hi,saw this gearbox,thought i would get the ball rolling so to speak,
looks like i will have to look elswhere.
ebay 140894472120 ah well
cheers rick

email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com

And a handsome-looking box it is too....and so it should be for what it seems to be going for!

(...It does appear to be a nice untampered-with box)

JDE

email (option): teladelujo@msn.com

500 quid and 3 days to go, it's gone mad, think the days are over from building a bike from bits!

Tim W

email (option): t.j.walker@btinternet.com

This is the auction effect, nobody would pay 500 pounds for an M20 gearbox at an autojumble. You are a strong guy Rick to resist the temptation

email (option): ahum@quicknet.nl

I am forced to conclude the buyer will ultimately be unhappy with his purchase(though he probably wouldn't admit it). These M Series boxes, however tidy they may look externally, will ALWAYS have a content of components that are worn enough to require replacement. There is also a high likelyhood that there will be some damage to the components and/or cases that will also require repair/replacement.....that's what you usually get with a 70 year old gearbox that hasn't been recently rebuilt....I know, I've seen enough of them....
These boxes are currently fetching £65-£100 at autojumbles and on the 'old boys' network, and to my mind that is all this one is worth. There are a high number of 'wearing' components in these boxes, the design makes them labour intensive to overhaul and repairs, if needed, require even more time and resources..so they are expensive to overhaul properly. Fitting a box right into a bike is a gamble for sure..Plus you don't get the one modification they most benefit from, the sealed main bearing..Personally I don't find the rusty fasteners etc. particularly attractive either and I wouldn't fit it to my bike like that so in this case, for me, that's a negative. The box does look quite good externally but the total lack of oil on a 'non rebuilt' box indicates it has been in a parts washer or similar..So I wouldn't be tempted to use the fact it has been cleaned as a guide to its internal state...I note no one asked the obvious question of whether the sleeve gear bush/mainshaft play was within tolerance..That is the first thing I would want to know, as replacement requires a complete strip down.....
I agree with Tim W regarding building bikes from parts..I think those days are coming to an end, unless you are building a 'special' which gives you a greater choice of components and price.
For example a set of the correct military handlebar levers for an M20 would run to £300 plus..I recently bought new Amal competition levers for my sprinter for about £40...it's a no brainer unless you have plenty of spare cash to use up......Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

It does seem a ridiculous amount of money for a gearbox that may not have any good parts in it, but it may encourage a few more people to list their spares next week so keep your eyes open for a few cheaper ones soon.

On the other hand who would have thought ten years ago how nuch a dolls head Norton box would make, there can't be many more Broughs left needing one

Rob

email (option): robmiller11@yahoo.co.uk

Early bidding often causes stupidity when competitiveness (a common quality in motorcyclists) overshadows common sense.
There's no real justification in bidding before the last hour or in my case last 5 seconds ("bid sniper", backed up with a manual bid at the same time just in case bidsniper doesn't work).
Anyway, one thing is certain, the thought you put into photographing/presenting your item can make normal things sell for abnormal prices.

I recently bought a job lot of early BSA gearboxes some were hand change but most parts fit each other.I see these boxes getting harder to find,once they were everywhere as they normally lasted longer than the rest of the bike they came from.As Ian says you dont know condition of the box you buy internally I bought nine BSA swing arm boxes and managed to make up four good boxes the rest were sold on for parts.As for building bikes from parts it the most expensive way to do it,better to buy a unfinished project/basket case. Who would of thought old M20s would be worth more than three grand a few years back as most people avoided them in favour of something more faster/economical.The 500 quid for the box on ebay is more than I paid for my 1941 WM20 which also came with another parts bike thrown in, this was only six years back.. Dave

hi,looks like the two main bidders are locked in battle,they are at it now on an incomplete motor that may or may not be a wd series unit.money to burn??
ebay 140894486526
hope one of them wins,preferably the one who gets the gearbox
cheers rick

email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com

There is something a bit strange there. A bidder with 5 feedback has bid on more than 20 items in the last week. It's not impossible but most of us started a little slower than that.

