So every car guys loves them. This time of year as the weather warms you start to get excited for them and here in the Mid-Atlantic, Spring Carlisle is right around the corner. Look at that they even added a few cuties to their website.
Yep, the swap meet. The place to find parts that aren't repopped or are just plain old and cool. Stuff you can't buy from a catalog, deals you never imagined, finding that tagged carb for your 63 Vette on the $5.00 carb table. The stuff dreams are made of.
But now we have another resource for this stuff, the great ebay. Whats is this 800 lb gorilla of old junk doing to swaps? In my opinion, its hurting them and the 'little guy'. Ebay offers a nationwide market place for a swapper's goods that even the largest swaps, like panoma, carlisle and hershey can't begin to touch.
Who's been to a swap in the past few years and made a seller a reasonable offer on a part only to be declined with 'I could get twice that on ebay'. I had it happen twice at hershey last year. Ebay has convinced most sellers that their stuff is worth 2x the market price. But who's to blame? If you bid stuff up on ebay, you are.
Ford flathead intakes are a great example of this. How many 4 carb intakes intakes have you seen bid up to $500+ on ebay and not hit the reserve? Plenty. Who out there has a flathead that needs 4 97s? Not many folks.
My point is this: If we continue to bid items up to crazy prices on ebay we'll continue to see the decline of the swap meet. If more folks ignore the 'bay and start to buy locally like the old days, the swap meet will rebound. What will actually happen? Only time will tell, but it will be an interesting experiment into the buying mindset of the vintage auto parts consumer.
Greasy piles of parts v. Shiny Internet Pictures delivered to your door.
Which makes me think of another thing the internet destroys... I'll save that for tomorrow...
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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1 comments:
One thing you must remember is that as the rare parts and common parts for these old beasts become more difficult to find, a larger network of sources has been demanded. This is one reason why ebay has filled the bill and left the swap meets in the dust. Nobody can vist all the swap meets held across this country much less the globe to find just that certain part at the best price without it costing many times more than it is worth aa opposed to being found on ebay. With the cost of gas and room and meals even an overnite trip to catch 2 days of a swap meet has become unreasonable.
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