Winning the e-bay game....

Noble said:

as an owner of a Rollei 6008i I can't imagine what I would do if my camera went on the fritz.

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You might be interested in this thread. Multiple possible sources for professional 6000 series repair were presented. (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

BTW I'm really liking the 6008i. Film is held much flatter than my 1974-designed SLX which tented to allow some films to bulge in the center. Also, mirror slap is much more controlled, improving hand held sharpness compared to my SLX. In fact, as soon as I noticed the improvement in the negatives, the reliable SLX I had owned for over 25 years was sold to prevent me from using it any more.

ic-racer said:

You might be interested in this thread. Multiple possible sources for professional 6000 series repair were presented. (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

BTW I'm really liking the 6008i. Film is held much flatter than my 1974-designed SLX which tented to allow some films to bulge in the center. Also, mirror slap is much more controlled, improving hand held sharpness compared to my SLX. In fact, as soon as I noticed the improvement in the negatives, the reliable SLX I had owned for over 25 years was sold to prevent me from using it any more.

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Thanks for the link! Man you have some brass b@lls! Lol. I would never do that to one of my PQs!

I've bought a couple cameras that the sellers said didn't work, only to find that the cameras were loaded with film, and wound to the end of the the roll.

A Couple of Recent Good eBay Deals:

(1) A Canon EOS A2E with VG-10 originally owned by a tinkerer, pictured with a cord and quarter-inch phone plug extending from its right-hand grip/battery cover, offered by the owner's son or daughter, who wasn't familiar with dad's hobby or equipment. Got it for $5.50 plus shipping; turns out he'd taken apart a 2CR5 battery and wired the plug to its contacts to mate with a homemade D battery pack a la the Canon BP-5. The date code indicates the A2E was built in December, 1992, and other than the notch cut into the grip/battery cover, it looks and works great [good Command dial], with only a loose neck strap lug on its left [film canister] side, that is starting to fracture of the top cover. I really like the vertical grip and Eye Controlled Focus. One day, I'll take off the top cover to see if I can repair the strap lug.

(2) A gently used Nikon N90s with Battery Grip and Op-Tech neck strap and partially-completed [6 exposures taken] roll of Kodak Gold 400 for $25 plus shipping. This one had the common sticky film door issue, but I found a NOS replacement at an eBay dealer for around $20, and now the N90s is nearly mint.

For Balance, A Recent Not-so-good eBay Deal:

Feeling flush after running a second roll of film through the N90s, and reading that the Nikon F100's control layout is the prototype for Nikon's D-SLRs [I confess, I have a D70, D200, and D7000], I decided to put in a bid on one that was described as working when it was put away, but the seller was told by someone who tested the camera after it came out of storage that it didn't work - no ther details [Red Flag time!]. I took the chance anyway, and won the auction for $40 plus shipping; once in hand, the LCD display flashed 'ERR' when I pressed either the stop-down or shutter buttons, and the estimate by the shop I sent it to came back with a total repair cost of $279 for shutter and aperture control replacement. I pt it up for bids on eBay with shipping included, disclosing the details of the estimate report, and sold it for close to what I paid for it, but I'm eating the original shipping and $10 for the repair estimate.

Oh, well, win some, lose some . . . . .

Thanks and regards,
Vince

If ther seller doesn't allow returns, doesn't provide good photos, good description, etc, I factor that into the price. If the auction goes for more than the item is worth in 50/50 chance of having to be repaired, I move on. I've gotten some great deals on cameras with lenses because the photos were horriable.

Ive won at ebay a number of times, usually due to the seller advwrtising the camera and not the expensive.lens.attached to it... my best scores have been:

Nikon fg for $35 -- happened to come with a 50mm 1.2
Nikon f4 for $300 -- came with a mint 80-200mm 2.8 afs
Speed graphic fir $180 -- came with an aero ektar

I have had some good scores, and I think it comes down to reading between the lines. I usually score with people selling something they don't really know about and poor photos. I take a chance. Retina III Big C for < £50 in virtually mint and a virtually mint Ikon Nettar for £36 with original receipt, guarantee. This sellar was obviously "old school gent" because he even refunded a £1 postage (obviously unasked) because the actual postage was less than he had to pay!!! I had some email conversation with him afterwards and sent a couple of prints I had taken with the camera.

This sellar was obviously "old school gent" because he even refunded a £1 postage

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I have refunded some of the shipping, if it turned out to be less than expected, a couple of times on items I have sold on eBay.
I was amazed at some of the response of thanks I received; however, I never thought of myself as an old school gent. I guess that is a good thing so I'll take it.

My latest ebay buys are a nice RB67 ProS and Caltar II 210mm lens. I try to look at the photos and make sure they are of the item I and purchasing.

Kyle M. said:

I've managed to stumble into a couple of amazing deals, the most recent being a mint Bronica S2 for $120. I found it at a used camera shop in columbus ohio and had to have it when I found out not only how cheap it was, but that it also had a Nikkor lens. I've put about 15 rolls of 120 through it with only 1 very minor problem, a cable release works fine if threaded into the shutter button but doesn't do anything through the cable release port on the bottom of the body. Personally I can't imagine ever needing the one on the bottom so it's fine with me.

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Think the one on the bottom is for a double release does it fire the mirror ok?

Ebay is fine as long as you understand the rules of engagement, namely that there are fees involved and sellers can be unreliable.

Any sale of something you have previously bought will result in 14% going off to Paypal and Ebay combined. Therefore, if you want a reasonable guarantee on not losing money, only bid up to 86% of what you think you can sell it for, including postage. If you are a dab hand at taking photos, buyers will pay a small premium for well described stuff, which can mitigate the cost of fees. I actually have a little spreadsheet which tracks what I have bought and sold, and what I currently have in my collection. The net cost of Ebay including fees, if I would sell all my kit at a fair price would see me up by about GBP 500. Not that the time I have spent going to the post office has been compensated by GBP 500, but its a means of making sure I don't get carried away, in particular, the inventory aspect of this means that I can curb LBA.

Ebay is particularly great for building a collection of camera kit, I think. I have a nice enlarging lens from Ebay, a Fujinon EX 75mm f4, which I picked up for a fair price in comparison to other enlarging lenses. It would simply not be possible to buy this elsewhere (maybe other than on APUG). I have built a Bronica ETRSi kit up through Ebay, but only bought the body and lenses which looked like they were in good condition, and came with boxes. With unclear auctions, I just don't feel the risk of receiving something faulty is worth my time in terms of resolving potential problems. For my 35mm kit, it took a while to work out which stuff to buy and I have bought and sold a lot of stuff in building up my ideal collection (although that's still open to question). Once I had decided on Pentax, I have had stuff serviced, lenses and bodies, in order to get the best performance out of them. Its a little unrealistic to think 30 year old camera kit is going to perform at its best without some TLC.