Here's some essential information about buying a camera on eBay. Most of what I say applies to things other than cameras, but I buy cameras and don't have much other experience on eBay. What I have to say about bidding itself is certainly applicable to all eBay auctions.

This isn't an introduction to eBay. There are lots of articles and books about eBay, which are probably OK, except that their bidding advice is usually completely wrong, as I'll explain.

What eBay Is and Isn't

eBay is an auction, fixed-price, and negotiated-price site that connect sellers and buyers. It doesn't keep inventory, approve of the items for sale, check them, test them, or even see them. It doesn't pay much attention to the listings, either, unless perhaps its computers have flagged something or there's an actual complaint.

While there is some protection, especially if you pay with PayPal (more later), basically you're on your own. You can't even see the item before you have to pay for it, and if you bid you're committing to pay if you win. If you're not comfortable with any of this, don't buy on eBay.

How eBay Auctions Work

There are basically two ways to sell on eBay: an auction with a starting price (sometimes only a penny), or a fixed Buy-It-Now price. Sometimes a listing has both; the Buy-It-Now option goes away when there's a bid above the seller's reserve price, or with the first bid if there is no reserve. (Reserves seem to be fairly uncommon.)

The Buy-It-Now price can also have an "or Best Offer" invitation, which means that the seller will entertain offers. This isn't an auction, since the first offer accepted seals the deal. I've gotten a few great cameras with offers.

In an auction, the winner is the bidder who bid the most when the auction ends. When the bidder bid makes no difference at all, unless there's a tie, which is rare. (I always bid a weird amount like $34.89 to avoid a possible tie.) For some reason bidders think that they need to get their bids in right away. I'll come back to that later.

Should You Buy It on eBay?

Almost all of the alternatives to eBay are better than eBay in all ways but one. This includes classified ads, Craig's List, internet dealers (especially KEH), friends, swap meets, flea markets, antique stores, pawn shops, web forums, dealers, and camera restorers.

The one way in which eBay is better—a lot better—is in the quantity and variety of items available. Chances are classified ads, Craig's List, and your local camera store (even if you're in New York) don't have any classic cameras worth buying, although they might have used modern (i.e., digital) cameras. My collection could have been assembled only by buying on eBay. I only bought about a 6 - 8 of my 60+ cameras elsewhere.

So, in spite of its defects and potential dangers, if you want to collect cameras you have to do it mostly on eBay.

The corollary of this is that you never buy on eBay if you can buy somewhere else. For example, consider this ad for a Pentax LX:

Here's a camera that KEH would rate as Ugly, if not lower ("As Is"). The listing, however, is OK because the seller has described the camera accurately (I guess) and because the photo clearly shows that the covering is coming off.

With 5 hours to go there are already 13 bids and the price is up to $103.50. If you want an LX cheap and are willing to clean it up and apply some glue, should you bid? Checking McKeown's Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras, 2005-2006 (the definitive reference), the going price for an LX in excellent condition is $300 - $450 with lens. The LX for sale is a body only, and it's in terrible condition.

Well, you can't buy a camera from McKeown, but you can from KEH. Here's what they have:

KEH is famous for understating the condition of its cameras. I've bought cameras rated Bargain and been hard-pressed to find even a scratch. It seems you can get a Bargain-rated LX for $199, one guaranteed by KEH to work. (You have 14 days to return it, and the guarantee is for 60 days.) KEH has been around for 30 years; I've been buying cameras and lenses from them for 15.

So, do you want to buy this piece of junk from some unknown eBay seller, no returns acccepted, for $103.50 when you can get a better, guaranteed LX from KEH for $199? Well, even if you do, you can't get that LX for $103.50 because there are still 5 hours of bidding before the auction ends.

Here's how it turned out:

Yes, that really happened: Somebody paid $180.49 for this LX when they could have gotten one from KEH for $199. Most likely they didn't know KEH had LX's, and maybe they never heard of KEH.

So, our first rule is: Never buy a used camera without first checking KEH.

