[mee]

I liked B&N, miss having them around.

Yeah they were nice. Shopping malls in my area used to have a smaller bookstore chain known as Waldenbooks that I enjoyed too. And another, larger bookstore that was local to the nearby city that had the most thorough magazine assortment I've ever seen. It was especially a treat to go there to see those, before the internet became common, and get a taste of other regions.

[Fenwoodian]

.
Just the opposite happened to me yesterday.

I'd been looking at a heavily damaged Zeiss ZF 100/2 classic lens. It had OK glass, and a broken aperture and broken/askew focus mechanism. I estimate that the repair cost alone would have greatly exceed the cost of buying another one in excellent condition.

I already have one of these lenses and thought it might be nice to buy this one to use for spare parts for the one I already owned. So, I bid on it up to $150 USD, then I bowed out when bidding exceeded that amount. The last minute bidders raised the price on this mutant monstrosity to around $450!

Obviously, in the heat of the moment, some auction bidders pay more than the item is worth.

[tranq78]

I had the opposite happen.

Was just cruising flea-Bay one evening. Henry's Camera from Toronto, Canada put up a salesman's sample of a FA*200/4 Macro with a BIN that very second. I hit the BIN without even thinking. It was listed on flea-Bay for maybe 2 or 3 seconds before I bought it.

Henry's successively put up 3 more salesman's samples of the FA*200 Macro which had no BIN (they learned their lesson!). They sold for more and more money each time.

The lens came with the original lens hood which wasn't shown on the listing. That's an extra bonus.

Dang, that's a real, real, real nice lens.