MikeM

Too many bankers and speculators in this thread for it to be a hobby.

bluestreak63

Beautiful 63...

Someday...yup, I said it, like others have said before, someday, as it languishes there with cobwebs forming from the ground up the tires, someday I hope to start a restoration that will have my 63 back to it's former glory when it rolled off the assembly line.

And I already know and have come to the realization, that what monies I put into it, I won't be getting back out of it. Do I care? Nope, not one bit. For me, it's going to be about the hobby and fun times I hope to have with my sons while doing it. And someday, it will be given to one of them to be the caregiver.

In answer to your question though...I would say in the $50k range...

See if you can check out past Mecum auctions and ebay and see what similar ones have sold for.

rfn026

I think everyone is low balling this car. Let's call it a #2 car. Now go to Hagerty. The average value is $58,800. It could go as high as $80,000.

Everyone knocks Hagerty but there is no better source. We're talking a sophisticated algorithm vs. anecdotal evidence. I spent too many hours in graduate level stat courses to believe in anecdotal evidence.

Sure Hagerty is not perfect. It's certainly not the NASDAQ but is a starting point. It's a lot better than "My buddy just sold …."

The real problem here is to separate the signal from the noise.

I would list this car at maybe $75,000 and see what happens.

These cars are quickly leaving the hobbyist behind. They're moving into the collectible category.

Richard Newton
'58 Interior Blog

65hihp

just a question Richard,, as I am curious.
what is the point in listing a 63 nom conv for 75 when all other similar cars, though maybe not with all the recent mechanical and interior work are priced from high 30s to high 40s, maybe low 50s in rare cases?
I ask this as someone who is seriously upside down in a 65 L76 conv that is all born with. I might dream it should bring around 75, but I know the market is not there for my car. And I sure as heck know it is not there for a 64, or 63 L76 conv.
Doesn't the market place set the actual value of a collectible anything?

rfn026

You're absolutely correct.

The problem here is determining the market value. None of us really know since the market is rather small. We're all guessing.

Hagerty is the best data base we have. It's far from perfect but it's all we've got. You could also check the auction results but they're more problematic than Hagerty.

I sort of pulled $75K out of the hat. People will then haggle down to $65K. Everyone leaves the experience happy.

The collectible market is like the wild west. No one really knows.

Actually Corvettes are in two distinct markets at the same time. We have the hobbyist cars at #3 and #4. Then we have the NCRS/BG cars that are truly collectible objects.

We're getting the same two levels in the auctions. BJ is for the average hobbyist as is Mecum. Then we have the really serious auctions run by RM and David Gooding.

It's all a little crazy. Now if we had several hundred cars trading daily we could build a really nice algorithm

Richard Newton

Frankie the Fink

Yeah. That's the 'reality' part where the market talks.
The Hagerty guide is fun mental masturbation, but I wouldn't say its the gold standard. If so, I'm hanging on to my strong #2 split window cuz it has another $20K to get back to where it was at the turn of the century

MikeM

Does Hargerty get their values from actual sales or do they get the value for what some of these insureds THINK their plug is worth?

Just curious.

Frankie the Fink

Hagerty doesn't name the source of their data; they merely claim it is up-to-date, accurate without price bias or prejudice (whatever that means).

MikeM

I think their top end prices are pretty high. Think. Higher values placed on the cars result in higher premiums. Wouldn't make much difference on one insured's car but how about a couple thousand?

I can't help but smell a rat here.

Bowlerdude

If the original poster is hell bent on selling his car then I think the best way is to list it on eBay.

If you have a minimum amount that you just have to have then put that as the reserve. If not, list it for no reserve and you'll get what ever it reaches at the end of the auction.

I think the car will bring very close to $50K on eBay but you never really know..you might get a surprise.

provette67

and I see that the car is listed on the bay now. Good luck with the sale

ChattanoogaJSB

Good luck with the sale! The car really is very nice!

