Do you still use ebay?

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I'll stay on eBay for all you guys - I'll be the one taking the bullet. How I suffer.

 

Seriously though - there is NO better marketplace to move books. None.

 

(thumbs u

[JohnT]

I still buy most of my books from ebay. Once you've learned the ropes and now how to avoid obvious pitfalls it's far and away the best place to get deals on hard to find midgrade stuff.

 

I also buy a lot in the selling forum, but since I'm not in the market for SA spideys and other Marvel stuff I don't find stuff there as much as I'd like. So ebay is really the only game in town.

[RockMyAmadeus]

When I first started selling on ebay, a 1 lb priority package was $3.00.

 

Insurance for $50 was just 75 cents (the raising of which, of course, makes no sense, as the coverage hasn't gone up....so why has the rate? Where's the end? $49.95 for $50 insurance coverage...?)

 

Feedback could be left for anyone, at any time, as often as you wanted (because, you know, the hippies at eBay had no clue as to actual human nature.)

 

A seller could place a single bid on each of their items, so they wouldn't "give stuff away."

 

Reserves were free.

 

All communication was done through e-mail. There was no eBay messaging system.

 

Paypal didn't exist.

 

Billpoint didn't exist.

 

Very few auctions had actual pictures.

 

There was no way to reach anyone at eBay.

 

eBay only answered whatever e-mails it chose to answer, and then it was often a canned response that didn't address the issue you had in any way.

 

People actually had to know rudimentary html code to list anything.

 

There were no 1 or 10 day auctions. You could list an item for 3, 5, or 7 days, and that was that.

 

There were no "Buy It Nows."

 

There were no eBay stores.

 

You could look through the entire "comics" section....every single day.

 

eBay had no "protections" in place, but it seemed as if those protections were rarely necessary...although the guy in Texas who stole $180 from me for a "mint set of Primer #2, Grendel #1-3", I'd like to have, if I can.

 

Any item with 30 bids or more was "hot", and got a little flame symbol next to it, and a higher search result.

 

There were no "featured" auctions of any kind.

 

Those were the days....

 

Anything I've forgotten?

[musicmeta]

Yes, but mostly buying. I will still sell on Ebay as a last resort. Try selling here on the forum first, then other selling sites like Comiclink, Pedigree..etc and finally I will list on Feebay.

[comicwiz]

I've been getting some outstanding deals on ebay as of late. Not major books, but well graded bronze for essentially wholesale pricing. If you play your cards right and know what to look for, you can usually avoid significantly overgraded books.

 

I actually had one of the biggest scores of my life on eBay recently. Raw book, described by an obvious non-collector as "mint condition, in plastic" or something to that effect....

 

...came back a 9.8. And it's a major, major Modern key.

 

Also had a Punisher mini lot graded "NM+", but was shipped badly in a flat rate envelope. #2 would have been fine, but got smacked pretty bad...#3-5 left the seller's hands no better than F/VF originally.

 

The #1, which had been triple bagged and multi boarded, somehow escaped shipping damage...and came back a 9.8.

 

So absolutely, there are tremendous deals to be had...but there's still tons of overgraded drek. I just got a Premiere lot that was graded VG+/F...and one of the books was water damaged along the spine, with mold on the inside covers and pages.

 

Is the Punisher #1 the $1.50 cover price?

 

No...I wish!

 

That is one tough run of Canadian Price Variants to complete. Fuggetabout high-grade. Four of the five issues are dark covers, and the outlier is a white cover. You never find anyone piecing it separately, and/or with all fives issues being Canadian Price Variants.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

Anything I've forgotten?

 

Yes, we were all still cruising around on Pentium 3 computers with 28.8 modems, using AOL and Netzero to navigate our way through this brand new cyberworld.

 

1 GB of hard drive space was a lot.

 

64 MBs of Memory seemed positively otherwordly.

 

Good times.

[RockMyAmadeus]

I've been getting some outstanding deals on ebay as of late. Not major books, but well graded bronze for essentially wholesale pricing. If you play your cards right and know what to look for, you can usually avoid significantly overgraded books.

 

I actually had one of the biggest scores of my life on eBay recently. Raw book, described by an obvious non-collector as "mint condition, in plastic" or something to that effect....

 

...came back a 9.8. And it's a major, major Modern key.

 

Also had a Punisher mini lot graded "NM+", but was shipped badly in a flat rate envelope. #2 would have been fine, but got smacked pretty bad...#3-5 left the seller's hands no better than F/VF originally.

