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Monthly survey of eBay

SOTSDO

Old King Log
Staff member
CE/Moderator
These items have showed up on the auction service:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Selmer-Silver-C...ultDomain_0?hash=item439b7c9371#ht_720wt_1103

A Selmer metal horn. Some moron with the online name "sensha" (i.e., moi) is bidding on this one, but the reserve has not yet been met.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Leblanc-Big-Eas...ultDomain_0?hash=item2ea9349c86#ht_720wt_1103

A "semi-full" Boehm instrument - missing the low Eb and the LH Eb/Ab key, but otherwise a decent horn, even if it is of Leblanc manufacture.

I rake through the place once in a while with some standard searches ("Conn saxophone", "Selmer clarinet" and so on). Once in a while, you find a gem...
 
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There are over a hundred hits for 'silver clarinet' on eBay today and you list the only decent instrument in the bunch.

There are over 350 hits for 'bari* sax*', over 5500 for 'clarinet' and over 14,000 for 'sax*'. What's that about? There sure are a lot of instruments for sale now a days. Is it maybe a holiday thang?
 
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@ Gandalfe: It's a combination of "it's a holiday thing" and "it's the economy". As far as the latter is concerned, I'm fairly positive some folks are saying, "Mmmm. I think I can do without that backup tenor until my gig schedule improves." Or something like that.

Many years ago, when I was building saxpics.com, I would go on eBay (and other places) weekly and look for horns. A directed approach to searching (like SOTSDO's) would never really return that much of interest. A less direct search (like Gandalfe's "sax*") would return more interesting stuff. Provided, of course, the seller at least knew what kind of instrument he was selling.

However, even before eBay was quite as big as it is now, there were thousands of ads to look through with the "less direct" search.

eBay: so big, you can't find anything.
 
What I do is to use my search word pairs (i.e., not "clarinet" but rather "Selmer clarinet") to build up the big listing. Then, I use tabbed browsing (in Apple's Safari browser) and rapidly work through the listings, opening a new tab for each horn that looks remotely interesting.

When the tabs start to get too small to easily manage (after about sixty or so are opened), I then shift to reviewing them in turn, thereby weeding out the obvious non-starters. Bundy masquerading as Selmer, student clarinets with Selmer mouthpieces and so forth get tossed, further gleaning the grain from the chaff.

Once this is finished, I then review each listing in detail. About 10% of those remaining are of some interest. A further review tool that I employ is to look at the horn's picture of the upper joint (of a clarinet). As I am interested primarily in full Boehm instruments, the "black hole" surrounding the LH 3 hole, space left for the ring finger of the left hand, is a dead giveaway that I should drop it and go for another.

I'm not overly interested in Leblanc or Buffet instruments, and I don't have the time to hunt for one of the The Martins or Couf horns (there are only so many hours in a day). And, I don't doubt for a minute that I am missing a lot. On the other hand, if I don't know about something, it's not going to cost me much in the way of money...
 
Wowser. And mine is in better condition too. Adding some pics for prosperity. The first is the eBay ad for a price three times what I paid for mine. The second is my Selmer Paris silver clarinet. Thanks Steve.
 
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right now the foreign market is driving up specific vintage clarinet eBay prices .. some using US buyers.

I sometimes buy for foreign players and ship after i make sure they are in the condition they were sold as. makes returning them much easier if there are problems.
 
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