MAC Forum

So tonight I saw this TWA SST ashtray sell on Ebay for $567! Now, I realize this is a rare ashtray and TWA airliners are nice to have but I wish everyone could agree on some reasonable values for airplane ashtrays so that the prices wouldn't jump all over the place so much. Someone asked about a Convair here the other day and I mentioned it should go around $125 and the best I'd seen was around $350-of course, they immediately posted it for $340 even though it's far from pristine and Convairs are about one of the most common ashtrays available. I should have mentioned that i've seen just as nice and better go for as little as $80. on Ebay (I've been tracking prices closely for about two years on Ebay). I assume alot of airplane ashtray buyers visit this sight so the request I would like to make is let's not beat each other up on prices. If there was an index of prices posted here, perhaps Ebay buyers would be less willing to spend crazy amounts of cash on these ashtrays.

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Link to auction in question

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380281450196

Link to the Convair auction...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0577137505

Wonder if he'll take a best offer price of your original quote?

Ed,

While price guidelines are helpful it doesn't reflect how much one person will pay for an item. If a seller wants to list an ashtray for $500 and it's worth $200 in someones opinion than so be it. Click the back button and move on to the next auction. Bottom line: an ashtray or whatever item your looking at is only worth what ever someone is willing to pay for it. I'm offended when you out my auction saying it's not worth what I'm asking and that it's not in great condition. To someone it is. The only reason I'm selling my ashtray is because I need money to pay for tuition at the University of California. I'm paying $4K every 10 weeks. So Ed, it must make you feel like a bigger man for trash talking someones auction.

i'm sorry you feel that I was attacking you-it certainly was not meant that way and perhaps I should not have used your ashtray as an example. The thing I find frustrating is that unlike say used cars for example, there's no LemonAid catalogue that tells prospective buyers at least a reasonable price that they should be paying for the model they are purchasing, AND keeps sellors expectations reasonable. You're absolutely right about selling the item for the most you can get, but it would be nice if realistic prices were readily available in the same way you can look up any stamp in a catalogue and have a good idea of it's worth depending on the relative condition. As an observer, I would say that if you got less than $100 for your ashtray you would have been shortchanged, but conversely, if someone paid more than $300, they would have paid too much. Maybe someone will pay you more than $300 (I had to sell alot of my stuff too to pay for college so i know where you're coming from) but from a selfish viewpoint as a collector, I hope they don't-it's not worth it.

Man! What an argument!! The seller set the initial price at $9.99 and the model went up to $567.00 with 12 different bidders!!! Good for the seller!!!

It is clear the market is hot for a model like this. Who are we to decide that this price was too high? I agree that it is a lot of money but that does not mean that the price is too high or that we'll pretend to set up some ridiculous sort of price police. Then we'll have to start policing art sales... a Van Gogh for several million Dollars?? No can do!! Ridiculous... or sports memorabilia [a beaten up little ball covered by signatures (one from a gus named Babe something) is sold for several thousand Dollars] or anything else for that matter.

Where do you think the prices for those horrendously expensive unique stamps, on the Stamp Price Catalogue that you mention, come from?

A price guideline is a very helpful tool for collectors, hence it exists for nearly all collection fields.

In our case it would be very difficult to sell, since there are comparably few collectors out there being interested in this kind of plane models (ashtrays and others). So it may not happen to issue that soon....

I can only recommend to watch the market and record the deals, either in mind or on paper. E.g. the shown SST model was already sold a while ago as JAL with severe damages (broken wings, missing engines) for around 250,- USD. Accordingly the price of this one seems to be OK.