Things are really getting out of hand over at the 'bay
 

Vintage Campagnolo Crank Covers Super Nuovo Record RARE Brev Campy | eBay

Dust caps - up to $46!

I would be suspicious seeing "0" rated bidder. When I put something up for auction I start higher bid price, it eliminates the playful bidders.

What's worse? That they charge it or that people pay it... ;)

I think I picked up mine that were NOS for 25 shipped from someone here just a couple of months ago. He had a couple of sets and some cable clamps.

And...it looks like one of them is messed up...the hole is rounded off...or looks like it...

Patina ain't free!

More power to this guy. Auction started out at something like $5.

Indeed, it makes me jealous lol.

I don't really think it's that crazy. If you're missing that one small part on your dream bike, it's only $46 to make it perfect! By the standards of many hobbies that's play money.

Imagine if everyone's favorite eBayer had it in a baggie! $150+, and it would be discounted 10% every third week.

Guys used to remove those dust caps and throw them away. They wanted to look like racers. I saved mine.

Mine still sit in a box.
The auction is interesting in that it had two low transaction bidders, one at 5 the other at zero. The 5 guy bid early and high, the zero guy chased it up, " well if someone else is willing to pay, it must be worth it"...

The odd thing is the same seller has another pair to sell, also starting at $5.99...

Vintage Campagnolo Crank Covers Super Nuovo Record RARE Patent Campy | eBay

Well I just paid $36+shipping $USD for a campy dérailleur hanger. Was it worth it? Absolutely not for a crummy piece of metal.

Is it worth being able to finally ride my bike with my Nuovo Record Rd instead of waiting weeks/months for the next one to pop up? Absolutely.

http://www.citygrounds.com/prodimages/392-DEFAULT-m.jpg

...five bucks, the pair. Unlimited quantities.

Five bucks? Holy smokes I think there's buckets of those at the shop I work at. I used those on some 1st gen chorus cranks and like them better then the running them without caps. They give it a nice flush updated look. Plus you don't need a thin wall 15mm socket.

.
...I started using them when I got tired of looking for Stronglight and TA caps. They do a good job of protecting the threads, and they never seize up.

How about this one......
Vintage Ofmega Mistral Crank Caps Crankset Dust Covers Road Italian E'Roica | eBay
Yeah it's cheap, but really??

That would have been me. I have a few more sets but I'm holding on to them. I have short Drop out screw sets though lots.....

Excellent point.

It's not like it's a boat, or a Ti/Carbon fiber #3-Wood that you can hit farther out of bounds.

I just forked over $90 for a set of bars I do not need, because the brand and color match the bike.
All I have left to get for it is a stem, and it will be 100% Cinelli/Columbus.

Call it vanity, but a smaller herd allows some leeway on things like this.

What I like is that he starts his auctions as, well, auctions. Six bucks to start and let her fly. That is becoming more rare every day on ebay.

I actually think it is a good strategy as compared with a high buy it now price. Gets people competing with each other trying to snag the item.

I do both ways on eBay...when I do not have a good basis for a value on a part or frame, I put it up as an auction...and see where it goes. If I know the value of a part, I put it a couple bucks higher and tender offers...it let's me do some negotiating...which I like...just two different ways to get to the same place.

Don't know how I could afford C&V without the bay... Well Used Pair of Colnago Handlebar End Plugs from The 90s | eBay

The problem comes in when you're doing it with a large fleet :(

A few years ago I bought a bunch of these Campy crank arm bolts dirt cheap, NOS-NIP! I use them on mongrel Campy cranks like Triomphe/Victory and other mid range models.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=438151

Luckily I still have some NR originals from BITD. Some weight weenies pulled them off to save weight! :lol:

We removed them because they looked TOO Fred! :roflmao2:

Recently I bought a bunch of these no name crank bolts plus washers for $5.95 a pair. The recommended torque for crank arm bolts is only 20-30 foot lbs. so they don't need to be fancy high strength bolts!

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=438153

verktyg :50:

Chas.

Bidding like that suggests two possibilities to me. The charitable interpretation is that the chaser really doesn't know how the automatic bidding works, specifically: Just because someone's current bid sits at $X doesn't mean that's the real high bid, so chasing it incrementally is pointless except to stop bidding just barely above the competing bidder. But stopping just above the previous high bid is futile because the competing bidder can bid over it so easily. If you are willing to pay X then bid there. If someone else is willing to bid Y where Y > X, then you live with the result or be willing to go higher in the first place. There is no psychology involved like there would be in a real-time auction. To put it another way, the "if someone else is willing to pay" reasoning is misguided but the chaser doesn't understand that yet.

The less charitable explanation is that the chaser is a shill. The seller gave it a low starting bid but really didn't want it to stay there. If it looks like it won't hit the jackpot he is hoping for the shill nudges it up. Nudging has to be incremental because the intent is to stop just below the current high bid if he can guess it accurately, or just above if he is willing to gamble that the current high bidder will push just a little more. Which is to say, the shill exercises caution because he intends to lose.

I saw something like that on an auction I won where the chaser pushed the bid up. The chaser's bidding history showed he'd incrementally chased dozens of auctions over the previous six months or so and won none of them.