[Let's Play] Party Like its 1987! Let's Experience the Atari Computer! Part Extra: Ebay Fun

Yes its a little bonus update posty thing.  Which will have a sequel possibly.  Or I will just add it to this post next week.

The sad state of computer game collecting is this: most stores don't stock retro computer stuff, especially not pre Windows era in the US/Canada.  All the retro shops or garage sales or flea markets have tons and tons of console goodies but computer stuff is virtually nonexistent.

Thus its off to the great rat race that is online auction sites, the king of course being Ebay.  (Yes I know about Amazon sellers and whatnot but sometimes they are worse than any bidding war.)

As someone who has used the Bay since the days of 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 I have some experience with it, both as a buyer and seller.  It has become mostly a buyer's market, albeit one sellers can make a quick buck or do a little legit price fixing.  Or make a quicker buck by undercutting current going rates with a good Buy It Now price.

But buyers have basically destroyed the whole auction concept by and large.  See many people use bidding services for things without a BIN and will put in microbids during the last minutes of an auction destroying the bonus money a bidding war might cause and almost making it pointless to bid on anything before then.

The only day of an auction that matters is the last unless again, it has a BIN and nobody bid on the lower price to make a deal.  I have done this and in a few small cases made the seller extra scratch as some other knucklehead with more money than sense (something almost every collecting hobby has TONS of) bids well beyond that price.

But here is the background to this fun mini project:

I have a number of items on search.  Some of which usually go for much more than my cheap and semi logical (for a collector anyways.  I am only mildly idiotic to the "Full Dipstick" of most collectors.) self is willing to pay.

One of them came up from a seller who put up a whole gaggle of tasty Atari 8 bit and C64 games.  Inexpensive shipping per item (always a huge thing!  Remember: SHIPPING SHOULD BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WITH ANY ORDER OF ANYTHING.), which of course if I win multiples will get me quite the savings.  I bid on that item, and many of the others, mostly going super lowball bids over the starting price due to my desire for the items (come on.  Its just... STUFF.  I don't need it.  Its just for funsies!) and you know, being pretty broke.

We shall soon see what of these I win, for how much, and what the final bids in the final moments were:

Join me next week as we investigate this.  Wish me luck on around 50 total dollars including shipping of luck.  But not more than that otherwise I can't punch my credit card bill in the face as fast!