Sponsored Links

An army of nincompoops?

So, here I am, in the market for an A3 scanner, to save doing things in two halves and stitching them together. We aren't talking high quality here - with the sort of stuff I do, 75dpi is usually fine, 150dpi occasionally, and in all the time I've had my present scanner, I have never gone above 300dpi.

Obvious choice, then, is the old version of the Mustek (not either of the more expensive higher resolution newer models) which I noticed at CCL - who I've used in the past, happy with them - at £84.13 including VAT and delivery. Currently five in stock, but if they happened to run out before I got around to clicking the button, also in Chertsey Computers at about the same price.

I'm never averse to saving money though, so I had a prod around ebay. For £56.98 total (as a "Buy it now" fixed price), I can get the parallel port version, a refurbished one from a retailer who has 22 of these to get rid of, which means rebooting into Windows when I want to use it - but there are a few reported problems in Linux with the USB version too, so I might have to do that anyway. For the amount of A3 scanning I'm going to do, not really a hassle, so that's under consideration.

A USB one was on offer about a week or so ago. The seller's description made it quite clear which model it was, the old 300x600 version...

It went for £150 - plus £10 carriage, so £160 really, not far short of twice the price that you can get it for from CCL. :eek:

A second one came up. Again, quite clear which model it was - and missing the power supply, so unless you're like me and have a box full of these, you can add a fiver for that.
It has just gone for £125 - plus £10 carriage, so £135 total, say £140 if you have to buy the power supply. :eek:

I can only conclude that there is an army of complete nincompoops out there who have no idea of normal retail prices and/or can't read, and/or have never heard of Google!

Now, when I get the A3 one, I was intending to hang on to my old Microtek Scanmaker 4800 for everyday A4 use, but...
...perhaps I should change my mind. ;)

It cost me all of £25 secondhand about five years ago, I think it was about £60 new at the time if you shopped around, it's not a well known brand like Canon or Epson which everyone knows the prices of, so I should be able to get at least £200 for it on ebay, shouldn't I?

:D
 
Some of the prices on eBay are just plain silly, I think because there's a small but definite market of people that don't research what they want to buy and will click anything expecting it to be “cheaper on eBay”, not unlike those that click SPAM links in e-mails.

On the other hand I know very little about A3 scanners since I’ve only ever needed an A4 :) .
 
I got the same impression in the Apple section of eBay, there always seemed to be users willing to pay over the odds.

P.S. You'll know best what works for you but parallel port scanners take me back to the last century.

:hrmph:
 
Sponsored Links
This computer of mine's from the last century, Bob, so they'll enjoy each other's company! ;)

XP - what's that? My little Windows partition has ME on it - and that's only courtesy of a voucher that came with it for a free "upgrade" (???) to this soon-to-be-released new OS from the installed 98SE. :laugh:
With a bit of uprating here and there over the years, it does everything that I want though, so I don't feel inclined to spend money on a newer one - it would probably be a pain if I actually tried to use Windows on it these days, lots of "Sorry - you don't have a new enough system, you don't have Internut Exploder version 357854.109.207" messages, but as the Windows partition is only there for a few odds and sods, not as a real OS, that's not a problem.

I suspect that the reason this retailer is trying to get shot of this lot (and, having kept an eye on the numbers available each day, evidently not having a lot of luck) is that it's only antique hoarders like me who would be interested - the info does point out in bold type that it's no good with Vista, and I don't think you even get a parallel port on most modern PCs, do you?
It'll suit me OK though, so I decided to save myself nearly £30 and clicked the button. :)
 
Owch.

Used to have a parrarralllelelel scanner, but upgraded to an Epson printer/scanner and I would never ever go back to parallel. Sooo much faster and the USB doesn't freeze the PC while scanning like the old one did. But I don't need A3.

Yes, there is an army of eMuppets out there who have the unshakable blind faith that eBay must be the cheapest. There's a bloke at work who has just discovered eBay and I made sure to tell him that he needs to shop around... in some cases eBay is way too expensive when compared to your friendly neighbourhood independant computer shop. Or a number of web sites. Or even the high street. He looked at me as if I was a teddy bear wielding teacher in North Africa.

Madness, utter madness. To be honest, I use eBay less and less these days, but it's still great for the odd second hand replacement bits for printers that richer people than me would throw away.

One born every minute, apparently.
 
It's not just ebay that attracts them, I have been to auction houses selling off various kit, Police Stolen/Recovered, Lost and Found, General Sales, Repossessed; and it never fails to amaze me what people will pay for a portable TV, I have seen knackered 14" portables from duff makers go for more than a new Sony, Toshiba, or Panasonic.
I have paid £20 for a nice 22" set with stand when a crap 14" sold for £100 +; I have also seen crates of soft drinks sold for more than the cost of going into your local corner shop and buying 24 cans off the shelf.
In contrast, I picked up about £300-£400 (at least), of Pentel and Berol Felt tip pens, Quink, Platignum and Parker refills etc for £8 (2 BIG sacks full!!), £150 of Gilt Jewellery boxes for £25, working washing machines for £1 and a lovely Draylon 3 piece suite, with a rocker !! for £5.
One I missed out on because it was over too quickly was a pile of 20 or so Gym mats, the proper ones, as seen in the Olympics, £1 the lot; they cost £100's !!!
 