The engine is a post war one..with the wrong timing cover. It will be interesting to see what that fetches..I think it is already at a high price...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Hi Rob,
Brough dolls head gearboxes are nothing like a 16H box, they may look the same but the differences are a longer main shaft and a full close ratio cluster same as inter ratios. A BS with a standard cluster is a poor ride, and will now doubt end up going through Bonhams at stupid prices. I am in the process of building my last vintage special. They are not worth building any more due to the eBay prices luckily i brought most parts for it over the last 3years so it's well on it's way, should be fun to ride.

Tim W

email (option): t.j.walker@btinternet.com

It is certainly unfortunate that prices have reached the point where the average enthusiast is finding it difficult, or impossible, to enjoy the hobby.
Whilst the better off amongst us have dabbled with the more 'exotic' makes and models I have always thought the 'cooking' models safe from the attentions of the 'investor' buyers etc.
However, the downward travelling 'domino effect', whereby those that can't afford something move to the next level down has quietly been following its course and has now reached all the models I have always been involved with. In fact the 'super price tsunami' is even washing up on the shores of the likes of C15s and Tiger Cubs as the prices of those have started to rise quickly.
Fortunately I have a few projects still to do in the workshop so I don't HAVE to buy any more I suppose....but what projects will I daydream about building now?....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

hi Rik,as you stated his bidding is erratic to say the least,however i also noted
bidder b***m 6 has retracted 22 bids in the last six months and
bidder K***A 300 has retracted 422 bids in the same period
so do they bid up then pull out? i wonder
cheers rick

email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com

These 2 e-bay items are definitely dodgy. Only 2 bidders, both of whom have lots of retracted bids. The k**a bidder has now gone and been replaced with k**g who has never bought anything and has retractions although only ever bid on 11 items. It looks like they are just trying to up the bidding here and hoping someone takes the bait.?
It would be interesting to see if they have made similar bids for stuff from this seller in the past. Anyone know if it is possible to find this out?
Cheers
Pete

email (option): petercomley@web.de

Yep, they have retracted their bids for the engine

Anyone interested in the engine for 75 quid now?

Cheers
Pete

email (option): petercomley@web.de

It has become very difficult to monitor this shill bidding since eBay made it anonymous.

My feedback is in the 100s (not particularly high) but I've never withdrawn a bid. Quite frankly, if more than 1% or 2% of bids are withdrawn then eBay ought to cancel the account.

The gearbox is down to £82 from a high of £501 - the three high bidders have all withdrawn !!!

I would have thought that bidding to £500 plus has put off all genuine bidders.! So the seller has lost out as the gearbox would have made more than the £97 it did sell for if the high bids had not been placed..same goes for engine! Maybe its a method by the eventual ebay winner?? I have had people place very high bids then to cancel, just to find out the reserve of an item.....

email (option): marcus@glassenbury.plus.com

Something fishy going on there. I think Moto is right in that a couple of mates bid the items up to deter genuine interest only to then retract the bids late on and go in for the kill and pick up a bargain. That's eBay.............

Stuart

email (option): stu.gibbins@btinternet.com

I've just spotted another gearbox for £140 complete without the madness of bidding, it appears in pretty good nick
http://owensmotorcycles.co.uk/spares-gb-bsa-m20-wd.html

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com

Yes definitely, 2 of them even retracted their bits within minutes of each other. They've scammed the seller and I can't see a way of avoiding it happening to you as a seller. Would you want to cancel a good bid on one of your items..? £500 would get the alarm bells ringing for this item but we've seen some parts sell for unbelievable amounts.

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

hi,i have contacted the seller ,i will post up his reply. i also asked if he had reported what has gone on.im pissed off,i looked when i got home from work,it was still £501.00,so i didnt bother again,missed out there,may have had a go at the engine as well ,make the pick up worthwhile
cheers rick

email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com

And the same bidder got both the gearbox and engine
Pete

email (option): petercomley@web.de

I'm at a loss to know what the scam is sometimes I listed a sidecar lamp on ebay a while ago in the hope of achieving £70-£80. It was bid up ridiculously high to £380 by an Indian bidder and a French bidder. Both had no feed back! The Indian bidder won it but I refused to sell it to him......But I didn't know what the scam was?? I re listed it and the same thing happened with an Indian and French bidder but with different identities....again no feed back. Were they trying to get at my Paypal account? Since then I always exempt Indian bidders.

Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I don't think there is any point at all in reporting anything to ebay, they just don't seem to care. I've had several problems over the years, both with buyers and sellers, and have never had any useful or constructive help from ebay customer services. They go on about customer procedures and penalties, but nothing tangable ever seems to actually happen in my experience.

this is a computer glitcht this bidding is from the 24 century its then when these boxes will cost this much when the basic wage will be £20,0000 a week i know there are some of you out there earning that per week now so you will just have to imagine the future

email (option): roger.beck@node6.com

The fact that these "alleged" scammers (wrong uns) have no feedback or low feedback scores makes me think that Ebay IS doing something about it, the problem is that they just start a new account with a new name every time they are thrown off.

Interestingly when you list an item on Ebay you are given the chance to exclude bidders with a low feedback score and this has been the case for a long time, so its not a new problem.

You can also exclude bids from countries of your choice.

Ebay is just one way to source your spares or bikes, no one is forced to use it, another option is to drive hundreds of miles to autojumbes where you can wander around in the rain or cold hoping to find what you want, whilst teams of pick pockets try to steal your money.

Funny old world isn't it

Rob

email (option): robmiller11@yahoo.co.uk

Hi Bill, you're right..! Ebay aren't interested because they know all they can do is ban that account. These people just start up another. As a seller, you used to be able to block buyers with 0 feedback or negative score. But as you can't leave neg feedback for buyers now, this means nothing and there's no option to block under a certain score.
These ebay bids are meant to be legally binding. Ebay know there's not a hope in hell of getting someone to pay up and it would cost too much to take anyone to court for non-payment.
One bloke quite recently WAS taken to court be ebay for bidding on his own items with a different account, but still registered to him. He was fined £5,000 and 250 hours community service.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/3229255/5000-fine-for-ebay-user-who-bid-against-himself/

This seller doesn't have to accept a retracted bid in certain circumstances, one of them being;

"Your seller may object to the reason you gave for retracting the bid:Eg you retracted a bid because you entered the wrong amount. However, you didn't place a new bid with the correct amount. The seller may report that your retraction reason is invalid."

But even if he did report it, they wouldn't pay up

I didn't see the engine auction, was that bid up high as well..?

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

You're right Rob, ebay is not the only option, but the problem is that people see these inflated and often false prices being acheived on the internet and think that is what these things are worth. So, often nowadays, you ask a price of something at an autojumble and get given an 'ebay price' instead of something more realistic.

As a dealer myself the fact is I can usually achieve a better price on ebay than I would either at a jumble or by selling directly to an individual.
I can think of a number of potential reasons for that which may or may not be correct, but that is the fact.
If, therefore, you want to maximise your earnings, paticularly on used parts, e bay is the way to go...
There will always be people who try to do even better than that, whether it's on e bay or not...it's human nature. Parts are misdescribed in adverts, the guy at the jumble tells you that James kickstart is definitely the one you need for a Royal Enfield etc. etc.(and then of course there's the punters stealing from the jumblers)
E bay unfortunately, by its nature, is a scammers paradise and there are bound to be problems...
How many people on this forum have used e bay to generate some profit for themselves rather than sell to a friend, at a jumble or through a magazine?
Quite a few I suspect..so it works both ways and you just have to 'take the rough with the smooth'...rather like I do at a jumble when someone pinches something off me.....it can't be totally eradicated....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

"I love Ebay"

Today I found a book on Ebay with an inscription inside the front cover to my Great Grandfather, Captain W Lidbetter, of the SS Brighton, how cool is that?

Rob.

email (option): robmiller11@yahoo.co.uk

Very... ...but I hope he wasn't driving it when it was wrecked in 1933..or was it another S.S.Brighton...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

This one was sunk at Dieppe in 1940, but I don't know if he was still on it then.

