geekhack
geekhack Marketplace => Great Finds => Topic started by: trauring on Sun, 11 December 2016, 04:10:28
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I came across the following Maltron keyboard a few days ago on eBay and didn't look too closely at the description. It was only at about $10 so I checked back today to see where it was in the bidding (over $300), but I also noticed the description for the first time, and it's...blunt and unfiltered:
"Up for sale is a Maltron 3D Ergonomic Keyboard with Cherry Brown switches and a L90 Maltron layout (WARNING: THIS IS NOT A QWERTY KEYBOARD). I purchased it direct from Maltron and, fair warning to all potential buyers, this keyboard is a piece of crap. The body is made from a really cheap, really thin plastic that will bend if you press down too hard. Each key's cutout looks like it was done by hand with an Exacto knife, so the keys aren't very straight (especially the ones in the middle, see image). Some of the cutouts were also cut too close so that the switches are either not pushed in completely, or will rub against the key next to it (in particular, the Right Ctrl key will rub against the Right Shift key, see image). The switches are pushed into the keyboard rather than mounted on a PCB, so they're easy to pull out, and each switch is soldered individually onto the controller PCB, causing a mess of wires. The 5 status lights are unlabeled and I don't know what each one is for, and the PCB for the USB port is held on with hot glue instead of screws. You can even see marks on the body where the hot glue was applied and warped the texture slightly, which they used as a lip so that the bottom panel of the keyboard doesn't sink into the body. The keyboard itself works properly, it's just really, really poorly constructed.
Frankly, I would have thrown this keyboard in the trash, but I paid over $600 for it, so I wanted to see if anybody was interested in it first. Don't say I didn't warn you though, but thank you for your interest all the same."
The listing is here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Maltron-3D-Ergonomic-Keyboard-Cherry-Brown-L90-Maltron-Layout-/152347354921
Not the usual eBay description, but I guess it's honest.
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Cool idea.
I have sold a few "lesser" keyboards and it is always hard to decide how to list them. Ebay encourages (and empowers) buyers to be aggressive and demanding of sellers, and forces sellers to swallow a lot of crap from buyers.
To me, an item for sale well below the "going rate" may well indicate that it is an inferior specimen, and that it stands to reason that I should lower my expectations accordingly. But many times buyers seem to ignore that obvious ratio, and pretend to expect that they deserve a top-shelf item at a bargain-basement price, "just because"
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Maltron is responsible for a tremendous amount of innovation as well as creating new devices for handicapped people that greatly improve their quality of life.
That said, the description is accurate for pretty much every Maltron keyboard I've seen. If you're looking for something with that layout, ErgoDox is probably the way to go, unless you want the 3D version where your hands go into the keyboard, in which case you're stuck going with a Kinesis.
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Hi, I'm the person selling the keyboard (or rather was selling, since it was sold). The reason for the 'unfiltered' description is because I want to basically get rid of it and not have to deal with any buyer's remorse. I read about the low quality of Maltron keyboards too before I purchased it, but I thought "nah, it can't be that bad, right?". Unfortunately it -is- that bad. Despite being sold by a company that's been around for years, it feels like it was built (poorly) by someone in their garage with hand tools as a prototype. I've used many keyboards, including the Model M, Das, Filco, Realforce, and HHKB, and the Maltron is so inferior in quality compared to those others that I felt like I had to write such a description in order to drive the point home. Not to mention that the Maltron cost me $660, more than 3x the price of the other, vastly superior keyboards I've used.
In regards to the inferior specimen comment, unfortunately that's not the case. Sure, the keys could have been cut a bit better so that they're straighter and don't rub against each other, but the cheap plastic, use of glue gun glue for mounting, and the mess of hand-soldered wires, is inherent to the keyboard design. I've listed it at $0.99 because I list nearly all my auctions that way. They will always get bid up to what the item should be worth, or just slightly below that. In the 3+ years that I've been selling on eBay (I was a top-rated seller for a while), I've only sold 2 items at $0.99 because nobody wanted it, and I was fully expecting that it might happen for those 2 items. Also, starting an item off at $0.99 generates significantly more interest compared to starting it off at a higher price, which means more bids. In the past I've started items at 75% of its value and got no bids, but when I switched it to $0.99, it ended up going even higher than expected price.
With that said, I'm quite surprised that the Maltron sold for $318. Given the odd layout, the low build quality, the unknown brand name, and my description, I was expecting a max of around $100. I know that Malton no longer sells direct to customers, but even so, there's more choices than there were in the past. Oh well, at least it wasn't a complete loss from my end.
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Congratulations on the sale. I think it's good practice to undersell and over deliver. The value is relative to its worth to the buyer and they may have been willing to pay far more. At least you didn't unfairly over-represent its value. Well done!