by Swami » Thu Feb 26, 2015 11:03 am
I felt drawn to comment on this one. I Like Ebay !!! I have been on ebay for 17 years. Is it perfect...No. However, what is perfect. Ebay is a site, a Forum, just like this is a Forum. It allows people to connect that would NEVER connect. Over the years I have met more people from ebay (100's), than from any other source. A lot of these people have become my friends. I first met Freddy from ebay. I met Nigel from the UK many years ago because of ebay.
Over the years I have bought some Great items on ebay. Items and Sellers that I would never have found any other way. Almost anything you are looking for eventually shows up on ebay. Including hard to find parts, or amazing photographs of machines on loction. I bought a Photo years ago of 4 Polk Bandits on location in the Las Vegas Club. Two of the Polks in the Photo were in my collection. That was Awesome for me to find that.
Now, after all those years of buying, I have been selling a lot of my collection. I am a Collector, NOT a dealer. My collection has overtaken me and I'm trying to bring it under control. There are not a lot of places to sell off well over 100 Slot Machines.
I listed a Mint Token Bell on this Forum for $1,800. It was up for 6 months and I never even got a comment. Not even a "Nice Machine". Last Novenber I listed the same machine on ebay for $2,395 and it sold within 1 day. The buyer has since bought 4 more machines from me. I would Never have found this guy without ebay. Last year I sold 4 Jennings machines to a buyer in the Netherlands. Again, he found me on ebay and we did all the deals privately. How would I ever connect with that person? I have sold more than 40 machines in the past 1.5 years all because people saw me on ebay.
In most cases you can list for free or 30 cents. You only pay if your item sells. I also collect Casino Chips. One year ago I listed a $2,800 chip on ebay. A person contacted me and we made a private deal. He went on to buy $50,000 worth of my chips. I'm just saying ebay has done far more Good than Bad.
I know there are Repo Slots on ebay. The same as there are fake Rolex Watches, Art Work, Hand Bags, Coins, Car Parts, DVD's, Cd's etc... Every part of life has bad people that do bad things. However, there are FAR more good people than bad ones.
There is a lot talk about the Johnson Act and ebay. The Johnson act has nothing to do with ebay. When the Johnson Act was written, it was designed for the Government to Control Gambling and protect us from oursleves. Does anyone remeber a little law called prohibition? Prior to the Act there were Slot Machines in almost all States. This stupid law (Johnson Act) put a lot of Great Companies out of Business (Walting, Mills, Pace, Jennings, etc). Now all these years later more Slot Machines are being manufactured and sold, than at any time in history. Nice job Big Bro Gov...
There will always be Fake machines. There will always be machines that have been altered. Maybe some people like an altered machine. Not everyone is a collector. Look at the Harley Davidson Hi Tops. Biker's love those machines, and that's OK.
Don't get me wrong. I am a Hardcore Purist. Nobody has ever bought a machine from me and complained about it's Authenticity. I like everything to be completely righteous. But not everyone is like me.
I used to collect vintage Corvettes. Everytime I saw a 1960's Resto Mod I would Cringe. But people like those things. It's not a bad thing for people to have different taste.
I like ebay. If some of you don't like it, just stay away from it. Please don't go after ebay because a few people sell a Repo. Also keep in mind, most of the Repo Slots that show up on ebay are from people who either bought them years ago or inherited them and truely don't know they are Repo's. These people are not out to "Screw Somebody". With that said, yes there are some sellers that contiually list fake machines. But out of the whole ebay community, what are we talking about, maybe .0000001%. In the end ebay will just Pull all Slots and then we ALL Miss Out !!!
This is a Great Forum. Let's all try to keep it that way. Nobody likes all the Negative.
I Like Ebay !!!
Last edited by
Swami on Thu Feb 26, 2015 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.