 

The #1, which had been triple bagged and multi boarded, somehow escaped shipping damage...and came back a 9.8.

 

So absolutely, there are tremendous deals to be had...but there's still tons of overgraded drek. I just got a Premiere lot that was graded VG+/F...and one of the books was water damaged along the spine, with mold on the inside covers and pages.

 

Is the Punisher #1 the $1.50 cover price?

 

No...I wish!

 

That is one tough run of Canadian Price Variants to complete. Fuggetabout high-grade. Four of the five issues are dark covers, and the outlier is a white cover. You never find anyone piecing it separately, and/or with all fives issues being Canadian Price Variants.

 

I DO have the #1 $1.50, but it's a 9.0 at best. I don't think I have any of the other 4, though.

 

 

[comicwiz]

I've been getting some outstanding deals on ebay as of late. Not major books, but well graded bronze for essentially wholesale pricing. If you play your cards right and know what to look for, you can usually avoid significantly overgraded books.

 

I actually had one of the biggest scores of my life on eBay recently. Raw book, described by an obvious non-collector as "mint condition, in plastic" or something to that effect....

 

...came back a 9.8. And it's a major, major Modern key.

 

Also had a Punisher mini lot graded "NM+", but was shipped badly in a flat rate envelope. #2 would have been fine, but got smacked pretty bad...#3-5 left the seller's hands no better than F/VF originally.

 

The #1, which had been triple bagged and multi boarded, somehow escaped shipping damage...and came back a 9.8.

 

So absolutely, there are tremendous deals to be had...but there's still tons of overgraded drek. I just got a Premiere lot that was graded VG+/F...and one of the books was water damaged along the spine, with mold on the inside covers and pages.

 

Is the Punisher #1 the $1.50 cover price?

 

No...I wish!

 

That is one tough run of Canadian Price Variants to complete. Fuggetabout high-grade. Four of the five issues are dark covers, and the outlier is a white cover. You never find anyone piecing it separately, and/or with all fives issues being Canadian Price Variants.

 

I DO have the #1 $1.50, but it's a 9.0 at best. I don't think I have any of the other 4, though.

 

 

Issue 3 is the toughest

[RockMyAmadeus]

Anything I've forgotten?

 

Yes, we were all still cruising around on Pentium 3 computers with 28.8 modems, using AOL and Netzero to navigate our way through this brand new cyberworld.

 

1 GB of hard drive space was a lot.

 

64 MBs of Memory seemed positively otherwordly.

 

Good times.

 

I still have 16 MB sticks of memory that I never got around to using which are, of course, useless...

 

My first comp was a 128 KHtz, Pentium II, Packard Bell, with 64 MB of RAM. Still have it. Still works!

 

*click* (dial tone), *click**click*, beep beep boop...boop boop boop...boop beep boop bop....[high pitched modem connecting squeal]...["static fuzz" sound]....[clang, clang, click, clang]..."

 

"Welcome!"

 

"You've got mail!"

 

This was slightly before my time, but AOL actually used to charge by the minute....

[skypinkblu]

When I first started selling on ebay, a 1 lb priority package was $3.00.

 

Insurance for $50 was just 75 cents (the raising of which, of course, makes no sense, as the coverage hasn't gone up....so why has the rate? Where's the end? $49.95 for $50 insurance coverage...?)

 

Feedback could be left for anyone, at any time, as often as you wanted (because, you know, the hippies at eBay had no clue as to actual human nature.)

 

A seller could place a single bid on each of their items, so they wouldn't "give stuff away."

 

Reserves were free.

 

All communication was done through e-mail. There was no eBay messaging system.

 

Paypal didn't exist.

 

Billpoint didn't exist.

 

Very few auctions had actual pictures.

 

There was no way to reach anyone at eBay.

 

eBay only answered whatever e-mails it chose to answer, and then it was often a canned response that didn't address the issue you had in any way.

 

People actually had to know rudimentary html code to list anything.

 

There were no 1 or 10 day auctions. You could list an item for 3, 5, or 7 days, and that was that.

 

There were no "Buy It Nows."

 

There were no eBay stores.

 

You could look through the entire "comics" section....every single day.

 

eBay had no "protections" in place, but it seemed as if those protections were rarely necessary...although the guy in Texas who stole $180 from me for a "mint set of Primer #2, Grendel #1-3", I'd like to have, if I can.

 

Any item with 30 bids or more was "hot", and got a little flame symbol next to it, and a higher search result.

 

There were no "featured" auctions of any kind.

 

Those were the days....

 

Anything I've forgotten?

