Thread: Why do rod owners "over-estimate" the value of their rods?

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Originally Posted by Peiceofpaper

On craigslist, a feller here in town has a fiberglass 29 Roadster rat rod with a 350/350 combo for sale and is asking around $6600 for it. I emailed him to see if he was interested in trades, after a few emails he tells me he'll take my 1974 2dr Nova (I value it around $5200), a 4-71 blower (had a $500 rebuild and conversion done a year ago, hasnt been run since conversion), offenhauser 6-71 manifold, 4x Brand new 29x15.5x15 Mickey Thompson sportsman pros, 2x brand new 15x12 Weld Draglites, t5 tranny, complete 68' Vette 327sbc /w 64' vette fuelie heads, totally complete 142 weiand supercharger, and $1200 cash for the 29' rat.

I told him no thanks, he's asking way too much for it, he says "Thats Fine, It'll be up on ebay in a week for $10,000"....


Heres the link to the listing..

http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/car/246819825.html


I love ratrods, im currently on my 3rd one, but I cannot grasp the idea of throwing $3000 or $4000 worth of parts together and selling it for 3 times that much (face it, unless your job title is "rod builder", the time spent on the rod means next to nothing to the buyer). This same guy was selling another roadster pickup on ebay and was asking $13,500 for a $7000 rat.


My questions...

Are idiots like these very common in rodding? Am I an idiot? Why is it that if something is primer black with some red somewhere on it they call it a "rat rod"?

Why do you call him an "idiot"? He's not and either are you!

Seems to me that his asking price is not out of line for today's date. What he asks for and what he actually sells for are not the same.

EXAMPLE: In 1960 I bought a completely stock 1936 Ford 3-window coupe from the original owner for $35.00 (thirty five dollars). Other than the paint being oxidized it was perfect. No rust or dents. I drove it for a year and got a cracked block. (Whole other story about that and "water glass" that I will write about some other time) I lived in Sparks, Nevada at that time and drove the car down to San Mateo, California to my folks. After the repair I didn't trust driving it back to Nevada so I put it up for sale at the Shell service station that my Dad dealt with. It sold for $50.00 (fifty dollars) and I was glad to get that. If that car is still around today it would bring $30,000 easily.

My point is simple. The selling price of anything is whatever the buyer is willing to pay at the time.

By the way; the term "rat rod" is one that I will be glad to see fade away. I really dislike that terminology.

Um, I don't know... but it seems that $6600.00 isn't too far of the mark for the value. Remember, an object is only really worth what somebody is willing to pay for it (one man's trash, yada yada). I more or less follow the same philosophy that Halftanked does, about fifty cents on the dollar for something I am interested in.

The problem with the auction sites is, that some people fall in love with something, and that competitive feeling kicks in, and then they bid the hell out of stuff, and end up overpaying for an item just so they win it. I see this all the time with some of the local farm auctions I go to.

In the end, it all boils down to what is it worth to you? And that is my 2 cents worth.