Cbum

My father in Law passed away about 4 weeks ago and left a lot of engines to his daughters. I do not want to do anything inappropriate on this site so I am asking for any and all advice to help my wife sell the engines to cover costs of the estate until the house is sold. I have been through 1 of 2 bins filled with motors, some of them still new in the box and some appear new and some appear lightly used. The engines are all small ranging from .2cc to .99. The makes vary from OK Cub, DeLong, Royal Spitfire, K&B, Atwood, Super Hurricane, AE, McCoy, D&R, Forster, OS Max, GHQ NY, Mills, Irvine Engine, Elfin, AH Sweden, Rustler, MP Jet and the big engine is RCs 215 radial.

How can I sell these to help these girls out and not get taken advantage of?
Is there anyone out there who could help me place a proper price on the engines?
Which seller feature should I select?

There are 50 small engines that I have cataloged so far and it looks like 30-40 more in another bin.

Thank you to anyone who is willing to answer these questions and or helps them out.

init4fun

Hi Cbum ,

First and foremost , Sorry for your loss .

As to your engines ;

There are only two ways to sell em , one at a time or as a group . One at a time sales WILL get you more $$ and will be more time consuming .

Value ?

Your best research venue will be COMPLETED ebay sales . I say completed in big letters cause all kinds of folks will ask ALL kinds of wild prices for that which they don't understand/think is "exotic" but those prices aren't grounded in reality . Only the completed sales prices reflect the actual , you CAN get for it value .

Never take only one source's info for value as well all know most folks have no problem whatsoever giving you $50 for an engine worth $500 , and only YOUR education of prices is gonna prevent that . Look through the classifides of every RC website you can find and again try to look at completed sales rather than asking prices .

Was Father in law in a club ? contacting some club members he used to fly with could help , but remember to get at least a couple agreeing opinions from different sources before ya let anything go . This is , by nessisity , going to be a learning experience for you if you want/need maximum $$ per engine .

Some will be somewhat valuable , some wont be worth dirt , and some in betweens . Good Luck with it ....

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

I urge you to contact this organization:
http://www.modelenginecollectors.org/

Some of the engines you mention are highly prized collectors items. I would hate to see you sell them for less than they are worth

jester_s1

Some of them might be valuable collector pieces, but most will probably just have value based on their practical usefulness. I agree Ebay is the way to go for selling most engines. You'll get better prices there, even allowing for the fees, than you will anywhere else I know of. The collector guys will probably do better for the rare and old engines because they are the only ones who want them. That's especially true for any spark ignition engines if he had any.

KW_Counter

First, I am sorry for your loss.

Yes, eBay is the way to go. I helped my friend's daughter with his estate this way.
Many I sold within the club as I know he would have wanted that.
I do believe a few people took advantage of me with some of the rarer engines.
But when I got to eBay, things really improved.
Sunday evening is the best time to start/stop the sales.
Don't flood the process, a few a week is best, each different.
To many and you are competing with yourself.
And it's a lot of work shipping them, spread it out.
Pictures are essential, many angles.
If you are questioning if the engine is good, have it checked out or don't sell it.
Selling As Is is an option and mention your concerns.

Good Luck,
KW_Counter

TLH101

My Feedback: (90)

All of the advice you have received above is good. Just want to ad that if you are willing to ship international, some engines will command much higher prices, due to European collectors. If you have any Italian built Supre Tigers, they seem to sell well to Italian collectors.