[Hawkfan]

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4 Expired throw away cameras exp. 2004 $9.95 opening bid. Sounds like a deal.
4 Single Use 27 Exposure Cameras Expired 12/2004 - shopgoodwill.com

[grog85361]

Would you believe a new Sigma 18-300 Contemporary, for just $3579.00? And, FREE SHIPPING!

Sigma 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 Contemporary OS HSM Lens 4 Pentax. US Authorized - rony 85126886615 | eBay

[Lord Lucan]

Would you believe a new Sigma 18-300 ... ?

According to the second picture on the sale page, it goes from 8mm to 800mm. What's not to like?

[Lhorn]

4 Expired throw away cameras exp. 2004 $9.95 opening bid. Sounds like a deal.
4 Single Use 27 Exposure Cameras Expired 12/2004 - shopgoodwill.com

Don’t forget $15 shipping and handling. We all know the fine people at Shopgoodwill aren’t in the camera business (hence all the cameras sold with “skylight lens”) but this is exactly the type of item they should start at .99 just to get it out the door and be happy to make a few bucks on shipping. Some of their “buy it now” are head scratchers too. Battery compartment looks like it foaming at the mouth from corrosion and asking $30 for a camera worth half that In working condition.

[boriscleto]

Don’t forget $15 shipping and handling. We all know the fine people at Shopgoodwill aren’t in the camera business (hence all the cameras sold with “skylight lens”) but this is exactly the type of item they should start at .99 just to get it out the door and be happy to make a few bucks on shipping. Some of their “buy it now” are head scratchers too. Battery compartment looks like it foaming at the mouth from corrosion and asking $30 for a camera worth half that In working condition.

Goodwill of the Finger Lakes (Rochester, NY) used to post nothing but Reserve Price auctions. I don't remember ever seeing one meet the reserve price. And the things they listed never made me want to drive to Rochester to check out their stores. They have 2 stores in Syracuse and I've only been to the one closest to me once.

[Hawkfan]

Don’t forget $15 shipping and handling. We all know the fine people at Shopgoodwill aren’t in the camera business (hence all the cameras sold with “skylight lens”) but this is exactly the type of item they should start at .99 just to get it out the door and be happy to make a few bucks on shipping. Some of their “buy it now” are head scratchers too. Battery compartment looks like it foaming at the mouth from corrosion and asking $30 for a camera worth half that In working condition.

The winner speaks! Enjoy that K-70 lucky dog.

[Lhorn]

The winner speaks! Enjoy that K-70 lucky dog.

I’m still in shock. I remember being pretty envious last year of the gent who won the KP. I feel very lucky indeed.

[Astro-Baby]

Don’t forget $15 shipping and handling. We all know the fine people at Shopgoodwill aren’t in the camera business (hence all the cameras sold with “skylight lens”) but this is exactly the type of item they should start at .99 just to get it out the door and be happy to make a few bucks on shipping. Some of their “buy it now” are head scratchers too. Battery compartment looks like it foaming at the mouth from corrosion and asking $30 for a camera worth half that In working condition.

Yep, I was buying cameras from a local charity shop, picked up a few ‘bargains’ but then they started pricing up. They get a complete banger in, most recent was an ME Super in truly awful shape, filthy dirty, massive dent in the top plate, bigger dent in base plate. They look on eBay and find a mint one and price theirs slightly cheaper ignoring the fact that the mint one is ahem well mint and works and theirs is one with bashed in casework and untested. Thats a hard pass from me. They keep doing this. Series 1 Vivitar 70-210 with scratched up optics and full of drek and they want £60 for it. They said when I looked at it ‘you could probably clean it’ ....yeah maybe I could a little but why would I bother when I could find one in good shape for not much more cash.
They keep doing this so these days I buy almost nothing from them and they have a shelf full of rubbish to get rid of. If they priced the ME at a couple of quid I would take it for spares but I am not going to cough up £30 on a complete wreck and I doubt anyone else will either....they seem worried that they could sell too cheap and someone makes a profit which is daft. Its cost them nothing so if they get a tenner for it thats money in the bank for the charity but they seem to have become fixated on getting a big price which means they sell nothing.

