When 36-year-old Duncan was selling his two early 1990 Toyota Starlet motorcars recently, one in driving condition and the other a shell on blocks, he asked around about prices before setting his price.

He did not ask about prices of similar motor vehicles, although he did keep an eye on the classified advertisements, but he called a few auto parts stores.

"I knew what one of them wanted (the one that could be driven), like a set of shocks, a CV joint on one side, some bodywork and so on, so I checked out the prices," Duncan said. "Then I called a few places, like a scrapyard and another place that sells body parts for them, to find out how much the door and the bonnet and bumper and so on would go for."

Selling both cars

He did this because he was selling them as a pair and was balancing what it would cost to get the car that was driving in decent condition as well as how much a potential buyer could hope to get from scrapping down the shell totally.

There was one other cost to consider, a tow truck to remove the car on blocks. All that done, Duncan set his price.

"It's a poor man going to buy cars like this, or somebody who is into racing. Any way it goes, somebody going to bawl down the price and if you don't have an argument for them, they will bawl you down to nothing, you end up sorry for them and give away what you have spent a good amount of money on," Duncan said. "This way I will have facts and figures, so who can't come with a decent price can keep going."

Eventually, he sold both for $75,000 and counts himself as having come out of the deal nicely. "It would have cost me at least $10,000 for a wrecker to throw out the shell anyway," Duncan said.