Captain Cretin - where did you find out about these police sales?

Andy
 
Sponsored Links
It's not just ebay that attracts them, I have been to auction houses selling off various kit, QUOTE]

One of the old boys at my church mentioned to me that he was a regular auction goer and got me into going to one paricular auction, general stock clearence, for things to sell on eBay. Was looking for cheap and light stuff that was postable, best deal was 10 scientific calculators at about £2 actually made a profiut on ebay, selling them near to the new school year. This auction house changed to eBay after thier warehouse, chock full of nice looking computer hardware, burnt down (lots of plastic sheeting on the roof space to protect against leaks and to spread the fire) so that was my time nodding and winking at the auctioneer over. Don't think I noticed any silly money being spent, but there were some really great bulk deals for the market traders and boot salers who were regular.

But real auctions are even more dangerous for those easily separated from their cash, because they forget about any VAT and commission on top, which makes ebay/paypal charges look almost reasonable. I always had the lots in advance and a written list of what I was willing to spend, that kept me honest! But I was tempted on occasion... but being a tight g*t helped preserve the wallet.

£100 for a portable 14" tele...madness... but it's PORTABLE so its got to be good. Hope the sellers checked the notes that were handed over...
 
"real auctions are even more dangerous for those easily separated from their cash"

Yes, luckily I don't have much cash so can't be tempted to go mad, but even as a fairly careful person I'm not sure that I'd trust myself 100% at a *real* auction. The danger there is that you might come across a unique item (like the pair of 19th century oil paintings of a couple of my family which turned up in a German auction last month with an 8000 euros guide price), think "well, I'm probably not going to get another chance of getting this", and "What the heck - I want this and if it means bread and water for the next six months I don't care!" - I think it would be easy to get carried away when you're actually there and the item is staring you in the face.

Incidentally, the parallel port version of the A3 scanner turned up this morning, and I'm delighted with it. Yes, it's a bit slow when you're used to modern stuff, but it's only for occasional use, I'm not going to be doing anything else at the same time, and I'm impressed with the quality of the results even at the "Fine" setting (200dpi) let alone at "Superfine" (300dpi). It wouldn't suit everyone - you wouldn't want to use it as an everyday scanner, and it wouldn't be much cop if you were into high quality colour photos, but for my purposes it's fine, and at £56.98 all inclusive I'm more than happy. :)
 
Have fun with bumblebee, I cant make it work; it keeps asking for a valid email address, I have tried 3 valid email address's and it still wont let me in :-(.
i tried emailing support and they just told me to check the spelling (twats).

The auctions I used to go to were before bumblebee was set up; lot of re-possessed stuff there, some great bargains but , as noted, some people get a little silly and forget VAT and auction fees.

My best buy?? I bought a box of lost&found for £1 because I wanted the notice board in it; I found a kite in the shape of a bumblebee in there as well, you dived it and it buzzed like the real thing. I found out it was a limited edition and worth £250; but only after I had broken it ( drat!!)
 
Sponsored Links
For a real Buzz try buying property at auction. I did just that with a 2 bedroom flat just after the last property price crash. I had bailiffs round trying to get money on behalf of the bank from the previous owner, even though the bank had repossessed and sold on the property. I still remember standing at the door with my documents trying to get through to the cretin that I owed nothing!
 
That is all well and good if you can afford to lose the money, sometimes you buy a house and find it is unusable/ unsaleable or in such a poor condition it has to be demolished before it falls on someone.
 
And, just as a cheerful note in this world full of gloom, re the A3 scanner...

me on 28 November said:
at £56.98 all inclusive I'm more than happy
And just over five months later, I am still more than happy. :)

I have just finished scanning a 92 page book that was privately printed in 1909 - needless to say, the book, which I bought from a rare book dealer in Ipswich some time back, cost me almost as much as the scanner did, £48 plus postage if I remember rightly.
There are a few pages, e.g., those with family crests, which include colour, so I decided to do the whole lot in colour, giving us nice authentic slightly brown-tinged pages (with a little foxing in places) instead of dark grey on light grey.
I am delighted with the results, especially when you consider that I left the lid off and only weighed the book down lightly (I knew I'd find a use for that spare router one day) to avoid damaging the spine. The resulting slight shadow where the two pages meet does not obscure any text and overall quality is comparable with things like copies of pages of Excise Board minute books that I've done on the super-expensive overhead scanner at the National Archives - if anything, better, because those are only greyscale.
I still had to stitch together one bit - a chart measuring about 36 inches by 16, folded up in a pocket inside the back cover - but with less edges to match up than if I'd done it on an A4 scanner, that wasn't too difficult.

The author died in 1913, so it's well out of copyright, and, having finished the job, I can now add the scans to my members' pages.

Oh bliss - definitely money well spent. :)
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6026)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules