Sunday, September 03, 2006

9/3/06 Auctions and inane off topic ramblings...

First, right out of the box, I'm going to start with a buyer beware...

Vintage NOS Tandy Stereo Music Synthesizer Cat 26-3143

This is the third time around for this aprticular offering from this seller, bbbstl. I bought one when they were $14.95, via PayPal on August 1, and am working with eBay and PayPal to resolve the issue of either getting my money back, or actually getting the item sent to me. I have sent the seller 4 emails trying to address the issue and he reponded only to the first, and none of them were harshly worded. Was just asking for status updates. To make it worse, another eBayer left this fellow a neg for the SAME ITEM sold back in July. If you wish to have one, and are willing to risk it, give it a shot as these seem to be NOS. But again, buyer beware...

UPDATE - 9/8/06: Was notified by PayPal that a shipping label for the item had been purchased for Priority Mail delivery. If legit, it should be here Tuesday. We'll see. Even so, i still have major issues with the slow shipping and total lack of communication.... (B)

Now for the lighter side...

VINTAGE TANDY 128 K COLOR COMPUTER 3 MODEL 26-3334

This looks to be a very clean looking CoCo3 and the price and shipping are reasonable, being as it is in Canada. I'd probably bid on it, but I'm looking at an Atari auction right now. Yes, I'm a die hard CoCoNut, but I like the Atari ST's also... :)

TRS-80 64K Computer + Tandy reader + manuals+ joystick+

Here's a nice little CoCo2 starter system complete with what looks like a CCr-82A (don't quote me...), and a couple tapes and carts.

Cris has covered the rest of what I would call interesting. I would have to agree with Cris in that there seems to be an overall slowdown (now keep in mind everytime I've mentioned slow downs on CoCo related eBay auctions, they jumped right back up...). In fact, Glen over at the CocoLounge seems to be keeping us above 80 with all of his Rainbows he's put up. I'd sure like to get those, but, I can;t cough up the Canada Post shipping costs... OUCH!!!

Some non-CoCo related auctions worth mentioning...

TI-99/8 ( Armadillo ) Computer - Never Released!

WOW!!! With a little over an hour left, this litte gem i at $1825.00!!! I'd like to see what the unreleased CoCo4 would go for....

ATARI FALCON 030 COMPUTER W/MOUSE AND PWR CORD

There are actually two of these on eBay right now, and these are quite rare in their own right. This one will sell for >$400 and the other has a Buy-It now option for $499. Pretty cool for 20 year ols machines...

3 comments:

Captain Computer said...

I was wondering about those NOS Orchestra 90s. Thought someone had stumbled upon a load of them. Now it sounds exceedingly suspicious. Hmmm... Hope PayPal gets it sorted out for ya.

There's nothing wrong with a little Atari love! :) Ataris are fine machines. Have an 800XL myself, for playing all those great 8-bit games that came out for that platform (someday I WILL do a CoCo version of M.U.L.E.... someday). heh! Haven't hooked it up awhile, though... been playing with my CoCo 2 all week and getting annoyed at OS-9 L2 on the CoCo 3. Grin.

The Falcon looks super tasty. Sigh. If that lottery investment would just pay off...

Angel's Luck,
Capt

Captain Computer said...

Just wanted to add another note to this one. :)

I ended up buying those late issues of Rainbow from Glen. I know his auction listings regarding shipping is a bit tersely worded. Having sold a few items on eBay before I can sympathize. Even when the shipping policy is clearly stated you can get tons of questions about it, even outright accusations if fraud and demands for lower shipping. Spending every day working in a customer service profession, I can say categorically that, in general, people are nuts. :D

Having bought several items from Glen before, both from eBay and his online store at the CoCo Longue, I can attest that 1. he's always been reliable, 2. the shipping is accurate, and 3. he DOES combine postage on multiple buys. So, for example, the shipping on the 11 issues I purchased was only US$10.00, not the apparent $55.00 as listed in the auctions. Last time these came up, the last five issue alone sold for around $125.00, plus shipping. So the $44.00 total for the last 11 newspaper issues was a good deal, I figure.

For single items, buying from Canada can seem a bit high, but if you combine auctions, most Canadian sellers I've dealt with in the past are more than happy to work out a deal for combined shipping. I've also bought multiple items from the U.K. and had similar excellent experiences with sellers there. Just a tip for those U.S. readers who are considering purchasing from North of the border. :)

On another note, naturally we start talking about Atari auctions and about a billion cool things come up all at once. Sheesh! (If you think the CoCo listings go dry sometimes, you should see the droughts in the Atari 800 listings experience at times. Yikes!) There's a complete copy of Miner 2049er I've been eyeballing... grrrr... The folks at my credit card company are probably jumping up and down and grinning like fools right now. Sheesh! :)

Angel's Luck,
Capt.

Brian said...

I wasn't trying to knock Glen. I purchased PitstopII and Flight Sim II from him a bit ago. My issue is more with the prices Canada post charges to ship. Glen was great to deal with. I'ce sold a few things and fortunately, I've not had the issue with shipping. Though, on one recent auction I had a third party handle packing and shipping since I had to go out of town and that bit me because one of the controller boards was damaged in shipping. Even though the auction stated "AS-IS" I still feel responsible...

Yeah, I've been looking at either nabbing an Atari ST or Atari 800 for a while now. When the good ones pop up, I seem to be low on cash. This time it's due to me paying shipping on a bit of TRS-80 Model III/IV and Ti-99 stuff from one of the guys on the Maltedmedia list. And buying the CoCoDVD. And having three kids with dental appointments this month. I'm trying to save back enough to get Roy's adapter this month as well, as it's needed for the repack...

Ahhh... so many things so little money.