When I first started buying on Ebay it was like the wild and woolly west, just about anything went and prices were greatly inflated. For example, if you lived in a small mid-west town in the U.S. and wanted to collect some of the CB gear from the 60's or 70's, your hunting ground was fairly limited. True, you could place a "WANTED" advertisement in a few select magazines, or if lucky, you might have run across a CB "Broker" like Bob, or Charlie, but otherwise you were screwed.

Then along came Ebay, which cut out middlemen, and as digital cameras became less expensive, almost everyone supplied a pictures (or many pictures) of the item forsale, so at LEAST you would know what the cosmetics of the Rig, microphone, meter, etc. was like. Now came the part about how well it worked, and their description combined with Ebay's  feedback system gave you a better feel on what to do. Naturally, if you were a seasoned Hamfest/Tailgater like myself you were instantly suspicious of "It's been in storage for 4 years but it worked the last time I used it", or "The widow I'm selling the gear for said her husband used it daily". Both legitimate statements but they could have taken the time to at least plug some of it in to see if it worked. Having said that, I know that I've sold things I haven't tested, that were bought either through Ebay or a CB Broker, but at least I would tell them that. I would also price it accordingly. For instance, if the typical starting price of a Lafayette HB-625 fully tested, with it's lights "on" in the picture, I'd start mind in the $5-10 range. 

So, the middleman is gone, and an index for good and bad now exists, but many of the old wisdom used at tailgate sales still works today on Ebay.

EXAMPLE 1:

Someone is selling a rare radio at a fairly decent price. Their feedback has 2,012 positives!! I Still look anyways, even though the percentage of positives are