New eBay Absurdity

[Joe L.]

Well, this is one of the best ones I've seen in a long time. Somebody paid $1,000 for a USED CV-736C PCV valve. There are some very minor nuance differences between this old valve and the CV-736 still sold today for about 5 bucks. Paying a $995 premium just for a few nuances has got to be the height of absurdity.

On top of all that, these old valves just can't be all that rare. Many people never changed them, so they shouldn't be that hard to find in wrecking yards. Plus, the CV-736C had very wide application. I'll bet they'll be a lot of folks out looking for them now. Expect to see many more on eBay soon.

eBay #270179376916

[Jerry DiTullio]

Re: New eBay Absurdity

Not any crazier than someone bidding $100 (so far) for an air cleaner wing nut, and the auction is still not over.

[Mike M.]

Jerry can you post the link or item number *NM*

[Joe S.]

Re: Shill Bids! *NM*

[Joe L.]

Re: Shill Bids!

Joe-----

It's, of course, possible that's what happened here. However, it looks like there were several people bidding on this. eBay's increasingly restrictive policy regarding identity of bidders and their bidding history makes it much harder to ferret out this sort of information.

In any event, if the winning bidder is, indeed, a shill bidder, then the seller is either going to have to pay eBay fees on the high bid amount or report his "shill buddy" as a non-paying bidder.

[Jerry DiTullio]

Re: Jerry can you post the link or item number

Auction # 280167123717

[Jerry DiTullio]

Re: Shill Bids!

Auction # 280167123717

[John D.]

Re: New eBay Absurdity

Joe, You got that post right for sure my friend. I already put the word out around here to my pack rat friends for those valves.
You know it makes you wonder what kind of brains (if any) some of these bidders have. I have a lot of friends that are wealthy but they got that way because they made they cash work for them. Paying 995 for a used POC(piece of crap not PVC) valve is absurd.

[John D.]

Re: Jerry can you post the link or item number

Mike,etal, I went on and looked at the wingnut on ebay for 100 buks as I have been trying to learn about them. So I compared the photo with the one we had here recently showing an original and a LIC wingnut. Well the one on line is suspicious. Course it could very well be the real deal and I am sure it is. But compare it just for fun with a post we had here on Oct 15th.

[Joe R.]

Re: Jerry can you post the link or item number

Hi John:

The wing nut in the ebay ad does not look like an original C2-style wing nut to me. The seller's assertion that it is "NOS" may be technically true, since I believe the GM service replacement wing nut that was (and possibly still is) available from GM looked like the one in the photo.

The problem here is that many people do not appreciate the fact that service replacement parts sold by GM, even if they have the exact same part number as the part used in original production, sometimes differ from the parts used in production. I learned that the hard way with the the C2 rear license light, and it looks like someone else is about to learn it the hard way with this wing nut.

[Joe L.]

Re: Jerry can you post the link or item number

Joe-----

Yes, parts do change over time for a variety of reasons, even if the part number never changes. For a part like this wing-nut, tooling wear is probably a major factor in the change of the part over time. It's also possible that there were different suppliers and each used slightly different tooling, all of which met GM specs for the part. That's what makes it tough on reproduction sources; which "version" of a part do you reproduce? For a part like this wing nut, it's probably barely feasible to make one "version", let alone every nuance of detail that may have changed over the life cycle of the part. Still, I would think that they could do a better job of reproducing the configuration seen on most original Corvettes.

In this case, the wing nut used for virtually all 1964-72 Corvettes was GM #219281. The part number never changed over that period, although the part may have. GM #219281 was discontinued from SERVICE in January, 1973 and replaced by GM #1385852. In June, 1984 the latter part was discontinued and replaced by GM #9440077. However, the nut in the eBay item can be neither of those parts since both the 1385852 and the 9440077 have phosphate finishes, not chrome.

So, the part in the photo must be either:

1) An original GM #219281 that was produced off of tooling different or more worn than most of those actually used on Corvettes and available earlier in SERVICE. I doubt this, but it's possible;

2) A GM #1385852 or 9440077 which has been stripped of original finish and re-plated. As a matter of fact, the nut in the photo looks like it might possibly be bright zinc plated rather than chrome. On the other side, though, I believe that both the 1385852 and 9440077 are otherwise configured enough differently that they can't be mistaken for 219281;

3) A reproduction or aftermarket nut. If aftermarket, it might be an older piece.

[Joe L.]

Photo Addendum

Concerning the 219281 wing nut, this is an absolutely, known original 219281 from my 1969. Of course, as I mentioned, that does not mean that every 219281 was the same, but I believe that this is the configuration generally seen on known original nuts, at least from the 1964 to 1969 period.

[John D.]

Re: Jerry can you post the link or item number

Joe, Glad you said that. It's a shame that when some companies make a repro part it is not investigated enough. Too many of us make repro parts that we reverse engineer instead of getting the print and old original examples to go by.

At least we don't see as many guys paying major bucks for the oil pan plugs because the LI repro is really nice for sure. JD

[Joe S.]

Re: Shill Bids!

You're probably right Joe, but if someone were to pay the eBay fee's, which with a final value fee would probably be less than $20 (Not sure on that), they sure got a lot of exposure and people looking at their eBay store or other listings for cheap money. I guess it's the pessimist in me that thinks these things happen and the optimist in me that hopes no one really paid that kinda money for a PCV valve unlesss it was solid gold. ;-)

[Timothy B.]

Re: Jerry can you post the link or item number

What's the difference in the wing nut for 1963, I thought they were all the same in that time frame. Tim