Ebay Mishaps!

My ebay efforts to thin the miniature diecast herd continue, with a break for Xmas. All was going well, or so I thought.

I received an email saying that a paypal payment had been reversed and frozen while a dispute was being looked into. A customer had emailed me a few times saying their item hadnt arrived. I was sure I had emailed it in mid November and emailed the other people who bought items around that date. All had received their miniature cars.

All my auctions offer registered mail as an option. No one to date has requested it. I pointed this out in my response to the Paypal dispute resolution mechanism.

On Monday I went to the box with cars to be sold and looked in it - there on top was the car I thought I had mailed, it its mailing box, addressed but not taped.

Hmmmm - what to do ? My outlook on life is to treat others as you wish to be treated. I emailed the customer.

From: me
To: him
Subject: Re: caz72m has sent a question about: Item not Received for item #200399382843, that ended on 04-Nov-09 20:57:21 AEDST - MATCHBOX YESTERYEAR Y26 LOWENBRAU 1918 CROSSLEY
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:08:39 +1100

Hi Steven,

I suppose i could bullshit you, but heres the truth. I went to the box i keep my items to be posted in this morning, and on top was your car. My apologies. I could have sworn it was mailed when i mailed the other cars mid november. I have never had an item go missing in the mail before. 

I have included another YY to make up for the error. Its a Y9 but its not mint, and has no box. 

I will mail it this afternoon (registered post). 

Once again, please accept my apologies. I hope you enjoy your YY cars. 

regards

Damien Haas

Later that day I received the following reply.

On 04/12/2009, at 1:52 PM, steven wrote:

No Worries , Thanks for your honesty.

Regards Steve

I then received an email from Paypal saying the payment had been recredited and the dispute closed. Steve would not have received his item yet, so I'm quite pleased he took me at my word. 

I made sure that the item was posted out 'registered'. I think I will have to update my business processes to make sure a simple error like this doesn't occur again. I was talking to a heavy ebay seller and he says that he makes sure that everything he mails out is registered. In this instance, that would not have resolved the issue as I hadnt mailed it in the first place! 

Into the garage - VY SS Ute, Moffat XB GT, Superkings Transporter

After selling a few diecast cars on Ebay, I decided to restock the garage. Two purchases occurred at Fisher Discounts, and one from Ebay.

The first purchase is a Classic Carlectables, 1/43 Holden VY SS Utility - with Canopy (factory). Effectively, a VY SS Panelvan.  I have only seen a handful of these on the road, and was quite taken with the 1/43 version.

The casting is very good, and the fine detail is captured accurately. None of the doors open, but this is rare in 1/43. The interior is very good, with multicoloured and patterned seats, and a nice dash. The body colour is called 'Phantom'.

The wheels are nicely cast, not too 'chromey' and capture the sheen of the real cars rims accurately. You can also see tiny brake calipers on the disc brakes if you squint. Best of all, this car was on special - and cost $25. As one of only 1250 produced, this is quite a scarce model. I am not a big Commodore fan, but this is a nice example of design, and is a little different to your normal Commodore.

The second car was a very attractive Biante/AutoArt 1/43 Ford XB Falcon GT, as raced by Allan Moffat in the 1976 Bathurst 1000.

This is a beautifully rendered version of the XB Coupe. The body shape is accurate, the colour scheme is accurate, and the racing wheels and interior are accurately represented. This was also on special at Fisher Discounts, at $45.

The limits of my photographic skill dont truly capture how well presented the interior of this car is. You can see a racing seat and various racing modifications which are different from the road version. In this scale, its impressive.

The underside is also different. The front wheels actually turn! The suspension and underbody look accurate, and notice the racing pipes. Apart from the fact its clean, and there is a dirty big hole that a screw goes into to hold it on a baseplate, it could be a real car flipped on its side.

This shot nicely shows the beauty of the racing paint scheme. I wish more people would paint  their road cars in more interesting paint schemes than the factory monocolour offerings. After driving a car painted in flames for 20 years, its definitely easier to find your car in a parking garage, among other advantages.

My final photo. Those are tiny clip on plastic covers over the headlights. On the real car, there were little angled curves on the inner edges, directing air into the radiator. Its the only inaccuracy I can find. Dont XB Coupes look good from the front ? Rhetorical question.

Final purchase, from Ebay, was this Matchbox Superkings K7 Racing Car Transporter. I already own one of these, but it was in 'much played with' condition, and I lost the racing car when I was a child. Box ? Also gone. I have no idea what the scale of this vehicle is. It could be 1/87.

A total fantasy design, not based on any real car, this was a childhood favourite. I saw this on ebay and even though it was without its box, i decided to bid anyway. It is in excellent condition with only a few very small chips, and the plastic car cover is unmarked. There was also a white version of this model produced. I've never seen it though.

This model came with the No 24 'Team Matchbox' 1:75 F1 Racing Car. Also in excellent condition. The stickers are in excellent condition. As a toy and not a model, like the other cars reviewed in this post, the paint quality is different, and it has thick stickers, not tampo printed or decals for detail. The paint colour screams 'Shell' to me. but it has 'Firestone', 'STP' and 'Team Matchbox'.

I like the gullwing doors. The rear door lowers, and the tray that the racing car rides in also pulls out to form a ramp. The design itself dates from 1972. Im not sure when this actual model was produced. By entering the garage it replaces the much played with version. I plan to update my Superking collection piece by piece. Id prefer boxed versions, but an unboxed version in this condition is fine by me.

Ratings

Classic Carlectables 1/43 VY SS Ute with Canopy

Quality   8

Design    8

Colours   8

X-factor  6

Rating: 30/40

Biante/AutoArt 1/43 Ford Falcon XB GT Moffatt-Schuppan 1976 Bathurst

Quality   9

Design    8

Colours   9

X-factor  9

Rating: 35/40

Matchbox Superkings K7 Racing Car Transporter

Quality   7

Design    9

Colours   6

X-factor  9

Rating: 31/40