1010 Sprocket Thief

[wwattson]

Okay, who done it?

I gave Neil Makal at M&N Equipment in Medford, WI a call on the two used sprockets I was coming to get from him and he told me that some guy came in and offered him $500 each for the sprockets (twice what I agreed to so bye bye sprockets).

It's got to be one of you's guys so what one of ya done it? On a side note, have you completely lost your mind? $500 for a used 1010 sprocket is just nutty. Like I told Neil when I talked to him, I sure can't blame him for selling stuff at crazy prices and he'd made a wise choice to go with the second buyer since there was no way I'd have gone $500. I'm pretty sure I can turn up a couple of new ones for $360 each so make sure you're not getting too crazy on these.

Lavoy, you sure it's a bad idea to cut the rims off a few T16261 sprockets to repair some T16259 sprockets? I'm sure I could weld them up so you could never tell and a "new" sprocket should fetch $750 to $1000 if the two sprockets I looked at were $500 each.

[brettjones]

Perhaps the disease that causes people on E-Bay to bid twice the cost of new on a worn out old part is spilling over to the "real" world. Happy days if your the seller.

[JD440ICD2006]

If you told this seller that you were on your way, he had no right to sell them. If he wanted to run an auction, he should have made that clear to you before you wasted your time and money to drive over. He would have been upset if he drove them to your place (same cost for him as for you) and you informed him that you bought two sprockets cheaper and did not need his.
It works both ways with honest people, but the crooks always think everything should fall their way.

[wwattson]

I want to make sure that I don't end up getting somebody's reputation damaged as a result of just telling the story. I've got absolutely no problem with Neil selling those sprockets for twice the price he gave me. Neil runs M&N Equipment as a business and it's tough making a living working on and selling old crawlers. I had called before I drove up so he didn't waste my time and I'd be happy to do business with him again. He is digging through a couple of the old crawlers now for a hydraulic lever and junked out track frame that I can use for the steel and he guessed correctly that I wouldn't have gone $500 for a used sprocket and it was money out of his pocket if I didn't come to get them.

I'll agree that I was disappointed but it wasn't a matter of me putting money down on the sprockets. I would have bought them when I was there to get my track rails repinned but I frankly didn't have the money after buying engine parts, shoes, and the repinning so I told him I'd buy them from him a couple paychecks down the road.

The point of telling the story is more about how insane some of this stuff has become and some of the "panic buying" going on with 1010 sprockets. I agree that they're hard to find but not impossible and most of the problems I've come across are caused by people paying insane prices for these parts causing the other people that have some of these parts to sell to rethink what they're worth. Neil is on eBay along with Lavoy and Ed from Crawler Heaven and any number of other folks that sell crawler parts and they've seen what this stuff has been selling for. The fact is that most of these markets aren't very deep and I'd bet dollars to donuts that if I had 50 new 1010 sprockets to sell right now for $350 each, after a year I'd still have 40 of them that I couldn't sell for $200. Suddenly used sprockets with some wear left would be selling for the $100 they're worth and life would return to normal. I'm just hoping Lavoy finds the secret stash of 10 or 20 NOS 1010 sprockets so I can help keep him afloat and get me a couple of sprockets so I can finish up the current project and move on to the next.

[JD440ICD2006]

Bill,

I understand that you do not want to trash this seller's reputation. I have seen prices on much of this stuff shoot straight up.
What is funny is this. These sellers (some are not this way) will tell you that the stuff is not worth that much when they are buying it from you. It is the old used car game. It ain't worth much when they buy it, but, as soon as they own it, they will mess over their own mother to get to a higher dollar.
I think part of it has to do with folks that have lost their way on what is important. I would rather give up some dollars on stuff and have a solid reputation, than to skip out on a buyer to grab an idiot that has more money than he does sense.
The filter I use most of the time is if things had been reversed, would the other guy have been happy or upset. I just believe that this guy would have been upset had you offered to buy them, then told him you found them cheaper when he brought them to you.
Let's hope Lavoy finds that secret stash, he is a solid individual that will do you right on them.

[digitup]

If he is running a business then he should know better than that I would never deal with that guy again sounds like he uses his wallet for a backbone I have been in business before I got out of school and even if I made less I will not go back on my word remember trust is the only third party in a deal .Digitup.

[wwattson]

Well, when you're right you're right. I just had the guy jerk me around on some stuff with the old "you drive 2 and a half hours up here and then I'll tell you the price" routine. I guess you saw it all along but I went for the benefit of the doubt. I guess I can't recommend this seller based on this last go around.

Anybody know any good crawler dismantlers in the Wisconsin or Illinois area? I'm looking for a scrap track framme I can cut up for the steel. Lavoy helped me out with some of the pieces I need but it would be go to get a whole track frame so I can harvest a couple of really long pieces for the repair I'm doing.

[Ray III]

If the guy is running a store then I can see selling the parts he has in stock to the first guy who actually comes for them.

Now if a customer promised to buy a part he didn't have much of, and he promised to reserve them for the customer, then it should be a done deal. Didn't see that in this case though.


However, the drive 2 hours then have the piece of feces try to sneak in a different price thing is really low. I hope you kept your money!

Last spring my dad had to drive from New York to Delaware to pick up a new cab for a crane truck for $6,000. He told the guy straight up over the phone that the price was a done deal and he was signing a check for $6,000 right there before he left and if the guy tried to get Jewish with him he wasn't going to get the money. That transaction went smoothly but you have to preclude the possibility of some chicanery by the seller.

[Tigerhaze]

I have had issues on Ebay with 2010 sprockets, which have similar availability issues as the 1010 sprockets. I won the auction (higher than I wanted to go) and then the guy told me he didn't have them to ship to me. He must have sold them to someone locally at highway robbery prices. Luckily I hadn't paid him yet when I requested the invoice and shipping info.

I tend to agree that a seller (especially if he makes it his living as a business) needs to stand behind his promises. If he said he would hold on to them o(r puts them in an auction), then they should be available.

It is great to have businessmen like Lavoy that are supplying hard-to-find crawler parts. He put a lot of effort to get me a set of NOS 2010 sprockets and front idlers at what I consider to be a very reasonable price.