So, I have never bought anything from Ebay before and I was thinking of treating myself to a brand new (to me) classic Walkman for Christmas. Hoping for a WM 10. Any tips on buying from Ebay? What should I look for when it comes to buying a Walkman from the 80's? I am planning on finding a working model. Thank you.
I consider myself a nicely seasoned eBayer but once I got myself into Walkmans a year or so ago I immediately got into troubles. WM-D6 (not D6C) taught me to research the model first, and this chatroom here is the best place to ask. With my luck, the worst that could have happened, Happened... If it was not @Deb64 I would have had a nicely boxed paperweight as my first-ever Walkman! With Panasonic I did not check all the photos with my reading glasses on and bought one with missing pinchroller. Also, those selling "hi-end" walkmans with specialized headphone jack (not your standard 3.5mm) tend to omit the photo showing phono side. If you do not see photos clearly showing head and pinchrollers, expect the worst. If you see out of focus photos, its not a good sign either The easiest would be to post the link to your desiree here, as you can guess from some other posts, most S2G-oners will have the decency of not starting a bidding war against you
Christmas Time is the best time, for some reason prices seem to be about 1/2 of normal but ramp up again around the 15th of January. I think people are spending their money on gifts and travel and buying less stuff for themselves. I don't mind a broken unit but have gotten bricks that are advertised as "excellent" Make sure the seller has some feedback and 95% of the time you'll do ok. I did order a very rare Marantz Boombox and never got it from Canada, the seller said it got stuck in customs. I went through the Ebay/Paypal Channels and promptly got a refund, but I would have rather gotten the box! It never did show up for sale again unfortunately.
@Mister X +1!!! I was getting LP12 motor to complement my Lingo and the seller said that she definitely mailed it but misplaced the receipt with tracking No. Being who I am (trusting loooser!) I waited two months, then filed for refund and bought the motor from other Brit seller... But sometimes it gets ugly! I've been called Euro-trash with Bad tastes in Music by the seller who sent me an empty jewel case for Aquarius CD, so usually I let it slide for anything under a $100 BTW, Is there anybody out there playing Aquarius? Not my usual Bruckner/Tchaikovsky fix but works well for my morning workouts! ;-)
Sometimes I wish someone would call me "Euro-Trash" it has a ring to it, I'm just from the wrong continent....I looked up Aquarius but it's there's too many listings, what year, country? By the way, I have to look up all of your components, I'm not part of the high-end equipment world and some of this stuff is over my head.
With the WM10/20 series you want to make sure it turns on (red led) when headphones are plugged in. Maybe ask the seller to do this if possible. If the belt has perished and is wrapped around the motor, plugging headphones in and pressing play will not work. I've bought plenty of these Walkmans and 9 out of 10 times they work after replacing the belt. Get photos of the battery compartment to make sure there are no signs of battery leaks. I'm always on the look out for these on ebay and other sites and they are getting harder to find in good condition. Even the bad ones seem to fetch high prices. Check out Yahoo Auctions too as there is always a few on there. You'll pay a little more for shipping though. Good luck!!
I was not paying attention, it is Aqua, Aquarius is just one of their three albums. Then they got sued by Mattel for singing their "Barbie" thing: " I'm a Barbie girl in a barbie world... touch me here-there... hanky-panky... undress me... etc". Lena's "chipmunk" voice is still kinda fresh in this Top-30 horrors of today My big-rig is here, except that naim CDS3 is now in storage and Nak LX3 takes its place
Funny you said that...I bought Barbie Girl on CD at the local Goodwill, didn't check inside the case...yep, you got it, no CD. Not a big deal, just rounding out my music collection. By the way, very nice system, I'm more at the frat boy level, huge speakers, huge Marantz and a little Van Halen on the TT....
I often find asking the seller really helps. Like sometimes the seller is clearly a billionaire Russian selling his prize Walkman stash for silly money, or a Ukrainian, but yesterday a lady with a fashion shop was selling a nice panasonic but the photos were blurry. So I just asked, and got better pictures. Some are really out to rinse your wallet, but you do find really nice deals by looking at the sellers history, if they are just some guy or an evil genius
As Jorge says, look at the photos carefully and be suspicious of any blurred photos or listings where importent details are not shown in the photos, such as the heads. Bear in mind that any walkmans for sale will be anything up to 37 years old and will have problems. Even the new old stock ones are likely to have hardened belts and pinch rollers. Look for signs that a device has been taken apart already, such as chewed or missing screws or the housing not being properly assembled. There may be further problems inside the device if somebody has tried, and failed, to repair it. I'm always weary of any device which is described as "serviced". That all depends on how the seller defines "serviced". In this example the seller has cleaned and demagnetised the heads and cleaned something unspecified inside the unit. It still has a faulty headphone jack and there is no mention of replacing either the take up spool driver belt or the pinch roller, both of which I would consider to be service items. Have spool tension, speed, head azimuth, play and record levels, frequency response, wow and flutter and distortion been checked using the appropriate test equipment and alignment tape? I generally prefer to buy faulty "parts and repair" items since I can learn a lot from repairing them and, once fixed, I know they have been repaired to a standard which I am happy with. If doing this, make sure that you can get hold of the service manual before you bid. Occasionally you get some nice surprises buying from Ebay. A couple of years ago I spotted a box of bits for a Walkman WM-D6C for sale. When I looked at the photos I noticed that there were parts of both a D6 and D6C shown so I asked the seller if everything shown was included; he confirmed that it was. I put in a bid and got the box for £35. The WM-D6C was rather beyond repair but has been an invaluable source of both parts and knowledge. There were a lot of D6 bits in there, however. Almost a complete D6. To cut a long story short, I have repaired the CP602 module (speed control), replaced a couple of faulty capacitors from the main board and replaced the mute module, belts, pinch roller and capstan tyre. The meter wasn't working so I replaced the driver IC. The clear window from the cassette cover and the battery caddy cover were missing so it now has one of my prototype windows and a 3D printed battery cover fitted. The screen print on the housing is a bit scratched as it's had an interesting life. The best thing about this particular D6 is that it sounds especially good. I'm not sure why; perhaps the head gap is a bit narrower than most, but there is something a bit special about this old D6 which somebody had previously given up on.
There is a possibility that you might get something not very appealing. So In my opinion if you wanna get something fully functional and in good cosmetic condition ask a member to sell it to you. @buzbox carries a good selection of WM-10/20/30 and he is a very reliable member.
@Antoni I normally have atleast one or two for sale but it's been quite difficult to find one in good condition lately. I'll keep my eyes open nonetheless.
