"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...
Some months ago when the craigslist phenomenon was building rapidly in the
Seattle area, there were rich pickin's. Now I regularly see people selling
used HF stuff for more than the store sells it for, and people spamming
the thing over and over again touting cheap homeowner's junk for
super-high prices. Basically, it's become a buyer's market. Stuff I used
to sell for e.g. $40 I would now price at about $100. It's tough on buyers
but I'm not buying much these days.

GWE

Same here. I picked up a 32' fiberglass ladder in good shape for $50 last
summer- now I see ads offering items for near-retail prices, particularly on
tools. One idiot advertised some used chain link fence, posts, and
accessories. I would have given him a few bucks for a bunch of posts. He
sent me an itemized list of the retail cost of his pile of old fence parts,
totalling $542, and invited me to make an offer.

RoyJ wrote:

I've been picking stuff off of craigslist on a regular basis. ( TOO
regular according to SWHBO!) Logan 200 lathe, small mill, wood shaper, a
collection of pool pumps, gas powered 7000gpm transfer pump, etc. None of
those items were the $5 specials like you occasionally see at yard sales
but I thought I did well on all of them. Example: the gas pump was $40, I
ran it hard this summer. The Logan lathe went of the very low end of what
I've seen for that class of machine. YMMV

I might mention that my area (TC) has around 20 to 25 items in the
'tools' section per day, lots of traffic. I keep an eye on 'tools',
'free', and 'general' But that also means that you have to move quickly
when there is something of interest.

wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but when I'm looking at machine tools (lathes &
mills specifically) on ebay & Craigslist, in general I'm seeing better
condition items and better prices on Craigslist.

My theory is that since Craigslist is a local listing service, and the
buyer is going to check it out in person, there is less opportunity for
the seller to mis-represent their goods.

Ebay listings on the other hand give the seller an opportunity to ship
goods that are often pieces of crap. I've been burned enough on ebay
to know what types of items to bid on and what to pass on.

Ed