My Early Days Before Ebay, How I Lost 1000’s of Dollars Not Using Ebay!

I started selling and buying on Ebay several years ago. I delayed doing this for, I don’t know, laziness I suppose. One major experience showed me what I was missing, and taught me a major lesson.

I drove out of state with some friends to an estate of an avid camera collector. I ended up with a very nice vintage camera collection. There were early Leicas, and early medium format cameras, and lots of classic gear. I did keep what I thought was the best part of the collection, and took dozens of collectible cameras to a camera “picker number one”. He selected about a dozen cameras, high-grading me, and I made my money back on the collection. I felt pretty smart, after all, I got to keep the good stuff for free, sold a bunch, got my money back, and have more cameras to sell! So then I went to another camera “picker number two” This guy hates picker number one, and was disgusted when he heard the the other picker got some before he did. But, he bought the rest from me. and I made a whole bunch more money! Boy was I smart! On the way out of his home, I noticed on his desk a computer printout from Ebay. It was easy to remember his seller name, so I became curious. about a week later, I notice all of these cameras I had sold him were listed! Cool! I’ll see how much they sell for. To my surprise, and later anguish, the auctions ended, and I saw he made over $700 profit on the cameras I sold him! Now, he got third look, I kept the first group, sold the second group, and he got the rest, and still profited $700! What in earth did I sell to “Camera Picker Number One”. I immediately signed up for Ebay, and started selling, and one of my first sales was for a set of salt and pepper shakers made in Japan, I got $175 for them, you gotta be kidding me!

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