Weird and wonderful eBay finds

Indeed

WingingIt74 wrote:That seller in Italy has quite a few cox twins for sale.

And a pair of 5 cylinders, too. One appears to be 5 motors using a common crankcase geared together and the other looks like a true radial.

Flat twins seem to have enough offset to actually work. If they do and are aligned good enough to last awhile, he is a darn good machinist. 'course Italy has a long tradition of fine foundry/machining work. Less so with electricals!

Not so weird, or even wonderful this time but I was watching this Pee Wee because it looked clean. I was interested until I did some digging through eBay's archive of completed listings and saw that this exact same set of items was sold a couple of months ago by someone else! Even the oil stain on the instruction sheet is in the same place, same shape, and size. Suspicious about the sellers story of having owned it since the 70s I contacted him to find out more about the history of the engine and how he got it. I noticed the straight neck, the cox logo embossing on the back plate and the lack of thimble drome engraving on the tank straight away and also saw that the box picture was of an earlier version with a tapered neck. The seller stuck to his story about buying it himself in the 70s. Well nevermind, I thought, and this afternoon decided to check back on the sale. I was completely floored to find it's now reached £90 ($140) with 2 hours left to go!

Here is a link to this item of comedy

Here it is being sold by someone else a flittle while ago

Edit: I've just noticed the forum has an offsite sales section, perhaps I should have started this thread over there. I'm doing this to poke fun at some eBay happenings and highlight items of interest that I come across, I don't have any association with the auctions. I'll leave it to the mods to decide if this should be moved to the offsite sales section.

Pictures make a world of difference. I started using a DSLR, and what I usually get for my engines doubled.

Here is an example.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160822414800?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1559.l2649#ht_500wt_1313

I agree pictures make or break an auction but $140 for a standard Pee Wee is excessive, you must admit. That is at least twice the maximum sensible offer and particularly so given the possible shady dealings I have uncovered through my sleuthing and presented to you here.

The Pee Wee thing is funny. I could see that perhaps it would fetch a good amount of $$ because it is in the UK box and it is brand new plus it was for worldwide shipping right?

There is this section that I made awhile ago but many people don't seem to ever notice it. https://www.coxengineforum.com/t2215-the-best-of-funny-ripoff-stupid-ebay-auctionsetc

ThermalSniffer wrote:I agree pictures make or break an auction but $140 for a standard Pee Wee is excessive, you must admit. That is at least twice the maximum sensible offer and particularly so given the possible shady dealings I have uncovered through my sleuthing and presented to you here.

I agree, that is a bit much. Must have been a couple collectors involved.