General > General Technical Chat

Why can't I find anything interesting on eBay anymore?

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artag:

--- Quote from: Buriedcode on July 25, 2023, 08:41:27 pm ---
Thats my point - private sellers are even less likely to maintain a stock, so once most of them have sold their surplus/used dev boards, they have no more to sell?  I'm sure eval boards do get traded around, and ebay has plenty (at least from the brief search I just did) but perhaps not of the kind you are interested in.

--- End quote ---

Not really. they kind of roll through. You generally have a few 3-5 years old. Get rid of some but evaluate something else and get something newer.

rhb:
I just bought an Agilent 4395A.  Seller was asking $800.  I offered $600 and got it in fine condition.  I picked up an HP 339A in similar condition for $300 the day it was listed.  Tested with a sine wave from my Keysight  333622A.  Measured 0.028% THD.  33622A spec is 0.03% THD.  I'd been looking for those for some time but the prices were silly.  Eventually I got an email with a link to the listings and bought them. 

I think that sellers who don't normally sell test gear but wind with stuff from a large auction lot which includes stuff they know  nothing about, have realized that the 4 figure prices are generally unrealistic.  When you see someone has had a listing that is a year old, it's not too hard to figure out the item is overpriced.  I generally make offers by contacting the seller rather than use the listing button, especially if it's over priced and been on ebay for a long time.

Reg

thermistor-guy:

--- Quote from: DiTBho on July 24, 2023, 09:39:45 pm ---So 10 years ago, typing in "evaluation board" followed by your vintage CPU/MPU of interest, the search engine usually returned a fantastic list of cool stuff for sale
...
What is happening to eBay???  :-//

--- End quote ---

The Global Financial Crisis was in 2008/2009. It's possible you were still benefiting from the fallout, years later, in 2013.

Many companies went bankrupt in the aftermath. Many hung on, canceling projects and liquidating stock to stay afloat. In either case, large
amounts of parts and equipment came onto the surplus market.

 I grabbed bargains in top-quality used test equipment, from US and EU companies via Ebay, at that time and for that reason.

If we get another GFC, you'll get another opportunity.

DiTBho:
In 2006 I bought this gigantic Kodak quality photo. The photo of Prof. John Hennessy inspecting the layout of MIPS R2000 hangs on a wall in my room.


My personal idol, I love that job.

There were lots of photos of Motorola, zoomed-in pictures of their 68K CPU dies, lot of PPC601 CPU dies, and also a lot of MIPS CPU dies from IDT, and pictures of people working on computers. Nowadays, I don't even see anything like that.


Black Phoenix:
Between 2005 and 2015 eBay was the place for me to go when I needed a deal or something hard to come by. I sold tons of stuff on eBay, mostly computer and enterprise hardware and consumables.

After 2015 I started reducing my eBay use to a minimum being that my last purchase was the 87V way back in 2019.

Since then, now with Taobao, Xian Yu, Carousell and Yahoo Auctions JP and some time Amazon I don't feel the need to go to eBay except in very hard to find items.

And it is mostly because of being able to bargain price (that Xian Yu, Carousell and Yahoo allow) and local pickup and payment (Xian Yu and Carousell).

Normally is if I want to try something that it may not fit my needs - Amazon because of their return policy.

If I know what I want and it is just price/condition - all the other avenues with extra emphasis to any who allow local pickup and payment with cash in hand (the best way for Hong Kong Deals).

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