Finding steam traction engines on ebay.

[Reeves1917]

I was just curious on how does a person find a real full size steam engine on ebay. I have seen the ebay links to an engine on ebay here on smokstak in this forum. Though when I type in Steam Traction Engine I get a few related steam items like whistles but thats it. The rest are all books related to steam. Any information would be appricated.

Thanks;

John

[Ben Busfield]

plug in to that sigth steam tractor...or the type of engine you are looking for and that does help cut out a lot of stuff but in my years of looking on (evalbay) e-bay i have not see too meny full sized engines. some portables but i guess if you keep looking you will find what you are looking for...

[KG1584]

What I do is type in steam engine, usually get 1500-1800 items to come up. Then if you look right above the items, there are some "related" searches ebay supplies. I then click thru those and as you go then more "related" searches show up. You can then just keep going and waste a lot of time.

Same way if you type in steam whistle, then you get related searches such as steam injectors, steam gauges, steam govenors etc

Also - look in the Business/Industrial on the main page. They have a Agriculture/Forestry section which has several sub pages and so on.

Kind of geeky but you cover a lot of ground that way

Doug

[David]

Type "steam" into the search box, then go over to the "sort by" box, scroll down, and click on "highest."

It will then show a listing of all steam items from the highest to the lowest, and since no one usually list a portable or traction engine for under $5K, any engine should be near the top of the list.

David

[Colin]

All you have to do is type in what brand your looking for. Ex. "Case steam engine" (my main one) or 'Gaar scott' "rumely, Reeves ' etc. then everything related will come up. even on dial up it doenst take long to make a few searchs and browse the results. sometimes i try 'steam engine brass' or 'steam whistle'
if you just type steam engine you get a million model trains and Wilesco engines sometimes 'case steam engine' brings up a 'steam engine' thats in a display 'case'
but anyways there really hasn't been any full size engines on in the last 6 months

[Mike McKnight]

Save yourself all the trouble of looking on there....usually any full-scale traction or portable that shows up on "that site" (as we like to refer to it on here) gets cussed and discussed on smokstak!

Brad Kelly and I bought our last traction engines on e-bay (his a Huber, mine a Case), but they both sold last year. I guess the last full scale one on there was the KG that went to England? (Hate to mention it and kick over the nest of fire ants again....)

Mine was bought as just a pile of parts, I can't remember how Brad bought his. I personally wouldn't want to bid just an absolute boat load of money on one, unless I could inspect and UT in person, but that's just me. With some exceptions, you're going to pay about thru the nose on one, since all the overseas bidders look at "that site" with a fine tooth comb.

Often times you can do a search under "steam tractor" and find lots of traction engine stuff.

Mike

[Farquhar]

Mike, you probably made out a lil better with the 60, boiler wise, than Brad did with the Huber.
On the flip side, Brad made out like a bandit on the wheels, gearing, etc., as they look almost new. I was really impressed with the condition of that stuff on his Huber.
Can't wait to see both of them run.

[Brad Kelley]

My ebay Huber was a calculated risk. I had not seen it before bidding, but I could tell by the pictures that the parts were all there, and the grouters were sharp enough that I could assume it didn't have a hard road life. The boiler, as always was the only question since the owners didn't provide any info about its condition. I bid on it as a long term project and for the price I bid for it I was willing to risk having to spend more for boiler repairs or a new boiler. (of course I bid too early and gave another guy a chance to jack it up another $1000 before the end, but that's beside the point.)

When I went to Alabama to see the engine after I won the auction, the owners graciously gave me the option to walk away if I wasn't satisfied. I decided the price was worth what I wanted and what I was getting, even though I'd have to put probably double the purchase price into getting it running again.

Didn't Peter recently get a nice Buffalo-Springfield roller off ebay?

[Mike McKnight]

Brad,
You're right, he did get a nice Buffalo-Springfield off "the bay" recently! Forgot about that one. He can tell us his story, if he so chooses.
Mike

[Peter]

I did get the Buffalo Springfield. I removed the jacket and some pipes basically just got started poking around. I had ordered a shipping container to move a bunch of junk (err stuff) out and clear a spot inside the barn. The container was late, and winter was early. So the roller is soaked down with LPS 3 and under canvas until the ground dries out in spring. For now I could say- alls quiet on the eastern front.

[laknox]

Originally Posted by Reeves1917

I was just curious on how does a person find a real full size steam engine on ebay. I have seen the ebay links to an engine on ebay here on smokstak in this forum. Though when I type in Steam Traction Engine I get a few related steam items like whistles but thats it. The rest are all books related to steam. Any information would be appricated.

Thanks;

John

Hi John. If you use the advanced search, you can type in your keyword(s), then add -(keyword,keyword,keyword,etc.) to subtract extraneous stuff. There is a limit to the number of characters you can enter in the keyword box, so leave the spaces out after commas and you can pick up a few extra words. You can also use other qualifiers so the search will require those words in the results. +case,+steam or "case traction engine" or "traction engine"; quoted phrases are supposed to return results with only those words in that order. Another strategy is to define and save specific searches and just create a bunch of different ones. You can tweak them as-needed if they're too tight or too loose. You do need to double-check your searches for a few weeks to be sure they're actually returning results.

Lyle

[John G. Simpson]

John.
go to advanced search.
type in steam engine
go to price, enter 1000. min
worked for me.