Remember when ebay....

Tonelover

I've been a registered user of ebay since 11/97 and remember when all of the US coin listings were lumped together under one category and you could easily view them all in less than half an hour. There used to be a live customer support chatroom manned by a single on-duty rep where you could ask a question and get a direct answer within minutes. I also remember when you could get some decent coins but I won't go there.

Anyone else have "fond" memories of the good 'ole days?

Cladiator

I remember the days before all categories were 80% full of powerseller crap that no body wants.

Dave99B

I remember them well. Ebay was dinky....

You could even leave feedback on anyone, without even completing a transaction. The good old Wild West.

Even though I have to sort through tons of junk on eBay these days, I still like it more today. Better selection, better deals.

Dave

seanq

I joined in October of 1998, and at the time the Error Coin category rarely had more than 100-120 auctions running. I could search new items in less than five minutes. I'm much happier with the selection lately.


Sean Reynolds

solid

Yes, those were the days!

Tonelover, I may have said it before, but I love that icon quarter. You own the coin?

Ken

Rampage

Yes, I remember those days, too. I first registered back in 1998, too. eBay was really-really small. It was great for fantastic deals, too! These days, if I do a search for some of the things I found back then, the prices are outrageous.

But, as others have said, I am much happier with today's selection of coins and other stuff. Much more to choose from, etc.

1956Quarter

I was one of the early members of E-Bay having joined in 1997. Practically no one had ever heard of E-Bay. Listings were something like 25 cents. Buy It Now did not exist. Gallery did not exist. Fancy Icons for a fee did not exist. You did not need a credit card to join. You sent your payment to California. Check Out System did not exist. My E-bay did not exist. Feedback was crude, but most sellers and buyers were honest as the crooks had not discovered this venue yet. Only a relatively small amount of categories existed compared to today.

babboonbobo2

I just want people to list there items in the proper catagories!!!!
I don't want to look through 50 state quaters to look at Susan B.s or Morgans without filtering down to specific grade and date and grading service.

DHeath

Tonelover,

On the Ebay home page, there's a link to the Canadian site. When I feel like looking at U.S. coins raw, I go to their site and navigate down to the US Coins category. It's usually about an hour's worth of material, it covers a broad spectrum, most of it is raw, and the shipping isn't bad. They have a few big sellers, but lots of the material is collector stuff and shoebox in the closet stuff.

WaterSport

Once again all of those "Madison Avenue" advertising folks got a hold of sometihing that needed "Improved Marketing!" These are the same folks who think Bill Boards are great too!

WS

millennium

I have been a member on eBay since Sept 29, 1996....It was not even a GRAPHICAL INTERFACE and I made a bid on an item and got complaints because they considered it a local board and did not want to ship out of state!

MSD61

I don't remember anything

drainbamage

You must be old on e-bay when you can truly remember when manual bid sniping was an art/science and there were no programs out there to help you out. Those were the days when you learned exactly how long it took for everything to work. It was worse than watching opening day at a yard sale. Then there was writing all of it into a function key so it could do the work for you and you just have to enter the amount and click.

Yeah.... I miss it.

Goldfinger

Way to go DHeath, why don't you just drive more traffic to eBay Canada and ruin everything?

Thanks a lot.

ldhair

I joined back in 99 as well and sold off about a thousand coins. It was really simple to sell back then.

Not near the options and fees we see today. I don't think anyone didn't pay on time. Things do change.

Russ

I originally joined in September 1997, apparently during a beta testing phase. What a mess. I didn't use the account for a couple years, and then it didn't work. eBay refused to fix it, and wouldn't even release my own eMail address back to me.

Russ, NCNE

PhillyJoe

When I first got internet service, my home page was yahoo. That was 1997. I used their auction site almost exclusively. Didn't care for ebay that much back then. Now I can't remember the last time I looked at coins on yahoo.

Read something this week that ebay has 91% of the auction traffic with amazon, yahoo and others fighting for the scraps.

Anyone else think that Russ' whole life has been one big beta test?

Joe