tuesday....ugghhhh. set the clock, got up, and started the game....... Granted, it was nice and complete....... Went up and up, but got sniped........
But- low and behold= Cloth wire in 50, 51 was regular wire........ Thought some.......
Looked for a Lincoln switch....... Low and behold= I scored. The first one went beyond 2 bills.... I got mine for 48 bucks.......NOS! No Doubt! My best one so far......
Then- Like the TV commercial= watching my computer, and how long it took to place a bid, and shooting for the moon- on an item, very worthy of the HAMB, I placed my bid with 1 SEC left, and I got it! There were like 47 bids...... Sometimes you kick ass, sometimes you get your ass kicked.......

 

Nope. Ebay and PayPal split but Ebay still uses PayPal.

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I bought an old Nights of the mystic sea lodge hood ornament once. NOS for just over ten bucks. Sadly it was lost in a flood and supposedly carried away by a german shepard . No the dog never brought it back although when his master came looking for him I purchased a 1927 buick headlamp from him. He claimed it was once used to guide Lindberg in to LeBourget field. I listed it on e-bay but no bids. Lippy

 

Some of my "best" deals have been on chassis parts. I get the part number for what I want and just search the part number. Thee seem to be a number of vendors who buy out the stock of a store or warehouse and Figure out their markup based on what they paid for the lot and put it on Ebay with just part number and a description of what it is but no info on what it fits. That saved me a couple hundred rebuilding the front end of one of my OT trucks. All Moog or TRW parts to boot.
Probably the best bargain I got on Ebay was my sailboat 16 years ago. Seller had placed a rather vague description and three low quality photos. I bid 275.00 and got it for 252.50. It came with a running outboard and a lot of extras but no sails. The old registration for it showed the previous owner had paid 1500 the year before.
I haven't had bad luck buying parts for my hot rods but admit I am careful when I check the add, photos in the add and seller feedback. The problems I have had were buying items from women vendors for my wife as gifts. I seem to pick the flakes every time I try that plus ending up with what amounted to yard sale throw away on one item..

 

I bought my Merc off eBay. It was only a few hours from me so I rolled the dice. I paid what it is worth, but it was in better shape than I was expecting and gained a new friend (the builder) in the process. No regrets.

 

Scored this KR Wilson stand a couple years ago for........$200!
Seller had it listed as vintage engine stand. No bidders except me!

 

Ebay is transitioning away from PP and implementing its own payment intermediation system through Dutch financial services company Ardyn. They are rolling it out to sellers in waves through 2021, and plan to be 100% PP-free by 2023. The current phase is "voluntary opt-in" by invited sellers.