As you know, I’m getting rid of my stuff. I put a Sony V5000 Hi8 Camera on eBay. I don’t remember what I paid for it, but it was a lot. The last time I used it (probably three years ago) was on a friend’s shoot. After the shoot, I went to play back some of the tape. Just static in the viewfinder. My friend took the tape home and played it in his Hi8 deck, and the camera had recorded perfectly. So the camera will record but not play.
I put it up on eBay for fifty bucks. Yeah, it’s a heck of a loss; but I’m not using it and I am trying to simplify my life. There are no bids yet, but eight people watching. A guy has offered me $80 (plus shipping) if I revise the auction with an $80 Buy It Now option.
If I take his offer, I have a guaranteed sale. If I decline, the other seven people might decide not to bid and this guy may pick it up for the starting bid (unless he’s ticked that I didn’t sell it to him outright). Since I’m unemployed, I was hoping I’d get at least $100 for it. If I let the auction run, I may get it – or more. Or I may not.
Have you researched other auctions to see how much similar items have gone for? You can find this out in advanced search on ebay and select “completed auctions” and type in the name of your item.
After doing that if you think $80 is a fair price, go for it. Otherwise, I would stick with the auction format, if you have that many people watching it you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting more than your opening price.
I’ve tried to look for “V5000”, “V-5000” and “CCD-V5000” using the completed auctions option, but my browser (IE6.0) just sits there with an hourglass on the cursor.
Is $80 a fair price? I know I spent over $1,000 for it years ago. Maybe almost $2,000. But the playback doesn’t work and Sony no longer has parts for it. The guy who offered to buy it outright has a couple of these cameras already, and he may be able to make one working camera by using mine. $80 would be a bargain for him.
I wouldn’t end it early. If he believes it’s really only worth $80 he’d just put in a $50 bid with a max of $80, no? This to me indicates that he believes it’s worth more than $80 but doesn’t want to risk someone outbidding him.
I’ve e-mailed the guy, and told him I’m letting it run.
I’m a bit discouraged by eBay right now. My fees are about $50 so far, and the guy who won the bidding for the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier backed out of it because of a sudden financial crisis. I was getting worried about Deathbird Stories, since until today there were no watchers. I’ve only sold my SDRAM cards, and they were only $7 (minus insertion and Final Value fees, and PayPal fees).
Johnny, I’ve been on eBay since '97, primarily as a seller (my FB is over 1300.) Take my advice: NEVER end an auction early in response to a potential buyer’s email.
Invariably, when someone sends you that kind of email, you should hold your ground and let the auction run it’s course. The buyer is almost always lowballing you. Just send them a polite email reply saying something like “Sorry, but I never end auctions early. Thanks for the offer, though.” You’ll find that 9 times of 10 the items goes higher than their offer - sometimes several times higher.
Do *not * be fooled by an apparent lack of interest in your items because they don’t have any or many bids. In the early days, people bid throughout the entire auction duration, but that hasn’t been the case on most items in a couple of years now. You’ll have lots of hits and watching activity, but most of your bids will come in on the final two days of the auction, with the majority clocking in during the final two hours - and if your item is hot, there will be a flurry of activity in the last couple of minutes. You said there are seven watchers on the cam? Consider it sold, then. Again, voice of experience: With one or two watchers, a sale is likely, but with five or more watchers, a sale is practically guaranteed.
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Did you have more than one bidder on the GI Joe carrier? If so, start sending out second chance offers. They almost always result in sales.
Yes. I’ve sent the second chance offer to the next-highest bidder, but have received no reply. #3 is in Argentina. Since this is such a big item, it will be very costly to send internationally. (As it is, it’s about $60 to the East Coast, and over $30 to California.) #4 is in the 21-something ZIP code, so if #2 doesn’t buy it today I’ll offer it to #4. If he doesn’t buy, then I’ll just re-list it.
Argh! I want to put a bid on it myself but that last thing I need is another piece of electronics cluttering up my desk. I could even get by with no playback as I have a Hi8 camcorder and I can bump to digital pretty easily with our DVD recorder.