I should emphasize that the buyer is to blame here, not the seller. The seller described the poor condition of the camera and provided clear pictures. His or her honesty has been rewarded with $180 for an abused camera.

But, as I said, while KEH is fine for a Pentax LX, or a Nikon F, or a Canon AE-1, or for dozens of others, you're not likely to find a Contax S or Canonflex or Kiné Exakta there. I've been looking for weeks and I haven't seen a single original Leicaflex at KEH. So, I buy on eBay.

Four Kinds of Sellers

There are four kinds of camera sellers on eBay:

1. Dealers in collectable cameras.
2. Owners, perhaps collectors themselves, who want to sell. Some of these are elderly people who want to cash in, not trusting their heirs to know what they have.
3. Family members selling cameras that belonged to a recently-deceased parent or relative.
4. Ignoramuses who know nothing and claim to know nothing.

Generally, you're best off with the first two categories. But, if the deal is right, be prepared for all four. Don't assume the seller knows what he or she is selling, and don't assume any statements in the listing ("first Contax imported into the US") are true.

Here's a listing from someone I'd put in the ignoramus category:

I could see from one of the less-blurry pictures that this is a Pentax ME. It's a fine camera, but there are lots to be had and there's no way to tell what condition this particular one is in. So, unless the camera is really special, stay away from listings that are shoddily put together posted by people who know nothing. Really, do you want to buy a camera from whoever prepared this listing?

It's very common for the seller to say that he or she can't test the meter because no battery is at hand, or that the shutter is too hard to locate, or whatever. You can ask questions, and you should, but the answers may be useless.

The best thing about dealers is the quality of their photos. Lots of sharp, well-lit, close-ups make buying much easier, and more fun, too.

Finding a Camera to Bid On

I'll assume you know what you want or have a short list of cameras you'd consider.

The best way to find what you're looking for on eBay is to use their well-designed search facility. It has lots of options and it pays for you to spend the time learning how it all works. For hard-to-find cameras I save the search and have eBay mail me when it finds something.

Since I have a large appetite for cameras, I also like to browse, usually with the listings ordered by "Ending Soonest"; that is, the auctions are listed with the ones about to end listed first. Browsing is also valuable because sellers (especially the family members and ignoramuses) often misspell names and model designations, so a search will miss them. I've found some really great Nikkons, Canins, and Kodax.

Understanding the Listing

• If it looks good at first glance, spend the time to read every word of the listing and study every photo. Sometimes a key phrase like lens "a little foggy inside" is buried in an otherwise boring paragraph. (See below.)
• Look at where the seller is from. I always buy from sellers in North America. Maybe you're OK buying from Ukraine, but at least you'd want to know that.
• Look at the seller's rating, but don't put too much stock in it. I've never seen a rating lower than 99.5%, although I suppose they must exist.
• Look at the shipping cost. It's against eBay policy for it to be excessive, but I still sometimes see that. You can ask the seller to lower it while the auction is still active (and before you've bid), and that might work.
• Look at the return policy. About half the sellers seem to disallow returns, and about half have a 3-day or 7-day return policy, which is good. If no returns are allowed, I've sometimes gotten an agreement via email (before bidding) that the seller will allow a return if the camera doesn't match the description. Smart sellers like the one selling that LX describe everything, including a complete inventory of every scratch, nick, abrasion, and ding, so they shouldn't have a problem agreeing to such a return.
• Make sure you know the model number and, if it matters, the type within the model. For example, there were pre-War and post-War Leica IIIc's.
• If you want to bid, don't. Just click the "Watch this item" button so the listing will appear on your eBay home page.

What's the Most You Will Pay?

Now, pay attention, because this and the next section are the most important ones here.

You have to decide how much you're willing to pay. "I'll see how the bidding goes" is not the answer. Forget the bidding. It is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter if there are 25 bids already or zero.

To find out what the camera is worth, you can consult completed eBay auctions, but that's somewhat hazardous because the condition of the cameras varies so much and because there are crazy people with money out there, such as the buyer who paid $180 for that LX.

