Unless you already have a clarinet "duty slot" in a community orchestra that plays "serious" music (i.e., not high school arrangements), I would not spend a plugged nickel on a A clarinet, regardless of the condition. If the community group plays challenging repertory (think manuscript parts as a good rule of thumb), it might be worth the trouble, but even if you do get a good horn and get it fixed up right, you will use it no more than perhaps 10% of the time.
Move up to a college program or a municipal orchestra and the likelihood of using it climbs to perhaps 30%. But, the rest of the time you will be tooling along on a Bb horn, plain and simple.
When I was playing in several community orchestras when I first moved down here in the early 1990's, I used the A horn for perhaps fifteen performances all told, this being over nine year's time. Not worth carrying it around, especially since I had a "full Boehm" Bb clarinet in the same double case.
(Oddly enough, the lead clarinet part for Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue (as orchestrated by ol' Ferd Grofe) has virtually the entire part in Bb. But, there is one brief section (twenty bars tops) that's played on the A clarinet, even though the part never goes below low G and thus would not need an A clarinet. (It may be that the Clarinet II part dips down below low E on the soprano horn; however, I know that the bass part stays well within range.))
A "full Boehm" horn is likely to have been better cared for than a "bog standard" soprano clarinet, simply because that's the sort of instrument that normally would only have been purchased by a professional. However, when older people retire and the horn goes into the closet since no one in the family plays any longer, it may well end up cracked like the eBay example under consideration.
All is not lost, however. If the instrument is a Series 9 or Series 10, you should be able to purchase a new bell for it directly from Selmer. That's the approach that I'd take if I had to make it whole. I don't know about Centered Tone or Balanced Tone instruments, but it would be worth your while to try and see if they have any parts lying about that would be suitable.
I've bought a number of second or third hand "full Boehm" instruments off of eBay, and in each case the horn has been perfectly maintained.