Selling a seagull on ebay is a bit of a hit and miss affair. The tips below are designed to help you get the most amount of money for your engine.

1. Get a picture of your motor and use it on the page. This is the single most important bit of advice. Most people won't even bother looking at the listing unless there is a picture, also, make sure it is a picture of the actual engine for sale, many a negative feedback has been left because of that.

2. List on a Wednesday, Thursday or a Friday as a 10 day listing. That way you get 2 weekends for the same price. There are always more bids placed at the weekend.  Wednesday and Thursday evenings are especially good as it means the auction will finish on a Saturday or Sunday evening.   Avoid listing items so they finish during the day during the week when most buyers are at work !

3. Tell people what model Seagull it is and above all be accurate ! If you do not know, look on the internet, there are a few good sites out there to decipher engine codes.

4. If it is a good starter and runner, say so. If it needs a load of new parts and starts after 25 pulls then try and sort it out before listing it, Running engines always make more.

5. Look into postage options, After looking at ebay seagull listing for a long long time you can expect to get 20 to 30% more if you can get it posted. A featherweight can be sent by Royal mail standard parcels in the UK in fact anything upto 20Kg can be sent for £11.65 ! If your seagull weighs more than this you can send it by Parcelforce you can even send it abroad but this is obviously expensive.

6. Offer insurance on the postage. For royal mail Standard parcels you can insure for up to £250 for £1.50 and £500 for £3.00 !

7. Consider paying the extra for super sized pictures. These offer a potential bidder a better look at your motor.  The Gallery option also tends to get more people on to the auction page.

8. Mention extras if their are any. I bought a forty plus from ebay once for £30 and the seller also threw in a brand new fuel tap, original starter cord (unused), parts book, operations manual and workshop manual, 5 spare prop springs and brand new throttle control. These parts alone are worth more than I paid for the engine.

10. People seem obsessed with fuel tank dents in brass tanks. If yours has no dents definately say so ! If it has a small "dink" also say.

11. DON'T LIE. If you lie on the listing you open yourself up to all sorts of problems including legal action. A bid on ebay is a legally binding contract.   If the buyer pays with paypal and the engine is not as described you could find yourself with the payment being reversed and being well out of pocket.

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Buying 

1. Don't bid on the first one you look at. You can bet you will see a better one for less tomorrow.

2. Bid on the correct model. Don't bid on a featherweight if you have a 20 foot cruiser just because it looked big in the picture. Yes it has happened.

3. Don't rely on the picture, don't bid on the strength of the picture. Ask the seller if the picture is actually of the engine being sold. A lot of this recently, sellers using pictures from websites showing an immaculate engine, when the buyer arrives with his wallet of notes...Shock, horror its a wreck !

4. Location, Location, Location.  Is the seller on the coast or inland ? If its inland, chances are the outboard has only ever been used in freshwater meaning a lot less corrosion.  Sellers on the coast however tend to flush out their motors more often in clean fresh water after use and normally maintain them better.

5. If you are going to buy a seagull to repair, find out whats wrong first, some parts are unavailable now or are exremely expensive.  Buying a Model 170 needing a Con-rod will require quite a lot of money and a good engineer. 

6. Is a seagull really what you want ? Seagulls are high torque low speed engines so find out if one will be suitable for your boat. 

7. Ask the seller, How does it start and Run, does it pump water ? These 2 items can save you a lot of time and money. No water circulating could at worst require a new cylinder head and a lot of stripping down. Not running could require a new ignition system !

8. Ebay used to advertise "caveat emptor" latin for let the buyer beware. They have stopped doing this but it still applies !

9. CHECK FOR POSTAGE OPTIONS ! If you live in London and the motor you have won is in the USA how you going to get it. Be warned as some sellers sell small stuff saying posts worldwide but forget to remove this when selling large items so they appear on your countries ebay site. And usefully ebay convert the currency so you may not even realise !

10. Ask the seller whether there are any goodies (extras) included (see 8 in Sellers) They can save you a fortune later on !

11. Restoring a seagull can be a very interesting job with a very good end result. Time and elbow grease are required. If you are going to buy one to restore don't think for one minute that you HAVE to make it look like it did when it came out of the factory. There are hundreds in fact proberbly thousands of people doing that already. Put a bit of uniqueness into it. Don't feel you have to paint the flywheel in bronze hammerite, paint it pink with yellow polka dots it you want to. Restoration is a form of art it is not a set of written rules. How many paintings look true to life ? If people see a seagull that looks like it just came from the factory they say "that seagull looks good for its age !" if they see a seagull with lets say Chromed Fuel tank, Army camoflage gearbox, and a stainless steel tube they will come over for a closer look and start asking questions.