Re: What Guarantee to offer?????? Message #16 Posted by Steve Borowsky on 7 Jan 2007, 4:37 p.m., in response to message #15 by Namir
Regarding gaurantees, first, we have to assume thay we're discussing something that is claimed to be in good working condition, unless you want to inlclude the broken calculators where the seller says "I gaurantee that this calculator really is broken!"
Now, a working unit that is 25-30 years old has already met and exceded or begun to excede a reasonable working life, so, what should the seller and buyer do? What we are doing as collectors or users, buyers or sellers, is bringing specific knowledge to bear on the situation. As a statistic, a 30 year old calculator may not be reasonably expected to have a useful life for much longer. But we're not dealing with statistics, we're dealing with specific instances. The knowledgable seller knows the condition of his calculator. The knowledgable buyer relies on an honest representation of the condition by the seller. It is this representation that is being gauranteed, not the calculator. Actually, a calculator that has worked well for the last 30 years will probably continue to work well for the forseeable future. The gaurantee is to cover the 'bet', so to speak, in case the buyer finds that the seller misrepresented the condition or performance of the calculator.
But the seller is betting as well, on the honesty of the buyer. A dishonest buyer might take advantage of a gaurantee by swapping in a bad circuit board and claiming it stopped working within the period of gaurantee.
So, it seems to me that a gaurantee should be worded something like this: I the seller gaurantee that this calculator is in the condition described, and that the buyer will recieve it in the same condition, and that it is reasonable to assume it will continue to perform as it did while in my posession, but the continued life of the unit becomes the responsibility of the new owner at transfer of ownership, minus a short grace period during which buyer promises not to abuse, modify, enhance, or service the unit.
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