I feel I need to speak my mind and possibly give a little more insight into the world of HiBid.

I was the one who bid on and won the HiBid auction for a Model 33 in Indiana last year. I live in the Chicagoland area so traveling to Indiana to look at the tty up for auction was not too reasonable. Someone from the GreenKeys said it looked reasonable from the pictures provided. I knew I couldn’t see much detail so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. So I bid on it and won (won is a relative term here).

I paid for shipping (no stand so shipping was reasonable). When I got it, I was so excited. I carefully opened the package only to see the every piece of plastic was cracked with huge chunks missing so I couldn’t even glue it together. The front metal piece with the rotary switch was not attached in the least and there were no wires on the switch. But then again, there were no wires anywhere inside the unit either with the exception of an electrical cord!  And no electronics whatsoever. The base was a piece of fiberboard that had been water soaked at one time, so screws were completely loose or missing.

But what it lacked in electronics, it made up for in rust and mouse droppings. They made no attempt of cleaning any of the nest or anything.  That’s why they didn’t show any pictures with the cover lifted (not that it could be raised without it falling apart).

Originally, I had high hopes of using this one instead of trying to get my first one working (that I bought sight-unseen). But my hopes were quickly dashed away in the first few moments of opening up this latest.

At a minimum, I had hopes of combining the electronics to get one to work. Those hopes were also dashed away quickly since there were no usable parts at all from the new one.

I’m still looking for a working Model 33 ASR to use as a console for the 5ESS switch I’m trying to build, if anyone has one to sell me.

So what I’ve learned from auctions where I cannot examine it in person is BUYER BEWARE.  Especially with HiBid.

Chuck

W9CFR