At 10:09 PM 08/21/1999 -0700, Sellam wrote:
>On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, John Lawson wrote:
>
>> Anecdote: A friend years ago had such a relationship with a
><...>
>> had the Surplus Business wired, and offered $25. The Dealer said
>> "Yeah, wait here.." and went off, ostensibly to get a handtruck.
>> When he returned, he also had a five-pound sledgehammer, and he
>> proceeded to beat the radio into crinkly little bits while friend
>> watched aghast. When he was done, the Dealer said "Sold!" My friend
>
>I don't care how you choose to frame it. That guy was an asshole.
Perhaps true, but not unusual in the business from my experience, (keeping
in mind that my travils have centered around the NorthWest) although the
sledge hammer approach might be a bit extreme.
Case in point: a local surplus dealer (now retired) whom I dealt with for
many years and considered a bit of a friend, while he often let me in on
'deals' on items he knew I might be interested in, we would just as often
absolutely refuse to budge on a price for an item that I considered totally
outrageous, and that I suspect that he knew he would probably never see paid.
Over the years we had some rather animated discussions, (probably described
as arguments by people less familar with his methods of dealing) which I
still fondly remember as quite entertaining/amusing/frustrating/etc...
Sadly, in most cases nothing short of a simultaneous act of God and both
houses of Congress would ever persuade him to change his mind, and
eventually you would find the item in pieces scattered around the store.
But you know, once you got to know him you also found out that it was
nearly impossible to 'insult' him with an offer, and on occasion you might
even get a surprise as long as the item in question did not have a price
tag. Once that hit, it was cast in stone!
He also had regular (quarterly I think) half-price sales, but the usual
buzz amoung the 'regulars' in the weeks preceeding a sale would be the
speculation (more often than not, correct) on what items would suddenly go
AWOL during the sale, only to reappear again the week after.
Once, not too long before his retirement I finally just asked him why he
operated like this. The answer was as direct as it was annoying. He had
(and implied that this existed throughout all 'serious' surplus dealers) a
list not unlike a automotive 'blue book' detailing easily resold components
and their values.
After some 30+ years in the surplus business (he must have been successful
at it, as his store was only ever open three days a week) he knew 'on
sight' what components were available from almost any item, and from that
it was assigned a value. From there, assuming that the item could be
obtained for the (considered) nominal 5%-15% of that assigned value it went
into stock, and was tagged at anywhere from 5%-10% under that value (for
something that was a real pain to strip down) to 25%-100% over the value
(for easily stripped or high demand items) and placed on the floor until
the time/inclination/need to strip it down came along.
Simply enough, if the tagged amount was not offered by the time came to
strip it down... It ended up in pieces. And sometimes, there may have
only been a small fraction of the total item that was considered to be 'of
value', so the rest of would either end up as parts scattered around the
store or straight off in to the dumpster of recycling bin.
Imagine my shock and horror one day when I stopped in to find the totally
gutted chassis of a large, late model VAX CPU sitting against the wall!
That one never even made it onto the floor intact! Anyone want to venture
a guess what the 'items of interest' were???
Believe it or not, the power supplies and blowers! (straight off to a DEC
reseller)
Boards scattered around everywhere, front console on a shelf, and the card
cage/backplane off into the can since it was too large for its value...
(AARGH!)
Curiously enough, I am neither defending or critisizing the practice...
Just relating my experiences and what I have been told by those who should
know...
Actually, with this and a few other things that I've learned this week
about common 'business practices', I'm becoming massively disallusioned
with the whole structure of 'modern business'.
Just convinces me that much more that I don't want to get involved with it
amy more than I have to... (where vintage computers are concerned... and
some other things, but that is yet another story...) B^}
-jim
---
jimw_at_computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
Received on Sun Aug 22 1999 - 01:45:30 BST