12 Nov
2010
12 Nov
'10
2:24 p.m.
Heck I would be pissed to find I sunk even $20K
into my collection over the last 10 years.
Over a period of 10 years, its not hard to sink $20K into shipping
fees alone when you collect stuff that needs to be shipped freight.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
of the heavy items I have are local pickups, or I
would not have bothered.
There are not that many things I would shell out $100+ just for shipping.
Unfortunately there have been many things that I've had to pay rather
more than that to have shipped. Having a few PCBs shipped across from
the States can easily cost $50 [1], a complete unit will often cost
getting on for $100. I have, alas, not bid on things because I can't
afford the shipping, though.
[1] I am being reasonable about this. The postage charge alone can be
getting on for that figure, and I don't object to paying a sensible
amount for packing materials and the seller's time.
For example, I bouth an electronic test/measurement isntrument recently on
E-bay. The seller chaarged $110 or thereabouts for shipping. Since the
postable lebel said $97.xx, and it came properly packed, I regard that as
entirely reasonable. But the sellers who tell me it will cost $150 to
have a fairly thin service manual posted to me are not being reasonable.
I try not to spend more then $100 a month, sometimes I go over if I find a
great deal I can't pass up. Some months there just isn't that much out
there. The bulk of my ebay purchases are things like software, cards,
cables, cpu upgrades etc so shipping is not that bad.
It gets worsw when you buy from another continent :-). The provlem is
that parts for the mcahines I am interested in don't seem to exist in
Europe...
-tony