Posted by kelphead on April 04, 2001 at 22:14:29:
In Reply to: ebay and other things posted by JRM on April 04, 2001 at 17:43:04:
the 1st reg i ever bought, i bought it used ('sherwood
magnum'). i couldn't afford new stuff, what can i
say.
i went over to the guy's house (he had just bought
all this new shiny gear for him and his wife and
just wanted to get rid of what he had). he agreed
that i should leave his house w/reg in hand and
drive alone to a local shop. i walked in, asked
the shop owner to check it for me and told him
that i was considering to buy this piece of used
gear.
the shop owner looks at it, tells me that it looks
brand new and barely used, he hooks it up to a tank and
tested the 1st stage (poured water over the 1st
stage, showed me how 'sherwood' regs "bleed", and
explained how that was normal).
after a while, he gave me the clearance and i bought it.
it did fine for me and i never had any problems
w/it (it even had one more year on it for an
overhaul).
after that i upgraded to a brand new 'sherwood
oasis' ('magnum' went on my pony) and just a
couple of months ago, i bought a new 'scubapro mk14/g200'
('oasis' is now my backup reg).
along w/the used 'magnum', from the same guy
i bought a used 'genesis resource'
computer and pressure guage/compass and octopus.
been happy w/all the used gear i bought from
this one individual.
as for e-bay, last time i visited the site a
WHILE ago, it seemed to me that things could
be quite pricey.
however, i was planning on using it to sell
a couple of pieces of gear (a b.c. and another
octo)--i'll see how that goes.
as far as using sites to "pimp" gear, i have never
had a problem advertising stuff for sale on any
dive website (no one seems to complain), but i
don't know how successful it really is. some
people seem to be able to unload their stuff
easily while others don't. so, it doesn't hurt
to use bbs', but how effective they are is another
story. (i sold my first octo off a dive site,
but nothing else.)
as for tanks, MANY people by tanks used (in fact,
as i understand it, buying steel used is the way to
go!) of course, making sure everything is in order
(ie, hydro, vis) is important, needless to say; but
many divers don't seem to mind buying tanks used.
kelphead.