What's the latest Atari related thing(s) you've bought on ebay?

[+slx]

The interesting thing about EBay Global Shipping is that the rates vary wildly for similar stuff. Sometimes they are reasonably low (and used to be laughably low in the past in some cases, sometimes they are ridiculously high. The import charges seem to contain a nice markup for the service and seem to be inflated for stuff that enjoys reduced rates, at least books (which are 10% into Austria and even less into Germany but seem to be charged the same percentage as everything else by EBay.

 

Overall I still think it's good for non-US-buyers as more US buyers will sell overseas using it and using a consolidator/forwarder never made sense until you bought more than one package (I usually do a "forwarder shopping spree" when I need something from Best as he won't ship overseas anymore and then I simply buy more stuff that's available at the time and have it forwarded as one package). 

[+LS650]

I live in Canada and have bought hundreds of items from eBay, mostly sellers in the USA.  

I hate with a passion their Global Shipping Program - the rates are always higher than USPS/Canada Post, much slower, and just generally a huge ripoff.

 

Case in point, I recently bought a small item from a user in Seattle, just 150 KM away from where I live.  If the seller had taken it to her local Post Office and dropped it off, the shipping rate would have been about $12-15 and it would have taken perhaps 5 or 6 days to arrive.  -And- any small item shipped by post with a value of less than $50 comes through Customs without any duty imposed.

 

Instead she used the GSP.  The tracking showed it going east by truck to a sorting centre in Chicago, 2000 KM to the east.  It sat there for 3 days, then put on another truck to Detroit, another wait of 3 days, followed by another truck east to Mississauga, etc.  It took three weeks to arrive, and the GSP charge for shipping plus duty was twice what the post would have charged.

 

When looking at items on eBay, if the seller is using GSP, I now generally skip past said item.

Edited January 19, 2023 by ls650

[pixelmischief]

25 minutes ago, ls650 said:

I hate with a passion their Global Shipping Program

I tried this JUST ONCE.  I'm in the U.S. I bought a 15" Sony Trinitron  from the U.K.  The thing came to me as a bag made of packing tape full of glass and plastic shards.  I got a refund from the seller who claimed to have insurance on it, but never recovered the exorbitant shipping.  Not gonna do that again.

[deffroe]

On a lighter note, picked up a 65XE for £60 sold as Untested. 

Apart from a little yellowing and some grime its a runner.  Seller photo makes it look worse than it is.  Happy chappy here.

[leech]

2 hours ago, pixelmischief said:

I tried this JUST ONCE.  I'm in the U.S. I bought a 15" Sony Trinitron  from the U.K.  The thing came to me as a bag made of packing tape full of glass and plastic shards.  I got a refund from the seller who claimed to have insurance on it, but never recovered the exorbitant shipping.  Not gonna do that again.

Yeah... I got a split PCB in my Atari SC1435 that I ordered from the UK... like they played kickball with it...

[+slx]

Impulse bought an Atari 810 with the small opening device (Tandon?). Not that I really need another floppy drive but my first floppy drive was the other version of the 810 so they might make a nice stack and I now have at least two of every type I own except for the XF551 (which I still regret not buying for next to nothing in the late 90s). I heard the pins holding the opening device in place are prone to break.

 

49$ and in line with the above, shipping and import charges will be more than that...

Ebay link

 

[deffroe]

On 1/19/2023 at 9:22 PM, deffroe said:

On a lighter note, picked up a 65XE for £60 sold as Untested. 

Apart from a little yellowing and some grime its a runner.  Seller photo makes it look worse than it is.  Happy chappy here.

Apart from the grime, it looks like a nice clean machine.  Atari must've had a good week when this was produced as no MT ram here only Sharp LH2264-12's.

[mimo]

[mutil8]

2 atari 400s w 48k ram expansions, 1 with a b keyboard. indus gt drive very complete including case original manuals and discs warranty card etc.

bunch of software such as EA games, galaxian, antic disks etc. 

After a long negotiation (it had been sitting on ebay for months) seller agreed on $475 including shipping. Poor guy ended up having to pay over $200 to ship it.

I really only wanted the 400 with the b keyboard but he didnt want to split up the lot.

[Beeblebrox]

4 minutes ago, mutil8 said:

2 atari 400s w 48k ram expansions, 1 with a b keyboard. indus gt drive very complete including case original manuals and discs warranty card etc.

bunch of software such as EA games, galaxian, antic disks etc. 

After a long negotiation (it had been sitting on ebay for months) seller agreed on $475 including shipping. Poor guy ended up having to pay over $200 to ship it.

I really only wanted the 400 with the b keyboard but he didnt want to split up the lot.

U got yourself a massive bargain there if postage was included. Can't believe it was so much just for shipping. 

[+slx]

20 hours ago, mutil8 said:

2 atari 400s w 48k ram expansions, 1 with a b keyboard. indus gt drive very complete including case original manuals and discs warranty card etc.

bunch of software such as EA games, galaxian, antic disks etc. 

After a long negotiation (it had been sitting on ebay for months) seller agreed on $475 including shipping. Poor guy ended up having to pay over $200 to ship it.

I really only wanted the 400 with the b keyboard but he didnt want to split up the lot.

Nice deal! From where to where was it shipped? 

[+x=usr(1536)]

21 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

Can't believe it was so much just for shipping.

Sending anything outside of the US right now is ridiculously expensive.  I've never seen it this costly before.

 

We ended up doing a lot of our Christmas shopping for friends & family in Europe via their local Amazon sites simply because sending gifts to them from here would have been cost-prohibitive.

[TGB1718]

Now the UK has left the EU, we have to pay Custom Charges on top of delivery costs

 

[leech]

9 minutes ago, TGB1718 said:

Now the UK has left the EU, we have to pay Custom Charges on top of delivery costs

 

Do we need to start a gofundme to get all the Atari builders to move out of the UK?  😜

[reifsnyderb]

42 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Sending anything outside of the US right now is ridiculously expensive.  I've never seen it this costly before.

 

We ended up doing a lot of our Christmas shopping for friends & family in Europe via their local Amazon sites simply because sending gifts to them from here would have been cost-prohibitive.

Shipping anything in the USA is getting horribly expensive.  Exporting to most countries has awful prices.  Shipping from the US to the EU is really bad.

 

One time when I shipped something from the US to Germany I found out how bad it really is.  The guy receiving the package was testing something for me.  Since I was in a hurry, I shipped via Express shipping.  He told me that even though I had the package marked as free he had to go to the customs office because the shipping cost was so high.  (I didn't charge him for it as it was an example.)  It took him an hour to drive to customs, and hour to wait at customs, and an hour to return home.  All for something I did not charge him for.

 

There's another country in Europe, I don't remember which, that even charged a fee to hold the package so they could collect the taxes.  

 

Don't get me started on shipping to South America as I've done that too.  

[reifsnyderb]

Oh, yeah, and the customs forms.  It's as though the customs people have a contest to see how miserable they can make the paperwork.

[mutil8]

On 1/22/2023 at 8:58 AM, Beeblebrox said:

U got yourself a massive bargain there if postage was included. Can't believe it was so much just for shipping. 

I think so too. although the real crusher is the shipping costs. 

I told him he should split it up and sell it seperately esp the indus drive which was the prize of the lot. I really didnt want to buy all the stuff.

One of the reasons I think is it was just sitting basically idle on ebay for months. It was hard to even pull it up doing a search for atari 400 or similar.

 

It was shipped from Vermont to California.

 

The shipping was def $200 or slightly over to be more accurate. He sent me a pic of the receipt when he shipped it out, so I can verify the cost. Pretty sure it was a nasty shock, even to me.

I had even warned him because i had shipped out a broken 800, not even w power supply and cost me almost $80 i think, at UPS store. its to the point where the shipping costs more than the item is worth.

 

The 2nd 400 was supposed to be for parts only but the membrane keyboard from the 1st 400 was in the lot - I swapped it in at it worked. so both 400s work 

although both in a little rough shape. both have 48k mods and weird hombrew video output mods. I basically swapped the bkeyboard and case into the 2nd 400 as it has better video output.

 

I am going to need to unload some of the extra stuff I might try on marketplace here first before ebay not sure.

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by mutil8

[mutil8]

 

Heres a pic of just the indus drive. I had posted it in another thread. Havent tested it yet due to multiple real life issues. 

even has original case and cardboard dividers inside the case so it can be use for disk storage.

[+slx]

10 hours ago, mutil8 said:

It was shipped from Vermont to California.

 

The shipping was def $200 or slightly over to be more accurate. He sent me a pic of the receipt when he shipped it out, so I can verify the cost. Pretty sure it was a nasty shock, even to me.

I had even warned him because i had shipped out a broken 800, not even w power supply and cost me almost $80 i think, at UPS store. its to the point where the shipping costs more than the item is worth.

 

Wow, that's expensive, even though you can't send it much farther in the lower 48. I never looked into it but would have guesstimated domestic US postage to be a lot cheaper. And I always thought sending things across Europe was bad but our rates seem like a bargain compared to this. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 hours ago, slx said:

I never looked into it but would have guesstimated domestic US postage to be a lot cheaper.

Postage is generally reasonable, but when it comes to parcels it gets expensive quickly.

 

The only way I've found to make shipping costs even close to reasonable for everyone involved is to use third-party shipping resellers - basically, they buy shipping in bulk, then resell it to their customers.  Walking in to the post office or delivery service store and doing it over the counter is a rip-off.  Even then, sending items internationally is still stupidly expensive.

[Beeblebrox]

An 810 drive. 

 

The seller was very helpful and went out of his way with regard to packing it, upgrading postage method at his cost, etc. Great comms. Can't fault the guy. Came in original box too.

 

It's unfortunate as the image of the drive in this listing showed some cracks but was only a shot from the front. No close ups or other pics of the sides, etc etc. It looked ok.

 

As a result I really didn't apprecaite the extent of the cracking or the real casing colour until it was received. Pity as cracking is quite extensive and I don't believe it was caused in transit. (It was transported in it's original box so very well protected and I saw no sign of any broken parts in the packaging when opening).

 

Anyways have yet to test it with a disk. It powers up at least. I've never owned anything but 1050s before. The loading mechanism (massive loading door), is very intriging.😃

 

The listing pic I saw at the time of buying:

 

The reality  (like me after too many hours in the sun - quite an impresive tan and major cracking!!😁)

     

 

  

 

This is the trouble with having a catagory on Ebay called "not working, for parts" as a seller can quite legitimately list it as such and often just post a few pics and be covered.

 

Ce la vie.

 

What is the hole for at the top of the drive btw? (last pic)

Edited January 24, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[mutil8]

it might be to the point where large packages are cheaper via posto office then 

11 hours ago, slx said:

Wow, that's expensive, even though you can't send it much farther in the lower 48. I never looked into it but would have guesstimated domestic US postage to be a lot cheaper. And I always thought sending things across Europe was bad but our rates seem like a bargain compared to this. 

it might be to the point where large package is cheaper via USPS than UPS, i dont know. prior to shipping out the 800 I havent shipped anything large in years. I think part of it is UPS making a cash grab. Next shipment of hardware i do will try USPS

[Vyvyan B.]

USPS flat rate boxes are a good way to ship smaller items. UPS really is the only option of anything large. FedEX will destroy anything they get their hands on.

[Vyvyan B.]

31 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

What is the hole for at the top of the drive btw? (last pic)

Those are the screw holes. There should be a round sticker over them, but looks like they are long gone. That's an MPI drive and they are built like tanks.

[Beeblebrox]

27 minutes ago, Vyvyan B. said:

Those are the screw holes. There should be a round sticker over them, but looks like they are long gone. That's an MPI drive and they are built like tanks.

Thanks. I heard there were two different 810 drive mechs. One was Tandon made and prone to failure. So that mean I have the other which is bomb proof?! Pity can't be said for the casing.