Rob

email (option): robmiller11@yahoo.co.uk

Its definitly not only ebay with scammers

At Stafford this year was a human being that offered a 16H gearbox that had been used in a grass track bike, more or less indicating some hard use. He also did not know the condition of it. That sounded honest.

Without even a flinch of his eyes he said "just 800 pounds".

I could only think of turning around and get away from such idiocy asap.
Apparently there are idiots willing to pay such sum, otherwise I can hardly uderstand why he would say that. Scare away potential buyers?

I really yearn for the days of the late 70ties and early 80ties where the hobby was just that, a hobby. A number of slightly "different/exentric" people having fun in helping eachother and riding bikes that most people regarded as trash. At least you could leave your bike at the side of the road without being afraid that something would happen to it. It took more time to find things but it certainly helped in meeting people in the flesh instead of meeting email adresses.

I travelled along Southern/mid England in my school holidays time on my 50cc moped, looking for 16H parts and meeting all sorts of very nice Britons,of which some became lifelong friends. The real George Yeomans was a very likable person but even then a bit naive regarding pricing and sold many parts for near to nothing until he learned the market values after the first year. 30 tons of old parts he had when I was there, and prices that seemed fair to me. I guess most of that is riding around now or being sold at Bonhams for silly prices to "investors".

Life in a nutshell,

Cheers

Rob

email (option): wd16h@telfort.nl

The trouble there Rob is, 800 quid to a Brough owner for a gearbox case is chicken feed! Like those oblong WD wing mirrors for trucks have all been mopped up and chromed by the MG owners club as they're the same as their rear view mirrors. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I guess everything is reasonable until you suddenly decide it is unreasonable. There are probably people out there today who think todays prices are OK.
Many people involved today are too young to even remember 1970 so they aren't burdened by the memory of what prices and attitudes were like back then.
I can't say I'm entirely enthusiastic about the current investor driven market and it is certainly affecting my attitude and the question of financing possible future projects....
Saying that though, if nothing had changed between 1970 and now you wouldn't be able to run an old bike anyway. It doesn't matter how enthusiastic you are you still need a supply of parts for carbs, mags and dynamos, regulators clutches etc. etc. and they certainly wouldn't be there now 40 or so years after the last bikes were manufactured if the bikes had no percieved value..or they would have to be produced as 'one offs' with all the attendant costs of that. I would guess 99.9% of people who have restored and use a British bike have taken advantage of recently produced parts.
Like everything, a booming market is a 'dual edged sword'..it has advantages and disadvantages, investment in the spares supply being just one advantage....I don't see anyone who bought a bike for a few quid 'back in the day' selling it for that price either.. (including myself)..that side of the 'inflated' market seems to be fine! I agree the market today has its downside..but don't all markets?..and the situation of the early to late 70s when many bikes had effectively no value (I was given quite a few!) was completely unsustainable in the longer term. Around that time it was either the 'classic boom' with its changing attitude to 'values' both physical and financial, or a trip to the scrapyard, so perhaps we shouldn't be too negative about where we are today....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Ah Ian, Ron

I suppose I did bring it a bit to nostalgic.
Its certainely true that quite a number of things have become much more accesible nowadays. So its not all bad.

I was however rather taken by surprise at Stafford that anybody could ask such a sum for a gearbox with a likely bad internal situation.

I am however not convinced we are better off because they are now "investors gadgets". It also means its worth stealing and I hate that.
It also makes it difficult for the less wealthy to enjoy the wonders of a 70 years old bike.

Cheers,

Rob

email (option): wd16h@telfort.nl

We are looking back (illogically) to the time when as consumer goods these bikes were pretty much worthless. Around that time 90% or more would have been scrapped, before the slow realisation that what was left was worth saving.
That began to give them some 'value' and after a while that 'value' attracted investors...Eventually the activities of investors, speculating on totally theoretical values (unrelated to the merits of the motorcycle as a machine) may lead us to the point where the ordinary man is no longer involved..think Brough Superior for example...or consider there was a time when you could have bought an original Van Gogh from the artist himself for pennies...
It is the way the market functions it seems and perhaps it's people like myself and others of my age group who were in fact, the lucky ones, briefly able to enjoy these things at 'working mans' prices or less in some cases...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com