[GreenKeys] The answers you get over a simple request! !

[Keelan Lightfoot]

I don't think it's fair to call teletype collectors cheap.

I paid a fella $60 for a M28 KSR, but by the time I had it at my front door, it cost me over $350, and a long day of travel. The problem with us folks is that when we look at the price of a machine, we automatically add the cost of acquisition to the cost of the machine, and view it as one entity. If the machine was $300, there's no way that I would be able to justify the expenditure required to pick the darn thing up.

I see the same 'cheapness' in other collecting avenues. When you get into the territory of large old metalworking machines, prices enter into 'token' territory. Sellers who understand the cause often put a price on machines to simply extract some form of commitment from the buyer; the machine is worth more as scrap than what they are asking.

- Keelan

On 2011-10-10, at 9:08 PM, WA5CAB at cs.com wrote:
> 
> Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is a well known fact that TTY 
> collectors are the cheapest of the cheap.  I have been trying (usually) 
> politely (except tonight) to point this out for three decades.  You are your own 
> worst enemies when it comes to preserving gear.  Furthermore, any seller knows 
> that "reasonable price" in a request for hardware is a synonym for "dirt 
> cheap to free and you pay all expenses".  I personally no longer reply to any 
> post on any forum looking for something "at a reasonable price".  I just hit 
> the DELETE key because the post is almost never worth wasting the time to 
> answer.