Posted by Mike Ross on March 28, 2001 at 17:57:04:
In Reply to: Re: EBAY posted by Rick Denney on March 26, 2001 at 21:57:07:
Boy, do I relate to Rick's comments about "trying" to stay away from EBAY. But I have had pretty good success in my opinion. My record includes a Yamaha Eb (my main axe) which I actually bought after it failed to sell in it's EBAY auction - contacted the seller directly after the auction failed to reach the reserve. I actually don't know if this is considered ethical or not.
I've also bought a couple of trumpets, a cornet, and a non-compensating 3-valve euph which I basically use as toys. In these cases I generally found student level instruments at much below the cost of a new instrument, but again, none is the $200 York, and all of them cost somewhat more than "word in the newsgroups" would lead you to believe.
I think that most of the sellers are involved in the instrument business and are well aware of how much they want for each horn. Hence they use reserves and intial bids to ensure products sell for "their" prices. The exception to this may be really old stuff or things where all the finish is gone - where it's a bit harder to capture the value.
Mike "wish I'd found Rick's comp. euph instead" Ross