Best, worst auction deals. (was Re: eBay vrs42?)

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005, Eric Smith wrote:

> inexperienced or what.  All the bidders were getting pissed off, because
> he'd try to start at $1000, back off to $950, to $900, etc.  It was

That's called a reverse auction.  You start high and work backwards until
you hit a sweet spot, at which point you reverse gears and start going
forward.  It of course relies on the auctioneer not starting at a
ridiculously high number.

> I haven't really ever gotten any good computer stuff other than
> video games at a live auction.  Some friends went to a liquidation
> auction of a computer store, and found that people were bidding up
> broken laptops and partial boxes of fanfold paper to above new prices,
> so they left quickly.

I went to an auction like this before as well (Kennetech Wind Power in
Livermore when wind energy in the US hit an all-time low).  People were
paying stupid prices for PCs and other crap.  I got three sweet deals: a
Phaser 350 printer, a Livingston Portmaster 2e, and a bunch of phones for
a PBX.  I knew I could sell the phones and that's why I bought them.  I
was thinking to use the Phaser 350 and the Livingston, but after realizing
I had little use for either, I found buyers.  The Livingston went off to a
local ISP and the printer went off to Utah.  My outlay was $1000 and my
inlay was $3000 ;)

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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