geekhack
geekhack Marketplace => Great Finds => Topic started by: N8N on Fri, 14 October 2011, 17:38:46
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http://discountsales.com/shop/module.php?module=show_product&id=1306796958
Not sure if it's really a "great buy" at $100, but it's the first one I've seen for sale. Every now and then I do a search, but all I seem to come up with is a bunch of XT boards. I guess this must be the going rate for these? Not sure I want to spend $100 just out of curiosity; I can't see it being my main board, but I *am* curious if the typing experience is significantly better than that of a Model M.
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The feel is better and different.
The layout is frustrating and annoying.
Is it worth a C-note to find out? I have bought a few and think that the feel is extraordinary. The 83-key XT is a better board, but the layout is even more annoying.
But how different? That is an existential question.
I have bought 4 and sold 3 of these ATs in as many months. I have paid from $53 to $143 plus shipping, and sold them for $100-120 plus shipping. The best one of the bunch cost me $108 and I will keep it, even though I have discovered how to make the more readily available 122-key terminals work like I want.
All the older guys on this site yearn for the days when you could get great AT keyboards cheap, I suggest that you need to pay $100-120 if you want one right away, and that you can get one for $60-80 if you are patient for a few months.
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For anyone waiting for an AT board, you shouldn't have had to wait long at all. One just sold on Ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/230684169076
Included the original box (though the box is a bit chewed up) and went for $76.57 with 7 bids. A pretty good deal based on current prices.
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I am afraid that my lust for one of these boards skewed the market and cost me a lot of money.
Last spring, I started really wanting an AT board, badly, and until mid-summer only a couple of NIBs turned up and sold for $200+
When a seemingly good one showed up in July, I bid $140 and somebody else was there, too. The Board was OK, not great. The other buyer got the next one from the same seller, at about the same price, it was WAY nicer than mine, but I was out of money.
Over the next month, when I had the money (my timing was not good) I bought a couple more in the low-$100 range.
With me and whoever my rival was now satiated, the market looks to have gone back the the $80 mark that the old-timers consider "normal"
So, with shipping, etc, and spending numerous hours cleaning and packaging boards, I ended up paying about $200 for one really nice specimen and a ragged box.
I also learned a lesson about patience.
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Ripster, Oh Great One. Thanks for noticing me. I feel humbled.
You knew of my existence before I knew of Geekhack when you spotted an item of mine on ebay and described part of it as "pretty ghetto"
I found the post later and got a good chuckle.
Anyway, my confessional was a combination of self-deprecating humor, and sage advice, explaining what I did to screw up the market, and what it cost me.
I am hoping to help someone avoid following in my footsteps.
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i keep dreaming about owning one. Thinking about asking for one for christmas.
trying to decide if id want to make it a daily driver or not
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There were 3 before this that sold for less than $75 shipped. But my attitude with ebay has become, that there will always be someone bidding, that will way overpay and you can pretty much never get a good deal on anything you want unless you are willing to pay 2-3x what it would be worth if that ******* wasn't bidding.
You can see what else the person bid on and it is always like 50 things within the last hour relating to antiques, toys, sports, and other collectibles. I don't see any point trying to get a deal on ebay, becuase there are just way too many people that run hobbyshops buying up anything "vintage"
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Auctions dont follow the supply demand curve.
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Auctions dont follow the supply demand curve.
Why not? Rank this list below from lowest price to highest price for me please?
Supply=3 listings; demand=0 bidder
Supply=2listings; demand=1 bidder
Supply=1 listing; demand=1 bidder
Supply=1 listing; demand=2 bidders
Supply=1 listing; demand=3 bidders
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On ebay, people frequently pay variable amounts for the same goods and the same time. How does that oversimplified model explain this?
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day of the week also matter, i notice that sales ending on weekend nights tend to go lower :P guess people are out partying
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Auctions don't follow the supply/demand curve?
Someone was just asking me why people get pissed off when I post that.
I go to surplus auctions that my University puts on (they're not legally allowed to throw things out, or give it away, it must be auctioned publicly) and I'd say that live auctions very frequently don't follow the supply/demand curve.
For example, I got a power mac G5 that only needs a hard drive, which completely works, along with a G5 for parts (missing fans, dented case, etc) and a Mac Pro that I'm using now (with a hard drive I had sitting around) for $80 total.
Demand for apple hardware is usually pretty high. Supply of used G5's keeps prices usually up past $100 for a working one. Mac pros like mine can easily sell for $1000
The lot after mine went up to $300, and it was just 1 g5 and 1 pro.
This happens frequently, I once saw someone bid up an item to $500 just because he liked the name. No idea what he will sett it for. I've seen perfectly working $10,000 projectors go for $2.50. Auctions can be really tricky.
This is why I believes Supply-demand graphs only work in idealized, or oversimplified systems.
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On ebay, people frequently pay variable amounts for the same goods and the same time. How does that oversimplified model explain this?
That would be many supply and many demand. The variable prices comes from whether the buyer wants BIN (or bid up the auction that is ending the soonest) vs. waits for a lower price. A good example is the digital scale (http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l2736&_nkw=56+LB+DIGITAL+SHIPPING+POSTAL+SCALE+POSTAGE+LB+SCALES+)you can buy on ebay. Your example only happens for products that are more readily available (unlike IBM's Space Saving Keyboards), and that is exactly where supply and demand meet in the middle, as long as the variation is within a few percentage.
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I once saw someone bid up an item to $500 just because he liked the name.
That's demand.
I've seen perfectly working $10,000 projectors go for $2.50.
