I've seen some complaints here about unscrupulous ebay sellers. Yes; some are dishonest, some are liars, some are sneak thieves, some are internet versions of used car salesmen. Sometimes the problem is just someone not knowing the exact English word to describe what he honestly means. I just saw a new benchmark set in PETTY larceny today: kind of like that guy in about 2001 who would sell a calculator and it's battery door in separate auctions.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Prism-Frame-Survey-Construction-Engineer-Target-NR_W0QQitemZ110413331070QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item19b525ba7e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A13|66%3A2|39%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 was sold on 7/14. This just came on the market and was buy-it-now'd, from the same pickpocket / er, seller.
I watch for these because as folks at the San Diego HHC saw; I have one of the old HP survey instruments (yes i've used it at work), and want a triple bucket for it. I didn't even bother bidding because i had no interest in just a frame.

Little did I (or the "winner") know; this jerk was parting it out, even though nothing was wrong with it except the missing target. He clearly just thought he would get more money for it this way. He didn't. They go for about $60 or $70, when complete. He got $20 total for the pieces and no doubt had to bother boxing and shipping them separately. Don't you just love it when one of "the smartest guys in the room" shorts himself?

Reminds me of my days selling at Ham Radio Hmfests. I'd arrive really early, usually before daylight. I would put my stuff out on the table and in under 15 minutes sale about 75% of it to OTHER VENDERS.

Each were sure they could sell it at a higher price and make a nice profit.

I always enjoyed walking around at the end of the day seeing all my stuff that I had sold "too low" still on the tables unsold at a much higher price. Sometimes I would see these same venders at the next hamfest still trying to sell my stuff at their overpriced markup.

Of course I never was very good at finances :)

Bill

This is a libelous posting. Offensive, pointless, and illegal- e.g. pointless criticism (defamation). It does not conform to the museum terms of use regarding anonymous attacks on specific ebay sellers.

If you are going to accuse someone in a public of petty larceny, he has a right to know, and possibly a right to legal recourse against you and/or the museum for defamation.

If the seller was not trying to pull a fast one; he would have said: "as soon as this first piece sells, i will auction off the rest of the parts which i took off - you know: the ones you will need to make it work." He didn't. His loss. He could have gotten about three times the price of the pieces if he had offered it as what it is: surveying gear. People still use hp glass. It's as good as anything made today and what HP set it at became, and still is, the most common offset. Treating it as just another hp collectible to be flogged off at the highest possible price by any means cost this "power seller" about 40 gollies. That's funny. Really.

As far as the schoolyard lawyer stuff is concerned: You can use my initials to find my name on an HHC roster, look my name up in an old phone book from my little town, and pay some schister attorney to write me vaguely threatening letters. I just don't know why you'd bother. Me, I won't comment on this seller in the future; I wouldn't want to give some tool a reason to sue the museum.