[Milsurplus] Scarce Items and the Coming Demise of Ebay "Hobby" Selling.

[Mike Morrow]

Nick wrote:

>...but what about folks like the ebay seller in Utah who has saved 100's
>and 100's of items from the scrapyard ...Tons and tons of gear have been
>saved ...So frankly I think we aficionados have been truly blessed by
>having a mechanism like ebay to open up attics and basements nationwide.

That's my outlook too.  At least some vintage gear escapes the landfill
in which it otherwise would have landed, and that's worth something.

More importantly, gear is presented in a forum in which anyone anywhere 
can participate.  I tried for several decades to complete just a couple
of "common" aircraft radio sets by attending hamfests (including Dayton),
reading ham swap classifieds, listening to nets on the air, etc.  After I
started tracking things on ebay about 12 years ago, within a few months
I had made more progress than I'd made in the 30 previous years.

Today, I've completed many more sets than I'd have ever dreamed of
attempting.  In fact, I'm "collected out" and now seldom check ebay
listings more than once a week.  It's still the only real way to have
any chance of putting all the small pieces together for the typical
vintage military radio set.

Mike / KK5F