That's lack of demand in that moment in time.
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For a while several years ago, my first main use of ebay was selling rare vinyl records (mostly rock and jazz from the 1960s and 70s). That gives a good perspective, since it is often the more obscure stuff that brings the highest prices. Few of my records were common, most were unusual, and many were genuinely rare. My buyers were a consistently heavy internationally, and I got pretty good prices on straight auctions. Occasionally I was shocked at how much, or how little, I got, but I had to assume that it averaged out.
I still consistently use ebay even though I hate their arrogance and monopolistic attitudes, because they really are the one true global marketplace for the kind of stuff I buy and sell.
There is a sweet spot (for sellers) in the supply/demand curve where there is a significant rabid demand and a short supply, especially if buyers have your item on their watch lists.
There is a sweet spot for buyers if you are lucky with your timing, or if your tastes run outside the norm, in a rarefied way.
In my option, sniping has displaced conventional bidding as the tool of choice, since it is easy, cheap, and reliable, and does not cause "bidding wars" since it only kicks in at the end. That is extremely important for buyers, it seems to me. As a seller, I hate it.
I now sidestep the auction issue as a seller by offering almost everything I sell at a Buy-It-Now price at the highest price point I think it might reasonably sell at, then lower it week by week until it sells. (and Ripster, you were right, I have a sweet clean bolt-modded Model M on ebay at $70 that started at $100 several weeks ago. it has had a hundred views and several watchers, but no takers. I may or may not drop it to $60 and then stop soon at that point.)
As a buyer, I prefer Buy-It-Now but otherwise, I ALWAYS snipe and put in a lot of lowball bids (the ATs in July and August were exceptions) and seldom win, but do get some bargains.
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Remember:
The bidder you lose to is always an *******, by definition.
A seller who is selling too high is an *******, by definition.
The buyer who overpays you is always your friend, by definition.
A seller who sells something too cheap is your friend, by definition.
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Any or all of the above might be idiots, con-artists, honest or dishonest sellers, desperate buyers or sellers, or anybody else seeking a deal or fulfilling a desire.
I try to go by what I learned in my first sales training class ever - "The Definition of a Good Business Transaction"
BOTH PARTIES WALK AWAY SATISFIED THAT THEY RECEIVED A FAIR DEAL.
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Nice write up, fohat.
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My supply/demand curve does not take into account random Ebay stupidity.
That requires stochastic modeling.
(Attachment) 28866[/ATTACH]
This is my whole point, that random ebay stupidity controls the prices, not logic or economic models.
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What I want to know, as a seller, is why things pop up in clusters.
My "ebay stupidity" in overpaying AT prices in late summer was because the supply had dried up for 2-3 months previously, just as my lust was building up. I was not alone, there were obviously at least 2 other people in the same boat.
Once a half-dozen items "came out" and satisfied the pent-up demand, the market leveled out.
When I have a desirable item to sell, I try to make sure that nobody else is selling a similar item at the same time. I have even withdrawn items (which you can do if there are no "conventional" bids - a disadvantage to buyers who are sniping) and held them back until they could be out there alone again.
Seeing something sell for a high price is not a good reason to immediately put yours up for sale - it is a reason to wait a week or a month to put yours up for sale.
PS - I think my "ebay stupidity" now is giving away all my secrets!
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I think as a seller, unless you have an item you don't know the value of, and get lucky, it is much better to set a BIN competitively priced, to get what you want out of ebay. As a buyer, don't bother trying to get a good deal on an item you think you are the only one watching, because 99/100 times there is like 50 people just waiting to snipe.
Basicly I am saying auction format screws both parties over. There is a reason people only have live auctions on extremely rare things or when a bank has forclosed and just trying to get rid of stuff fast.
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I think I disagree.
An auction is living proof of an open marketplace at work.
The fact that there are wild swings is not proof of stupidity or insanity, but rather of the fact that people are fickle and that they want what they want, when they want it.
Supply and demand are rarely at equilibrium. When I go to the market I think that the price of fruit is usually too high, but I pay it. My choice.
Personally, there are times that I get extremely hot for something, whatever it is, for whatever reason, and for some period of time I go through a stage of escalating desire and willingness to pay money.
Later, I have either I gotten what I wanted, or maybe I stopped wanting it so much. In any case, my desire built and peaked, and may have been satisfied or not.
We all have perceptions of what things are worth, but that is not what they sell for. I bought equivalent Model F AT keyboards at auction in recent months, and I paid well over twice for one what I paid for the other. I actually bought a third one at about halfway between the high and low prices that was by far the nicest of the bunch.
For a few weeks the market was being skewed by me, and a couple of other rabid buyers. That is how it should be, and I got punished for my lust and impatience.
But I agree with you, and I feel far more comfortable with "Buy-It-Now" when I am the seller, or when I am the buyer.
Ebay's fee structure reflects how they perceive the situation, and their highest possible fee is for a "Buy-It-Now" fixed price listed "Until-It-Sells" which is, of course, the fairest and most transparent procedure of all, but where the buyer has no "opportunity" for a "deal"
And ebay is always prejudiced in favor of the buyer, at every turn. Never forget that.
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I'm feeling good after your message, big thanks
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I want to give fohat.digs some reps! But I can't!
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What is a "rep" anyway?
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A lot of forums support reps as in reputation. If other forum members thought your reply or post is useful, they can "rep" you. When you are repped, you get rep points. So over time peopl can look at your profile and see if you have been helpful to other members or not. We don't have rep here. We still have post count, but you can only see it in the profile page, not under your avatar.