Zoomin

Here's a blurb that gives some clues into Hagerty's valuation. Thought process:
The market is on an uptick it appears. Might be time to adjust our mental estimates to reflect that.

donbayers

Thanks everyone for your comments and good discussion that certainly goes beyond my particular car.

I'd like to have you guys consider it from another perspective.

Someone brought up the idea; why price a value near other cars that have original motors and that a buyer would gravitate to them instead of NOM.

What about a buyer that is more concerned with a great car that is all restored/refreshed from a mechanical standpoint. Might this kind of buyer place a higher value on an example that has had all this work done? Knowing that the seller is not going to get all the money back but it will be more cost effective for the buyer to spend a little more. This buyer could be savy enough to know that if he bought another car at market price and then tried to do all the mechanical things they would then spend more money than my ask!

People always say that usually the best deals are restored cars where the sellers are never going to get back all the money it took to get it there.

Hope this is making sense.

I know this. If someone bought another car in the $40k range, there is no way they could do all that I have done and only be in the car at 58,500, which is what I've decided to price mine at. Realistically they wound be at least $10k more into it.

So in my mind the buyer of my car ( the kind I'm looking to find) would realize they are getting a pretty damn good deal.

Guess we'll see

Colorado '63

Just found this thread so a couple thoughts:
Ebay is weak right now, especially in the $50k range. I've bid on two cars, won both bids at $40,100 and $37,000. Both cars were as good as this one and of course neither seller went thru at the Ebay price. We couldn't agree on a more reasonable price either so the cars are still on the market.

Hagerty is what I show my wife to convince her I got a great deal.

You know you've reached the upper limit when you're looking for a buyer dumb enough to not do his market research but smart enough to have the money for an expensive toy. How many of those are there?

No matter what you do to your car, you add something the buyer doesn't want and omit something he does want.

I used to be a real estate appraiser and these things apply to buying a house too.

Zoomin

As an appraiser, you know that market price is the intersection of the price the buyer is willing to pay and what the seller is willing to sell. You just happened to arrive at the price buyers were willing to pay on that venue, on that day - but not at the price sellers were willing to sell.

There are other venues that may bring other buyers that are willing to pay more and sellers are willing to pay less.

If I owned a car of the caliber of the 3 you're talking about, I wouldn't sell them at your bid level either, and I doubt you would.

bluestreak63

So you won both cars and the seller backed out? Or do you mean you had the high bid when the auction ended, but the reserve wasn't met? If you had the high bid when the auction ended, but it wasn't what the reserve was, is that really winning?

I thought eBay auctions are a binding contract, is they not?

donbayers

Exactly.

If I bid on a car and do not meet a reserve I've won nothing nor am I establishing a true market value with one single observation. I really like how Zoomin put it.

BTW I never expected the car to sell on the auction but it did draw attention and several interested local parties.

Colorado '63

I apparently didn't explain things well. I meant to show that an "auction" where things sell isn't the only thing going on on Ebay. Some people are testing the market (like me) to see who's out there and how high they are willing to go. I would put in a nearly reasonable bid but Ebay only bumps me up $100 at a time depending on who else is there to push up the price. I found I had no competition and would be the high bidder, but at a price no seller would/should accept. No problem with that. In my case the after-auction negotiations with the sellers didn't result in a sale so no comps there. Don's comment that he was just promoting his car and didn't really expect to sell it right then is in line with "you can do other things with Ebay."


Zoomin's definition of market price is not quite right: "market price is the intersection of the price the buyer is willing to pay and what the seller is willing to sell." If that was right an exceptionally high or low sale could start a new market. A market is a pattern from multiple sales involving knowledgeable buyers and sellers . If a reserve price is outside the normal market range, it doesn't mean it will never sell, it just means that you have to find that one exceptional buyer that is outside the description of "typical buyer".


Being a good buyer or seller requires being "knowledgeable". And that's what this blog is about. I'm just here learning.

kstine98

I would be a buyer at that range!