Model Cars
Every so often you see those stories on the evening news about a toy car that sold for more than the average house. Some super rich collector who wanted the toy his grandpa gave him for his 5th birthday, or the toy his folks couldn’t afford as a kid. These stories keep a whole industry alive, manufacturers deliberately issue limited editions for collectors and the collectors themselves try to 2nd guess which models will be valuable in 10,20,30 years time.
A quick search on Ebay gives about 3500 results for a search on “toy cars” and a further 800 or so for “model cars”. There is a lot of trading going on out there, so why not get in on the action?
If you plan to trade in high end models then you need to know your subject matter. There are over 33 million results on Google for “model car collecting” including such gems as Daniel Beck’s Model Car Collection (http://modelcars.mbeck.ch/main.php?lang=e) which ranks number 1 out of all of those 33 million.
Seriously buy some magazines, read some websites, study what has sold well at auction and try to get a handle on what will gain value quickly. You are of course competing with the people who have posted some 4000 adverts on Ebay and are responsible for the 33 million results on Google, so don’t read too deeply.
There are two key approaches to marketing your models, either sell serious models to serious collectors and try to gain a mark up by finding and acquiring the hard to find/desirable models or market more “ordinary” models to the less avid collector using a mixture of clever marketing and promotion. Staying with out usual focus on cheap, easy to run businesses lets focus on the latter and leave the former to the experts for now.
Take a normal toy car or a recent vehicle, such as this advert from Ebay today
|
|
LOTUS ELAN Yellow diecast car model 1:43 M-Smazt |
As a non-car collector I have no idea whether this is a collectible model or not. From the starting bid of $7.99 I assume not. A quick search on Wikipedia however allows mw to identify this as a type 50 model from between 1962 and 1975 otherwise known as a 1960’s Elan. I can also ascertain that the hardtop on the model was an optional extra. I also know that Emma Peel from the Avengers drove this car and it was voted #6 in the Sports Car International list of Top Sports cars of the 1960s.
I think you can see where I am headed with this? In fact if I search in Ebay again under the term “Lotus Elan” I can find several 1:43 models advertised as
1966 Lotus Elan S3 1:18 Scale Diecast Model Red
This is in fact almost the same car except with the soft top (remember that wasn’t as rare) and retails at $28.99. That strikes me as a pretty good deal, simply from doing a little research.
A little more digging finds me a forum at www.lotuselancentral.com/ which I reckon would be a pretty good place to market my $7.99 entry level collectible. The forum is well used and has a section for advertising Elan products. There is even a guy looking for a hard top, who might be prime for a private message asking if he would like to but the model.
Moving out of the online world may give you higher chances of success, as most savvy internet surfers can check the prices on E.Bay, whilst someone at an enthusiasts meeting, or even your local 2nd hand car garage may be interested in a “Mint condition” model that you have managed to track down in Thailand and may well “make you an offer” above the asking price of $7.99 or even the more expensive $28.99 found when searching specifically for “Lotus Elan”
There are other ways that you can find, and promote these kind of products, including writing articles for your local newspaper specifically about collecting, record sales amounts for rare items, etc. You may even be able to get interviewed for radio or TV if you become known as something of an expert.
You can of course also sell items on Ebay; particularly if you buy locally from garage sales, flea markets, house clearances etc. You may also be able to market items for other people on a commission basis, which means that you don’t need to spend any money on stock.
You can buy in bulk from sites like www.alibaba.com but I think pitching yourself as an expert selling collectibles it is probably better to source one off models. You can do this on Ebay, at swap meets, garage sales, or by letting your local house clearance guys know that you are interested in 2nd hand toys as job lots….don’t tell them what you are really after as they will bump up the price.
I chose the Lotus Elan that I used for this article at random. Send me a car model if you want to test this and I’ll show you how to pitch it to “non-experts”.
This approach is not “cheating” anyone. Commerce itself is about buying things as cheaply as you can and selling them for as much as you can. By doing some research and pitching to select clients it is perfectly possible to add to the value of an item that someone else is selling for a couple of bucks extra pin money.
There are all sorts of collectibles that this approach can work for, my brother for example collects Star Wars memorabilia and his collection is worth a stack of money, but he would never part with it, and in fact would happily add to it if the right items came up.