Welcome to CoCoCommentary, a feature I’ll occassionally use to discuss the status of the CoCo ‘Verse and maybe even retro-computing in general. For this first edition, I’m tackling some Ebay ridiculousness.

Now, when I say ridculousness, I’m not talking about only crazy prices, I’ll also be talking about auctions that have been created by the seller completely violating an otherwise fine CoCo, peripheral or other retro-computer.

The first example is a seller I’ve exchanged PM’s with regaring his auction titles; and penchant for using the word ‘exact’ in his auction titles when describing the difference between a tandy and trs-80 branded units.

This auction is for a CoCo 2 motherboard only; from the looks of it maybe a T1 with lowercase. Based on some other auctions he’s has, he most definately violated this CoCo for parts to sell, and make more money. I’m actually glad to see he’s dropping prices and having problems selling these parts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not begrudging anyone from having successful auctions. Simply put, I find it morally reprehensible to part out an otherwise good retro computer.

Whether parts have been sold or not, I’m unsure but his CoCo auction count has gone down in recent weeks. There are other examples, like these Atari 400 parts (among tons of others):

The same seller also has numerous parts from a working TRS-80 Model 4P. Again, it’s a free country, capitalism is alive and well, but cannibalizing a good, working system is a crappy thing to do. At least in my opinion. If someone has a damaged case, or other parts – I can see parting it out.

One other subject that has come up recently in conversation was items plus shipping. And boy has there been some crazy shipping costs on auctions.

Below is an auction for a really cool system – CoCo 1 with HJL-57 keyboard, MPI, Sony monitor and what appears to be a WordPak-2. This one started out several months ago for over $1,000 + $350 shipping (to my location). I can see the monitor increasing the shipping cost.

There are cases I’ve seen recently of absolutely crazy shipping costs, in the triple digits for just one CoCo 3. Or in this case below, an over-priced CoCo1 being sold as ‘For Repair’ with a shipping price of $119, again to my location:

As you might expect, there’s no end to the amount of what one may consider crazy, or even blasphemy (I’m well aware some may find my opinions to be crazy). Suffice it to say, I’ll never be a fan of cannibalizing retro computers just to make a higher profit. Nor will I ever be a fan of padding the shipping costs just to make a higher profit.

To close out, I’d like to highlight a couple of auctions. On a recent CoCoNation, there was some discussion of ‘replacement’ CoCo items – third party implementations of original CoCo products. I’ve already highlighted the Jim Brain/go4retro Symphony 12 and Philharmonic in previous blog posts and my SepTandy series. Below you’ll find an MPI and two floppy controllers.

Disto Mini Controller 1 Replica, also by Ian, he sells a few CoCo items