Brian Instruments BRIKON Mdl 723 Floppy Drive Tester / Analyzer - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

3 Apr 2003

I am with you guys, anyone who says untested may be selling a
cabinet that has nothing inside and there is no protection against
that.

best regards, Steve Thatcher

...
 --- Original Message ---
From: Ethan Dicks &lt;erd_6502(a)yahoo.com&gt;
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Date: 4/3/03 7:09:58 AM
 --- Joe &lt;rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com&gt; wrote:
...
 > >I saw a web site where these were about
$900.00
> 
>     Typical Re-seller wishfull thinking!!!  These sell on E-bay for about
...
   $20. 
Typical indeed.  OTOH, when researching other devices of similar vintage,
...
 plotters and protocol analyzers, to name some recent
targets, they are
...
 available from instrument companies for $1000-$2000
every day of the
...
 week, and they will be *glad* to sell you one for that,
but over on eBay,
...
 it's more like $50-$60 every week.

The brick-and-mortar catalog-oriented resellers are basing their prices
...
 on a stiff percentage of the new price, and living off
of "gotta have
...
 a replacement now" commercial traffic.  eBay
resellers are limited to
...
 what the traffic will bear over the course of a week,
regardless of
...
 individual customer demand.

> Note that this one has a $15 "handling fee" in addition to the
...
 > selling price and shipping. Again typical of
re-sellers. They never miss
...
   a chance to
boost their profits! 
I noticed that.  I tend to shy away from those guys, no matter what
...
 the deal seems to be - if they are pulling that, how do
I know that
...
 the "untested" condition doesn't really
mean "tested, guaranteed
broken"?

-ethan 