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People selling on ebay can be surprising

G

gerrydoire

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2008
Messages
1,145
Been an Ebay buyer and lurker since 2000 ish, and well
like most of us, probably bought more vintage stuff
than I should of.

I've been looking for a IBM AT 5170 in nice condition,
as nice as I can get it, good or bad, the shipping is the
same, so might as well hold out for a good one.

That day came...

Some guy posted an IBM 5170 in near new condition,
in the box, he wanted $299 or best offer, at that
price, I figured it has to be suspect, so I figured
what the hell, offer $250, he accepted it.

He wanted $25.00 to ship it, from the USA to
Canada, anyhow, I paid both, figuring I'd never
see this thing or it would show and not be what
was in the photos.

2 weeks lator...

June 18th, 2013 it arrives.

I haven't fully inspected it, but it appears to be
near new, in the box, all the original stuffing,
single 1.2 meg floppy with the card inside it,
everything seems to be there, what's wrong
with this story?

The shipping was really strange, this thing
weighed a lot. When I asked, will this cover
this item, I got no replies, and I know it costs
more than what I paid to send this thing, but as
I said, I paid the $25.00, it got here all double
boxed and viola.

There are currently several computers for FAR
more than what I paid and some of them are
ridiculously more, as high as $899+ and from
what I can tell of them, they all have case
marks, dings etc.

I will fully inspect it in a few days when I have time,
but looking at the top and front of the computer,
I see newish condition.

Crazy Shit ?
 
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Sometimes you luck out! I got a Sanyo MBC-555 essentially new-in-box with keyboard and disks for around $120 a few years back. You could tell the thing had never been operated much because the fan was noisy as hell, probably the lubricant globbed up into one spot or something.

Those crazy deals are out there once in a while.
 
So far the case on this IBM AT has only 1 scratch on it, the far back top, and smells like that new electronics smell, the back plates are pristine,
it appears to have two cards in it, if this thing was never opened, chances are it will remain that way. The bottom pads appear to show no wear
at all.
 
Best one I ever did was bid on a VGA scaler, got one of these for 99p (less than $2 at the time).

Edit: I should know by now to wait a while after waking up before using the internet...

What I forgot to add, was the item also had a "Buy it now" option for an amount considerably higher, I had gone back to do that though as it was still less than a new one. When I returned someone had bid some pathetic amount (clearly less than 99p) and the "Buy it now" button was gone... Only a few mins left I actually bid as much as the buy it now had been but as the other guy nor anyone else showed up I got it cheap. It took a while to show up though, I was sure he wouldn't send it.

Another one that happened was I bought a motherboard once, the bloke forgot to send the cables with it (I didn't notice, I didn't need them as I was replacing the same model) so he wrote and told me. I said he could keep those and sell them again, I didn't mind as I had cables already. Two days later, the cables arrived in the mail as well as a bar of chocolate with a note attached apologizing for not sending the cables.

While I am here, I'd also like to put in a good word for RE-PC and Recycledgoods. Both have sold things at good prices, reasonable shipping and have been honest. The latter actually refused to send me a motherboard as it had corrosion - I knew it did, but wasn't too bothered - but they refunded me fully, from what I can gather they try to test the item again before shipping it.
 
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Are good sellers considered crazy? I think the seller expecting $899 is the crazy one. What have boxed IBM 5170 sold for in the last few years? $250 seems reasonable for everyone but he is really generous if postage cost him way more than $25. Do you know what the actual postage cost was (sometimes it is on the box label)?

I've always covered the postage cost when I've underestimated postage but it's never been by a large amount. Some people post through their work, so they don't care about the postage costs.
 
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I've messed up my postage a couple of times but kept it to what I said in the auction and ate the difference.

My feeling is if I said it in public, it's binding. I know I'm in the minority, but that's the way I was raised and that's the way I'd like to be treated.
 
I've had this kind of shipping thing happen before too. Sometimes when someone offers free shipping, sometimes when they grossly underestimate shipping. FWIW, in the past, when I've underestimated shipping, I've eaten the additional charges as well. It's part of being an honest seller.

That said... $25 USD wouldn't cover sending an IBM AT from one side of the city to the other, let alone across country borders. This seller must've felt that the $250 that they received was more than enough.
 
To be fair, if I had something with an IBM logo on it, I'd probably be quite happy to pay you to take the damn thing away from me. :D
 
Maverick1978 said:
I've had this kind of shipping thing happen before too. Sometimes when someone offers free shipping, sometimes when they grossly underestimate shipping. FWIW, in the past, when I've underestimated shipping, I've eaten the additional charges as well. It's part of being an honest seller.
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Same here... I've usually eaten the additional cost when I've shipped stuff and underestimated it. I don't like doing it, but it's the fair thing.

That said, I've gotten WAAY more conservative on estimating shipping... used to I would eyeball things and say "looks like about $5." Now I whip out the scale and tape measure to be sure. Usually the thing that gets you on big packages is not the weight, but the bulk... and as I'm sure everyone is aware at this point, shipping costs today vs 10 years ago is astronomically more expensive for medium-largish sized items.

