[78-L] ePay... oBoy

[Malcolm Rockwell]

I've been meaning to do this for awhile.
I check eBay every day while I have my coffee in the morning. I collect 
labels for projects I'm working on and have been doing so for at least 5 
years. As a result I now have a HUGE label collection. The shape of eBay 
has changed many times and I've still managed to keep up with them, and 
I still buy there regularly, and its use as a reference tool is priceless.
BUT there are some trends that I really do not like (aside from their 
selling fee policies, which I won't touch here).
Once upon a time one could buy garbage records from them for low prices 
and actually get some items of interest, like stuff you'd pick up at a 
garage sale for 25 cents each. If they're not to your taste when you 
play them they can always go inna gobbage and you're only out 25 cents. 
No more of that for eBay. Now that same stuff starts at around $5 and up 
and I watch a lot of items close with no bids at all.
Another trend has to do with "recycling" the same records - if they 
don't sell the first time they immediately go to the bottom of the 
dealers sell list and back up on eBay. This is not only frustrating, but 
clogs up bandwidth with material nobody wanted to buy the first time. To 
be fair, a regular viewer may have missed bidding on an item and go for 
it on a second viewing, but that's usually not the case.
It has also gotten to the point where even bidding on a wanted item is 
frustrating. An example? There's a record you want that starts at $10 
and has a week until it closes. You know what the record is worth to you 
(say $30) and you bid $12 a day before it closes. So far there has been 
maybe one bid 50 cents over the minimum bid, so you're cautiously 
hopeful. By the time there's 10 minutes to closing the bid is up to $20, 
still under your maximum bid so, 60 seconds before closing, you bid the 
$30. Then 2 others put in inordinately high bids (say, $100 and $120) 
and the bid up, thus putting the record out of your range. 3 seconds 
before closing an automatic bidding program kicks in with a preset level 
of $500 and the bidder takes the item for $120.50. Thus an item of 
moderate value inflates to a sales price 4 times what it's worth. And 
nobody wins but the buyer willing to pay just to beat out everyone else. 
And the seller, of course. It also helps to bring up the perceived 
minimum value of the record or artist and the next seller that comes 
along will have no trouble asking a minimum $50 bid for the same item, 
and the next buyer will possibly think it's a "reasonable" price. 
Discouraging to say the least.
Once again, to be fair, business is business and my example is one way 
the upward going spiral of commerce moves along. But $5 minimums today 
for records worth 50 cents yesterday is unrealistic to my mind. Still, 
there's always the flea market and I don't have to bid, either. Then 
again, neither does anyone else and eBay gets loaded down with more and 
more crap that won't sell.
Then there are the sellers with basements full of Classical, Arabic, 
Chinese, South American, and Antartican records who believe that more is 
better and put up 300 records, all closing at the same time. And they 
post regularly... with very high minimum bids... and nobody buys them. 
So, to locate records you may be interested in you have to troll through 
all of their records to find it interspersed therein. Maybe.
Then there's the dealer who has a batch of labels he's never heard of 
and thinks you will pay $25 a pop for them because the labels are 
obscure (even though the material on them is cra... er... of 
questionable merit). And none of them sell. Great for me though as I get 
to harvest the labels for my own files.
Okay, enough whining from me.
To be fair, there are honest dealers on eBay that will work with you and 
things are really not as dire as I paint them. BUT, generally everyone 
suffers because of eBay's lousy policies and sellers greed; the buyer 
who many times has to settle for mediocre buys, and cannot afford $350 
for a Blind Willie Johnson record in V shape, to the sellers who cannot 
move most of their over priced stock.
There are always winners but the fun has gone out of the process and 
that's half of what made eBay so interesting, the fun. There's also the 
music, of course!
Mal

PS - here's the deal of the day: 
http://cgi.ebay.com/Helen-Louis-Frank-Ferera-Columbia-Record-78RPM-10-/350280646028?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item518e5a7d8c
Helen Louis, indeed.
What's it worth? The 50 cents I paid for mine? Or the $3 I'd sell mine 
for? Take your pick. I can tell you this, it ain't gonna sell for the 
$13 minimum bid!
And here's another: 
http://cgi.ebay.com/Guilty-Johnny-Desmond-78-RPM-/360172835701?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item53dbf95375
It's only a 99 cent minimum bid, but for an additional $11 I'm sure 
he'll sell you the missing piece. M