Joe Rigdon, You bet. Here's just how small a world it really is ... Just so you know, it's Bennett Paul here in Va. Beach. Incidently, I did go ahead and bid on your National Instruments GPIB-1014DP. I guess when I talked to you on the phone, you thought I was trying to get over on you or something? I'm sorry you thought that. If I hadn't bid, as I felt should have been the case, Mitch would have gotten that part from you for only $86.00 or $87.50 and you would have done worse than my offer to you. As it turned out, against my better judgement, I bid anyway and that's what got you the $111.48 for it. All in the same range of what I pretty much knew it would sell for, and in the range of my offer to you, because I track all this type of gear. You always could have come back with a reasonable counter offer. And if you had been willing to cooperate, I might have been able to get you two to three times as much for it; you just would have to have been willing to be patient and cooperative. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2039825292 http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=2039825292 After that one, we have decided that we will never again compete with Mitch for any your parts. Joe, your overly suspicious nature just makes you too difficult for us to deal with. So now, when you mention your parts for sale to this list, we'll take a look, but we probably won't be buying. I have since now gotten a GPIB-1014 from another member of this list. Dropped over $1,300 on that cc list member which will help him in his business endeavors. Is there more to this than casual inspection shows? You bet. The seller of that DIO-24/PnP responded with a retaliatory comment, to a neutral comment, because I posted that I consider it substandard to ship a bare computer component in nothing but a material that risked damaging it. We really expected that someone that would be in the instrument business would know better than that. Most of the sellers that have made this mistake, at least have shown that they cared and that they would try to do better in the future. I know I should have given him a negative. If I knew ahead of time what his attitude was going to be, I most definitely would have. Too picky? No. The parts we buy must be of a quality to be acceptable to business buyers or you will find we will stop buying from any seller that sells obviously physically damaged trash without truthfully describing it or mishandles our purchases. When I used to sell DEC Qbus components on eBay ( to Zane, Gordon, Clint, Barry, William, Mark, Tim, and others ), I always tried to package their purchases properly. Even a M3104 that I sold to Doug Meade for only ONE DOLLAR, went into an antistatic bag. My patience has worn thin with eBay sellers that charge enough for shipping and handling to do the job properly, then don't. It's not about what they charge. It's about ignorance and incompetence. It's about their risking damage to the thousands of dollars worth of gear we have been buying. In the very recent past these items were shipped to us without being in either an antistatic bag OR antistatic bubble wrap ... National Instruments PC-DIO-24/PNP ISA Card - $24.99 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1750732393 national instruments IEEE 488 interface card - $21.50 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2048704854 Data Translation DT5712 Analog Input Board - $39.17 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2045869397 National Instruments PCI-MXI-2 - $125.00 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2049828950 Motorola MVME 300 VME Module - $39.95 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1756363070 GPIB PCI Card National Instruments NI-488.2 - $150.00 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1749304420 Hmmm ... And Louis Schulman thought GPIB interfaces were worth only about $5 http://www.classiccmp.org/mail-archive/classiccmp/2001-09/0543.html At least Allison knew. http://www.classiccmp.org/mail-archive/classiccmp/2001-09/0552.html Anyway, these items were misrepresented by their seller ... Ziatech ZT8907 STD32 Single Board Computer SB http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2036630347 NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS TERMINAL SCREW BLOCK - $24.95 - item pictured was acceptable, item received had the ends of the socket broken off and the latches missing http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1760911557 And these following items were received DAMAGED due to poor packaging practices ... Dawn VME Supercard i860 vector processor - $76.00 - received DAMAGED due to poor packaging methods - seller has refused/failed to respond to 2 emails concerning this. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2040376918 JORWAY 74A CAMAC TYPE SERIAL CRATE CONTROLLER - $59.95 - received DAMAGED due to poor packaging methods - Frank will probably make good on this, but it causes a senseless loss of time and money http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1758624242 Add it up. It starts to become a fairly significant amount. Tony, with his physics background, is the one most likely to recognize the significance of more of these types of parts than anyone else. There are a lot of you list members that sell on eBay. If you want us ( who are more often than not, the high bidder that will pay you better for your parts than most anyone else out there ) to buy your parts, you must show proper care in their handling and shipping. We will no longer give "Praise" to those that don't. If any of you list members wish to reject our bids which are more often than not the high bid, and even when not, usually helps increase the amount you receive for your parts, feel free to add us to your blocked bidder list. If anyone cares to learn how to properly package items for shipment, review these following links ... http://pages.ebay.com/services/buyandsell/shippingcenter2.html http://www.ups.com/using/services/packaging/guidline.html http://www.fedex.com/us/services/packaging/groundtips.html Best Regards, Bennett Paul dba ... Legacy Solutions International http://www.analog-and-digital-solutions.com/ At 06:06 PM 9/8/02 +0000, you wrote: