ebay question

From: Teo Zenios <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Thu Nov 6 15:50:00 2003

----- Original Message -----
From: "jim" <jwstephens_at_msm.umr.edu>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: ebay question


>
>
> Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, jim wrote:
> >
> >
> > And no, this is not (just) a blatant plug for the Vintage Computer
> > Marketplace,
>
> I plan to use this forum for my "good" stuff, but I won't bore you
> with the drek, it will go to Ebay.
>
> I'd rather find an audience focused on the product, than throw it
> first out into the pond where you all, and the other possible Classic
> computer users would not find it.
>
> My friend got a "miss-listed" 129 keypunch off ebay because in the
> 100,000+ listings he had not described it so you guys could find it.
>
> with a smaller group of more interesting listings (eventually) one can
> scan 100% of the listings of interest, rather than 30+ pages of 100
> bits of drek on ebay.
>
> Plus, hopefully someone will not tell me to mail on bogus letterhead
> to Maxtor for a "sample" 160GB drive using a made up name, and
> charge me $5 to tell me that. probably 10% of the listings on ebay
> currently are that crap (though not in the vintage category).
>
> Jim
>
>

First off ask 5 people what drek and good stuff is and you will get
different answers from each person depending what they collect and what
price range they buy in. People need to check their spelling if your going
to use a search engine to find things.

As far as just posting the good stuff on the vintage computer marketplace
all that means to me is you posting stuff that people would pay alot more
for here then on ebay and the fact that people here would know whats common
compared to the people on ebay bidding on higher priced "drek". Your just
targeting your market for low end and high end material. I assume if you had
a $10,000 apple one it would probably go to where it would fetch the most
and thats probably ebay.

If somebody did bid $5 on a 160gb maxtor drive you know its a bullshit
auction, and for the guy to get away with it he must have written something
in the fine print of the auction you didnt bother reading. People can get
taken anywhere there is a swaplist if your not carefull.

I dont understand why people hate the 100,000+ listings on ebay, it just
gives you a higher chance of finding what you want when you need it. I was
looking for a good ADB KVM for a few of my classic macs and found a Dr Bott
one on ebay in mint condition with cables for $50, this was 1/4 the going
internet price and had seen one go for 2x the money on the Lowendmac
swaplist (another place to find deals or get screwed if you dont know what
your doing).

I even had alot of luck buying from people on the forsale newsgroups. There
are alot of people around who get tired of their old collectables and just
dump them to people who still like that particular collectable. I wouldnt
limit myself to just 1 place to search.

Having said this I have looked through the marketplace a few times and found
a couple of items I would have purchased if I didnt have one already, and a
few that looked nice but were priced alot more then what they go for on
ebay. I am going to continue looking, but I dont like how a few horror
stories are making ebay sound like such a shithole when its not, especially
when people are just promoting a new avenue of selling vintage equipment.

If the Vintage Computer Marketplace takes off its because people will have
found what they wanted at the price they would pay , not because people are
thumping the fact thats its not ebay (just like linux isnt getting anywhere
when all they talk about is how microsoft sucks instead of making their
product more apealing).

TZ
Received on Thu Nov 06 2003 - 15:50:00 GMT