The Museum of HP Calculators

HP Forum Archive 04

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Re: Are we getting nuts?
Message #1 Posted by Glynn (USA) on 13 Sept 2000, 5:55 a.m.

Dang! Ya mean I got outbid??? :-) I'll never go on vacation again....

I have heard there is software that you can use on eBay to put in bids for you, that work in the last few minutes of an auction to determine the current ceiling and then bid a few bucks above that... in which case it could get very expensive if you are preceded by a nut.

Another theory of mine comes from the blurb on someone's auction of a few months back. It was on an oscilloscope I bid on (HP, of COURSE). The reserve was set awfully high, and in his defense, the seller offered: "A similar oscilloscope sold here on eBay a few weeks back for $XXXX", to which I thought: yeah, you sold it to yourself to justify what you want on THIS auction... but I have never sold on eBay so I am not sure if this ploy is a usable one.

Last theory (*a longshot*) is that, known only to a few collectors, S/N 2538A16029 (Made in USA) happens to be the VERY calculator President Reagan used at Reykjavik to determine that he needed to back out of the disarmament talks and pursue SDI. The little scratch on the calculator is a result of the President trying to shield his face from an overzealous TV photographer's lens.

Hey, it could happen... but then, it may also just be a case of an inexperienced eBayer with "auction fever".


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