Jim Hackett wrote:
That's better than my best. Picked up a Hammarlund HQ 170 for $15 but I had
to drag it away MYSELF!



Well, I DID have to hold the door for him.


Still, that Hammarlund, for $15, is a better deal by the pound.





"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...

Jim Hackett wrote:

...and then there is the Flea Market which I go to twice a week. I am
dissapointed if I don't find at least 1 killer deal on a shortwave every
other weekend...




Like the pair of NC-88's I bought at the Greenwood Flea Market in
Louisiana 16 years ago. $3 the pair and the guy put them in the car for
me.




"Michael Black" wrote in message
...


"Michael Lawson" ) writes:


I'm planning on tagging along with my wife when
she goes to some yard sales this weekend. I have
to admit that I'm not a big fan of these things, but
I figure that if I can at least poke around to see
if anything electronic shows up, it can't be all
bad.

My question revolves around the receivers that you
see on eBay; a majority of them seem to have come

from either an estate sale or yard sale at some point.

Would I have any luck hunting around a yard sale
for a piece of shortwave equipment, or would my
time be better spent going the estate sale route?

I've been going to garage sales for at least a decade, and
if I've ever seen a shortwave receiver, it wasn't memorable.

If you think about the number of shortwave listeners to
the general population, that's a starting point. If few
have them, then they will be far between at garage sales.
Subtract those who are savvy enough to know the channels
to get a good return when selling a shortwave receiver,
and you've thinned out the field considerably. What remains
will be slim, spread over all the garage sales that do happen.

What you find at garage sales are common items. That popcorn
machine that someone bought (or was given) which they never
used (much), and they want to get rid of it; they aren't all
that concerned about getting much money for it. You will find
uncommon items, but not in any quantity and it may take years.
I've seen one CD-I player, and I think only one laserdisc player
(which I was tempted to buy when I saw it two years ago, but there
were no laserdiscs with it).

If you're lucky, someone will put in their advertising that they have

the

sort of thing you really want; but that's because they have a real

interest


in the thing so they feel it's worthy of mention or they have a cluster

of

them. They want to lure people to their sale, and use what they
have.

What you will find is the common items. So you can pick up a good
set of small speakers to attach to your shortwaver receiver (this
is an incredibly common thing, and they aren't all junk but usually
are cheap). You can find all kinds of amplifiers to power them. A
great selection of AM/FM tuners, both analog and digital. All the
car radios you could ever want. Computer equipment galore (I finally
found a 56K external modem for five dollars a month ago, and ironically
the next week found another for twenty dollars, yet if I've seen them
before they carried a large enough price to move on, and that's been

some

years). If you're looking for common items, it makes sense to buy them
at garage sales (usually things do work, but if they don't, you've not
spent much on them), and then use the savings to buy things you can't
find at garage sales.

Garage sales are an excuse to get out early on Saturday mornings in
the summer, to enjoy being out. Finding things you need, or would
like, is like icing on the cake, and the fact that you will find
them at good prices makes it even better. You can go a week, and
find nothing that interests you (it is amazing how much clutter
we all accumulate, and how uninteresting it can be to others), and
then get a day when you've got a bunch of things at great prices.

If people are really reselling things on Ebay, likely they are
doing the sales on a really massive basis. Getting out as early
as possible, every weekend, and getting to as many as possible.
By sheer magnitude, they come across the less common items, and
since they get to plenty they know how uncommon it is to find
such items. If you don't buy it then, you may not stumble on
another, for a few years or even forever.

Also remember it makes sense to hit the sales that are clustered.
If one street is having multiple sales the same day, that means
you can hit more with the same amount of time, rather than spending
the time getting to the next sale. While it has faded, a few years
back some groups, like schools and the YMCA, held what amounted
to fleamarkets, though they called them "community garage sales".
Individuals would rent a table from the group, and then sell whatever
they wanted to get rid of. Like the street sales, this gets a bunch
of different sellers into a small space, and again mean you spend
less travelling time.

Not to be forgottten, though again I've never found shortwave
receivers (or scanners for that matter) are rummage sales put on
by churches and Rotary Clubs and schools. Since the items are donated,
the groups may be most interested in making sure it's all gone by
the end of the day (so they don't have to clear it out afterwards),
so they may not have as high prices as when individuals sell off things
they know the original price of.


Michael