Ebay madness

At 5 08 2001 01:47 am, Claude wrote: Well, yes and no. eBay has become good for the seller, mainly because there are people prepared to spend silly money on junk. It is nigh-on impossible to pick up a "bargain" on eBay these days. Auctions, however, are not solely for the benefit of the seller. To take a non-computing example, property auctions in the UK typically save the buyer a wedge compared to wandering down the local estate agent. In this case, both vendor and purchasor win to an extent: The vendor is more likely to sell his pile, the purchaser is more likely to get a bargain. I confess: I'm an eBay buyer, and I will continue (probably) to get stuff there. In the absence of suitable flea markets (unless: can anyone tell me where there are semi-regular boot sales et al in East London?), eBay represents the best source of old kit. OK, sometimes I end up paying silly money, but then - what *is* money? Maybe I'm lucky enough to have a decent income, but I'd rather have a bit of fun AND end up with some interesting stuff (much of which I intend to hang on to - not to make cash later, but because I'm interested in it), than trawl around in the rain looking for a "bargain". Looking at some of the other threads (what is a collector: depth vs. breadth), I see a bit of both in me. I started out looking for depth, and in the end I've gone for some breadth too. I *want* to re-build, in depth, systems I've personally used (MZ-80K, CBM8032, BBC 'B'/Master & QL in particular), but at the same time, I'm happy to tinker with stuff I've never used before... I've got 2 Epson PX-8's ATM. I've *never* seen one prior to picking them up on eBay... I'm not above a bit of soldering to repair a system either. But then I'm not going to make it my lifelong ambition to buy/acquire dead machines with a view to repairing them. Life's too short, and besides, I'm a klutz with a soldering iron... Anyway, before this turns into a life history / rant, I leave you with this: Some auctions are better than others... Yahoo seems to have plenty of sellers and few buyers, so maybe you can get a cheaper bit of kit over there? Not that there's much PDP-x kit, mind... -- Cheers! Ade.