BTW, one thing to consider when shipping larger or irregular items (and I haven't admittedly had to do this in quite a while), but you used to be able to ship items from station to station on Trailways or Greyhound buses at a considerable savings. My dad shipped a radiator to me on a Trailways bus, overnight, a distance of about 350 miles. It cost less than $20 to do that. Try that with FedEx.
 
geoffm3 said:
BTW, one thing to consider when shipping larger or irregular items (and I haven't admittedly had to do this in quite a while), but you used to be able to ship items from station to station on Trailways or Greyhound buses at a considerable savings. My dad shipped a radiator to me on a Trailways bus, overnight, a distance of about 350 miles. It cost less than $20 to do that. Try that with FedEx.
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Never thought of that before, good idea to look into. Only problem with that is the bus stations (at least up here) tend to be in the worst parts of town, up here at the grayhound depot you would get robbed by crack/meth heads, lol
 
My luckiest find on Ebay was when I happened upon someone selling 4 IBM 5161 extender cards for $10 each. I bought 2 and gave one to a friend. I've seen these cards go for as much as $500 on Ebay before, so 2 for $20 is a pretty great deal! :D
 
Wormetti said:
Are good sellers considered crazy? I think the seller expecting $899 is the crazy one. What have boxed IBM 5170 sold for in the last few years? $250 seems reasonable for everyone but he is really generous if postage cost him way more than $25. Do you know what the actual postage cost was (sometimes it is on the box label)?

I've always covered the postage cost when I've underestimated postage but it's never been by a large amount. Some people post through their work, so they don't care about the postage costs.
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What you paid to ship it was not on the box, but I would estimate by the weight, easily $90.00

The Few IBM 5170's currently on EBAY, some are priced out of this world, and they've been sitting on EBAY for quite some time.

I can honestly say, I never expected to get an IBM AT 5170 is this level of condition, now that I have one,
I'm pondering over ideas how to keep it that way, but still be able to look at it with love in my eyes (rofl).

:)
 
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marcoguy said:
My luckiest find on Ebay was when I happened upon someone selling 4 IBM 5161 extender cards for $10 each. I bought 2 and gave one to a friend. I've seen these cards go for as much as $500 on Ebay before, so 2 for $20 is a pretty great deal! :D
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Some people have no clue what something might be worth, others ass-ume their stuff is worth a fortune and hold out with crazy prices.

Some people have had a Tandy 1000 is very meh used condition on Ebay for around $1 grand, "out of their minds".

BTW (cough) (Cough), I'm looking for a Tandy 1000 in nice condition :+)
 
Some people can hold onto things to get the most profit, others need to move stuff in volume or starve.

Deals can still be found. I snagged 4 x 16MB 30 pin SIMMs the other day for $20 shipped, they seemed to be stuck at the $50 a set mark for ages.
 
gerrydoire said:
BTW (cough) (Cough), I'm looking for a Tandy 1000 in nice condition :+)
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An original 1000 from 1985? I have one that could use a new home. It's not exactly in pristine condition since it was originally used at a college, but it works fine and I've upgraded it to the full 640K. PM me if you're interested.
 
Maverick1978 said:
I've had this kind of shipping thing happen before too. Sometimes when someone offers free shipping, sometimes when they grossly underestimate shipping. FWIW, in the past, when I've underestimated shipping, I've eaten the additional charges as well. It's part of being an honest seller.

That said... $25 USD wouldn't cover sending an IBM AT from one side of the city to the other, let alone across country borders. This seller must've felt that the $250 that they received was more than enough.
Click to expand...

You're probably right about the shipping, or this guy used someone else's shipping method, like a company he works for or something like that, spend someone elses money, let it slip between the rocks :p

The main reason I tend to wait for a quality piece of equipment is solely cause of shipping, whether I buy a nice looking computer
or one that looks like it came from the sewer, the shipping costs will still be the same and right now shipping is rediculously expensive
across country borders.

I plan to take photos of the computer, capture its beauty for all to see.
 
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According to the box, The IBM AT:

- 20 meg hard drive
- Mono Video
- 512k memory
 
I got lucky with a 5170 about three months ago. The case does need some clean-up, but it's definitely not rotting like the ones I have. It was a local seller about 3 hours from me. After I contacted them, I found out that they send someone into my area on a weekly basis anyway so I got free delivery and a system full of cards and the original keyboard for $100.
 
arrow_runner said:
I got lucky with a 5170 about three months ago. The case does need some clean-up, but it's definitely not rotting like the ones I have. It was a local seller about 3 hours from me. After I contacted them, I found out that they send someone into my area on a weekly basis anyway so I got free delivery and a system full of cards and the original keyboard for $100.
Click to expand...

Now that I have a near perfect 5170, I'm going to get a less than perfect one to tinker with, hopefully for less than $200.........................
 
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