Ebay horror ...

From: Craig Smith <ip500_at_home.com>
Date: Tue Jun 12 08:25:59 2001

        FINALLY! A voice of reason in this seemingly endless debate. Well said
Joe. If you add up the time spend digging stuff out of musty basements
and barns, gas and wear & tear on vehicles driving hundreds of miles and
time cleaning, testing, etc .... what little return you receive
[even at eBay {gasp!} prices] is well deserved.
        AND ...all this time and effort does get the machine to a person who
WILL preserve it. After all, they just spent good money for it.
        That said, I just "saved" a couple more TI 980B's from the clutches of
the recyclers. Had to buy a huge pallet of stuff to get them
and compete with several guys solely interested in the metal content.
One actually seems to still be working!! Probably to appear on eBay in
the near future.
        Craig [ip500 on eBay and actually proud of it!!]

joe wrote:
>
> At 03:11 PM 6/11/01 -0500, Jeff wrote:
> >Quoting Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>:
> > > I think what it comes down to is 'are you in this for the money,
> > > or because you enjoy repairing/using old computers'.
> >
> >Right. I would, however, tack on a note saying that it's ok to try
> >and make money off of classic computing items IF that money is used
> >to recover costs incurred in your collecting activities.
>
> I often find interesting old computers that I have no interest in
> owning but that I would like to see preserved. I often buy them with the
> intent of trading to other list members or selling them on E-bay. Most of
> the one that I sell or trade I have little of no hope of getting them
> running again due to lack of software or other critical parts. The
> AlphaMicro 100 that I sold on E-bay is a good example, I searched for two
> years for software, schematics, manuals or anything that I could find but I
> came up empty handed so I finally sold it. Oddly enough, after I listed it
> someone saw the ad and E-mailed me and said that he had the software and
> docs for it. I passed his message to to the guy that bought the
> system. The buyer used to have an AM 100 and was planning on restoring
> this one.
>
> What little money I make from selling computers or parts doesn't even
> come close to paying for the time, gas and expenses of finding this stuff.
> But I'd rather buy something and sell it to someone that will restore it or
> use it to restore another computer than see it get shredded for the metal
> content.
>
> Joe
Received on Tue Jun 12 2001 - 08:25:59 BST