Open-ended Apple "collection" on eBay

[Jules Richardson]

On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 13:51 -0400, chris wrote:
> >Yep, one of my local recyclers is like that. I think they assume that
> >anyone who appears to be knowledgeable about what they have is
> >immediately going to take their junk and make a fortune selling it. Tell
> >them that it's worthless in financial terms and they think you're lying;
> >tell them that you absolutely will not sell it on and they still think
> >you're lying. I haven't figured out a way of dealing with that class of
> >people yet :-(
> 
> Bring your SO along, pretend to spot the item and say "Oh look honey, 
> this is just like the <insert item here> we were using when we met". Then 
> have your SO say "Oh, we simply MUST buy it"
> 
> Then offer the guy 50% of what you really are willing to pay for it. 
> Watch the dollar signs roll in his eyes as you haggle your way up to the 
> amount you were willing to pay.

Heh :) That probably only works once for one item though - I'm not sure
of a good strategy for the situations where they get piles of retro
stuff every week given to them and they just scrap it for gold value. 

Actually, my strategy so far's been to make sure people know of the
museum such that they'll approach me with offers of things first, which
does work to a certain extent - but the recyclers still get stuff in
from school clearouts, office storage etc.

cheers

J.