[Wasp]

To quote Sheldon :

'In what universe is this 'excellent condition' ?'

Pentax | eBay

It does include a 24/35/whatever to 70mm f/2.8 zoom. If that is in good condition, someone could get a good deal here.

[35mmfilmfan]

Charity shops seem to either underprice or overprice - as @Astro-Baby says, they either do some minimal research and come up with a wildly over-optimistic price based on ingnorance and interpretation (I once found a scratched copy of DSOTM, standard triangle, no posters etc in a charity shop as 'Mint first pressing - £250' !), or else do no research at all, prices based on what they would pay for the items. Had a bit of luck today, oddly - found an almost complete run of 'The Perishers' cartoon books, including the first five from the Sixties, at £1.99 each, in a National Charity shop, not noted for their charity to purchasers ! Bought the lot, and even the duplicates are in better condition than the ones I already have. Now looking for NZ or Aussie printed copies of 'Footrot Flats' - anyone ?

[Lord Lucan]

.
Broken Sunpak SP140

"Fine" they say, except the Ready light does not work.

Having a trigger voltage of 180V means this will only be used on an older film camera, at least I hope so. But without a ready light there are going to be a lot of premature blank shots. I don't suppose it's recharging time is stellar either, especially as it is not thyristor controlled - full blast gone every time. The wasted film is soon going to cost a lot more than the thing itself. Not that its full blast amounts to much, it's guide number is only 14.

Instead, why not buy one of the zillions of similar small flash units on Ebay that are in full working order? The vast majority will never sell anyway. A lot of photographic stuff on Ebay these days looks like houses being cleared out after bereavements. There are some nice complete kits that someone took a pride in (though usually priced like they were when new), but also rubbish like this that the deceased person themselves probably shoved to the back of the cupboard or into the attic 20 years ago.

SUNPAK SP 140 Flash Unit - Works Fine Except The Ready Indicator Light - Bargain | eBay

[boriscleto]

F78.8...must be very difficult to see though...

[35mmfilmfan]

Am I missing something here ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PENTAX-ESPIO-MINI-35mm-Camera-With-Instrution-Boo...D&LH_Auction=1

Is it really worth this much ?

[Lord Lucan]

Am I missing something here ?
Is it [Pentax Espio Minireally worth this much ?

Pay more if you want, I've given some links below. I'm missing the point too, perhaps someone can explain what is special about these. They even make K1000s look cheap. The non-minis are priced more like you would expect.

£250 :
PENTAX Espio Mini Camera in Box (USED) | eBay

£199 :
Pentax Espio Mini 35mm Point And Shoot Film Camera - Great Condition | eBay

£140 :
Pentax Espio Mini 35mm Point and shoot camera. | eBay

[photoptimist]

Pay more if you want, I've given some links below. I'm missing the point too, perhaps someone can explain what is special about these. They even make K1000s look cheap. The non-minis are priced more like you would expect.

£250 :
PENTAX Espio Mini Camera in Box (USED) | eBay

£199 :
Pentax Espio Mini 35mm Point And Shoot Film Camera - Great Condition | eBay

£140 :
Pentax Espio Mini 35mm Point and shoot camera. | eBay

It's almost certainly caused by dumb pricing bots. Some eBayers use automagical bots that search eBay for similar products and then add an automatic mark-up to the highest price they find.

The logic is that if someone is probably willing to pay $X for something, there's likely someone else willing to pay 30% more than X.

That logic may be OK until several eBayers use the same logic, see another bot's marked-up price, and compound the markup. The same problem happens on Amazon for 3rd-party sales of books. In one case, two bots auto-escalated the price on 1992 book about fruit flies (that typically sells for about $35) up to $23,000,000(Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies)!