No, must resist but I hope you sell it. What I want is a DV camcorder that has a manual white balance I can set to a reference like a white/gray/warm card and manual exposure. I’d prefer a palmcorder size with a flip out LCD on the left side since it lends itself to using with a Steadycam or Glidecam.
The best way to avoid temptation is to yield to it!
You should see the camera I’ll be using soon. It’s a JVC broadcast-quality DV (mini-DV?). Actually, I used it a little on the last shoot. Once I get used to it, I’m hoping I can pick up some gigs (weddings, legal depositions, studio work) from the guy who owns it.
Don’t let yourself get discouraged. Skilled eBayers often wait until the final minutes of an auction, in an attempt to “snipe” a win. There are plenty of people who will tell you that they always just enter their high bid and adopt a take-it-or-leave-it attitude (which, as a buyer, is really the smarter course of action) but I have not found that to be the case in the majority of my auctions. I’ll give you an example - I had an antique chocolate pot up for auction all last week. “My eBay” showed 7 watchers, but no bids until yesterday morning. Through the course of the final day, the pot got 27 bids. I started it at $20, with a reserve of $100. In LITERALLY the last two minutes of the auction, it went from $41.00 to $266.00.
Even taking into account listing fees, final value fees, Paypal fees AND shipping costs, you can make decent money off eBay. Don’t give up - and never end an auction early!
I don’t know if you can link to them but there were 6. They went for $332, 600, 600, 486 & 127. There was another that was bid by 3 people for $416 but that didn’t meet the reserve. I think a couple of them came with their own computers but overall you can still do better than $80.
Yeah this happens all the time. People (like myself) use sniping programs to bid at the last minute instead of entering our bid early. Items that go for $5 with 0 or 1 bid 24 hours before closing end up with 15 bids for $20 by the end.
Yeah, I do that. I try to get my bid in in the last 7 seconds. It depends on how much I want something though. A lot of the time, if it’s an item I want but am not seriously jonesing for, I’ll just enter my maximum bid and see how the chips fall.
I just got an offer to end the bidding on my c.1961 Rolex Submariner with the James Bond (Goldfinger) NATO strap. There are over two dozen bids, and over 40 watchers. I told the guy I might sell it for less than my reserve price if it doesn’t sell. (Of course, now the guy isn’t going to meet the reserve!) But I’m not going to sell it for $500 less than the reserve price.
I’m just a wannabe Scorsese. I worked with an in-house video producer when I worked at the Biodome which gave me the bug for that. He had me shoot the footage for a video chrismas card to the people locked inside using his Hi8 camera and a steadycam jr. Great fun and we could make running up stairs look like a dolly shot but my goddamn arm was ready to fall off after 20 minutes. Shot some with a dockable Beta SP but not practical for vacation videos.
What camera might you suggest for an aspiring cinemaphotographer like me? As I mentioned before true white balance and exposure control would be really nice to match shots but it’s hard to find those features on consumer cameras anymore. Oh, a stereo microphone jack would be nice as my low end DV panasonic lacks that. My Sony Hi8 would do anamorphic widescreen by sampling the sensor differently. That would be cool now that I finally have a widescreen TV but it can be done with an add-on lens. I don’t need a semi pro camera and certainly can’t justify it but my digital still photography has taught me what features I cannot do without.
Padeye: I think that would require a thread unto itself!
If you’re looking for a ‘pro-sumer’ unit, I’ve used a Canon XL-1 and a Sony DV-1000. Personally I like the controls of the Sony better. Some people like the idea of interchangable lenses on the Canon, but it’s already got a good zoom lens on it. I was looking for a DV camera for myself a couple of years ago. I liked the Sony PD-150. I understand there’s a PD-170 now. The PD-150 is very similar to the DV-1000, so that appeals to me.
I think SDMB can handle another thread. You’ve given me some food for thought. I’ll start there and ask what other features you might consider important that I might overlook. I shoot with a DSLR now but I’m sure I can get by with a fixed lens as long as the wide angle is sufficient.