 

You KNEW who you were bidding against and could mark other collector's bids so you could tell what was "hot". Some people put bids on every decent book. All you needed was their name and they did all the work for you;)

 

But the best thing was, you got to know other collectors. I miss that time,and the flame thingys;)

 

I do still use Ebay, I return more now, because I know more...but it's a great place to sell for me and I often find things I don't find anywhere else. Made a lot of good friends there over the years. I'm glad they are going back to 99 cent auctions, I'm going to list a bunch of my SA stuff, if I ever scan them:)

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Oh man, I followed LOTS of people around (as I'm sure some followed me.)

 

You HAD to put bids in to keep track of what you wanted, because there was no such thing as "watched item"

 

Nor was there an e-mail notification system.

 

Nor was there any snipe programs.

 

If you wanted to snipe, you had to physically sit down and bid in the last seconds of the auction....I got fired from a job because of that.

[comics-rock]

ok, so i jumped back on ebay today, just to have a look around. couple of emails sent re cgc books (a few to other boardees as well) and ive gotta tell ya, im quite suprised at some of the response. $10 first cllass shipping a cgc to canada....haven't seen that for the longest while. stil got some insufficiently_thoughtful_persons, $30 for a raw book??? might bid n a couple of things tonight...

[skypinkblu]

Oh man, I followed LOTS of people around (as I'm sure some followed me.)

 

You HAD to put bids in to keep track of what you wanted, because there was no such thing as "watched item"

 

Nor was there an e-mail notification system.

 

Nor was there any snipe programs.

 

If you wanted to snipe, you had to physically sit down and bid in the last seconds of the auction....I got fired from a job because of that.

 

I still do that, ..no snipe programs for me;) But I have never placed a bid while I was work;)

[Calamerica]

 

 

All communication was done through e-mail. There was no eBay messaging system.

 

.

 

There was no way to reach anyone at eBay.

 

eBay only answered whatever e-mails it chose to answer, and then it was often a canned response that didn't address the issue you had in any way.

 

 

Not true. The Customer Support WAS live, and a pinhead bidder that was ruining my auctions from Singapore was reported ON THE PHONE and his unwarranted Neg was removed and watching that Neg disappear while I was watching the CRT was unforgettable.

 

Remember, Yahoo! Auctions was their ONLY competition, and they had a similar and superior phone Customer Service.

 

I managed to get more done back in the day by ONE PHONE CALL in the days of NO CELL PHONES than I can now with a barrage of emails and three of us on the phones...

 

CAL who still remembers the better Customer Support System.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

 

All communication was done through e-mail. There was no eBay messaging system.

 

.

 

There was no way to reach anyone at eBay.

 

eBay only answered whatever e-mails it chose to answer, and then it was often a canned response that didn't address the issue you had in any way.

 

 

Not true. The Customer Support WAS live, and a pinhead bidder that was ruining my auctions from Singapore was reported ON THE PHONE and his unwarranted Neg was removed and watching that Neg disappear while I was watching the CRT was unforgettable.

 

Remember, Yahoo! Auctions was their ONLY competition, and they had a similar and superior phone Customer Service.

 

I managed to get more done back in the day by ONE PHONE CALL in the days of NO CELL PHONES than I can now with a barrage of emails and three of us on the phones...

 

CAL who still remembers the better Customer Support System.

 

 

Sorry, Cal...this was in 1998, long before the "customer support system."

 

In fact....the only way to actually get anyone live was to call the number they were required to provide for credit card transactions when you paid them, and then you got someone who refused to help you in any way. Their sole and only job...if the line was answered by a live person at all...was to tell you that there was no one who could help you, and you would have to wait for someone to respond via e-mail.

 

There was NO "customer support system" until about 2000, and didn't have a "we can actually do something" customer helpline until about 2003-2004. POWERSELLERS got special numbers, but that was only if you were a Silver powerseller or greater. If you weren't a Silver level powerseller, forget it.

 

And... ..."getting an unwarranted neg removed....

 

It took a COURT ORDER or jumping through about 8,523 hoops to get a neg removed, regardless of how "unwarranted" it may have been. Sorry, but eBay's legal has been firm about this since nearly Day 1.

[Dick Pontoon]

I don't think I need to reiterate all the bad about ebay, so I'll skip it.

 

I haven't been buying much of anything lately, but once I am again I'll be looking at ebay as regularly as I usually do.

 

As far as selling goes, I recently listed a batch of books I had listed here on the boards that didn't sell. A lot of them went for more than my asking price here, so it's still a viable venue to me.