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A few bids on this already, but the 1960s Ercol blonde dropleaf coffee table on eBay right now is still incredibly cheap.
A timeless midcentury gem, the coffee table measures 61cm diameter and is 40cm high. With the table with leaf down it measures 37cm wide. According to the seller, it has a figured elm top with single leaf, supported by a blonde beech gateleg which opens out supporting the leaf. All the legs and X-Stretcher are beech and have that distinctive Ercol tapered form.
Condition-wise, it has some wear from age and the odd scuff to the varnish, but 'nothing too serious' apparently. Price? Right now a steal at just £6.62.
Find out more at the eBay website
Hello,
Firstly (and important context) I’m a big fan of this blog – its interesting, entertaining and useful.
I do however have a small gripe about the ebay posts. Its fine to point out great products, but to classify something as a bargain when the final price is unknown is something of a leading comment. Especially so considering that most ebay bidding activity typically takes place in the last minute. Would be interesting to go back and look at some of the 99p type bargains identified!
But it is a bargain at the prices we feature.
If we didn’t mention some of these things, they might slip through the cracks and go for next to nothing (or not sell at all).
We flag up what look to be bargains (or just interesting items) on eBay. If they go up, then obviously they’re not bargains anymore and not worth bidding on – but there are a lot of things we feature that don’t get bids or go for the minimum too.
At the end of the day, it’s your call if you bid or not. We just trawl through to find what we hope will be of interest, avoiding the high ticket prices and the hefty ‘buy it now’ items, unless it’s something special.
Okay I take on board your point that things can be a bargain at certain times. But then again, for the first part of its journey a trip aboard the Titanic was a delightful experience.
Take the example of the Beocenter 2000 from a few weeks ago (https://www.retrotogo.com/2010/11/ebay-watch-1970s-jacob-jensen-designed-beocenter-2000-audio-system.html). I quote:
” In fact, as I write, this Bang & Olufsen Beocenter 2000 audio system is under £1.
Which is madness when you think about it.”
Is it really madness that a seller sets a low starting price to encourage bidding? The stereo eventually sold for £255. Whilst I’d argue this is still a good deal…is it really a ‘madness’ educing one?
Hi again Ben – to be fair, we can’t really second guess the future. At £1 – or up to £50 – it was a bargain. But after that, perhaps not so. But who is to say it would shoot up in price?
As I said, we pick out things that are, at a point, bargains or rarities. We don’t know if they’ll fly or not. Some do, some don’t get a single bid (I’m thinking of a Ligne Roset amrchair for the latter I did a while back). It’s swings and roundabouts.
At the end of the day, we trawl eBay to find things of interest and potential bargains for our readers. We’d love to find Eames chairs for a ‘buy it now’ of £1, but they’re never out there. We do the second best thing of finding items you might get cheap. It’s all about entertaining and interesting people with retro-themed items.
And I think that’s great. I really do.
My only problem comes with the bargain/madness angle. Which lets face it…is entirely unproven. Potentially yes, but very often…no.