You can also go to KEH to check a price but, as I said, if you see the camera at KEH you might want to just buy it there, unless there's something special about the one on eBay or you think you can get it for a much lower price. If that's true, the KEH price at least helps you decide what you're willing to pay.

If the camera is a classic (earlier than, say, 1980), check McKeown's (link above). His prices won't predict what the camera you're looking at is going to go for, but they're a very good guide. You also need McKeown's to understand the importance of the camera in history, if any, what other models were made, what the variations were, and so on.

The answer to the question, "What's the Most You Will Pay", isn't a range. It's a number. For that trashed LX, my number would have been $100.

What if you really want the camera and you're willing to pay a lot if bidding is frenzied? There's still a number. Come up with number X such that you can honestly say, "If it goes for more than $X, I don't want it." For example, I really wanted this Leicaflex:

It was given to a camera-store owner in Oklahoma by Leitz as a reward for selling so many Leica rangefinders, and inscribed by the factory with his name. He hardly used it. I wanted that camera so much I entered a bid of about $660, and you can see what happened: I pushed the winner up to more than that, making some extra money for the seller. But, even though I really, really wanted this Leicaflex, I didn't want it if it meant that I would have paid more than $660 for it. If I'd done that I would have felt like a fool, and then I wouldn't have liked that Leicaflex at all. Bad Karma. Reminder of how weak I am. And so on.

So, rule #2: There is always maximum amount you want to pay and you have to figure out what it is.

Most listings last for a week, so you have lots of time to do the research and the thinking.

How to Bid

Bid once. Full amount. In the last 5 seconds.

You will either win the item or you won't, but, if you don't, you can truthfully say, "It did go for more than $X, I don't want it, and I'm glad I don't have to pay."

If you do win, and I usually do win when I bid, you probably won't have to pay even close to your bid amount. When you bid, eBay enters only an amount sufficient to top the next higher bidder by an increment that varies with the amount (from less than a dollar to a few dollars).

Why only bid once, and why so late? Because all week various so-called nibblers have been bidding up the price, and since you know what you're going to bid, all they're doing is raising your price when you finally win. How can you make them stop this destructive behavior? By staying out of it. If the high bidder thinks he or she is OK, there's no reason to keep bidding.

You bid with 5 seconds to go so there's no time for anyone to respond. Remember, the order of bids makes no difference. The eBay computer sorts them out at the end.

Is this late bidding unfair to the seller? No, for an obvious reason: For every item I've won by bidding late I was the high bidder, right? If I weren't there, the item would have been sold for less. The nibblers did help the seller by setting the price, however. With eBay, the winner doesn't set the price, the highest-bidding loser does.

If everyone bid late I suppose a seller would be hurt, since the price wouldn't get bid up. It would be like taking sealed bids. The reality is that this isn't going to happen. Books about buying on eBay suggest you bid early and often, which is stupid, but that's what they say.

How do you bid with 5 seconds to go? What if you're not near a computer, or have better things to do, or if your internet service is slow, or your computer is acting up? For these reasons I always use a sniping service to make my bid for me. You can Google for those services and find out all you need to know.

In case you're wondering, here's eBay's official policy on sniping:

"Placing a high bid in the closing seconds of an auction-style listing is called 'sniping' within the eBay community. Sniping is part of the eBay experience, and all bids placed before a listing ends are valid, even if they're placed one second before the listing ends."

I love the "Sniping is part of the eBay experience" part.

How I Finally Got a Leicaflex

I got outbid for that Leicaflex from Oklahoma that I really wanted, and decided not to bid on another one that showed up a couple of weeks later even though I could have gotten it for much less than $660:

The problems were those "dings/impressions" and the lens that is "a little foggy inside". I wanted a nicer Leicaflex.

Then another chance came just last week and I won an even better Leicaflex that belonged to the seller's father for only $308:

I followed the bidding all week and on the last day it was only up to $303. I had my sniping service set up to bid $523.21. I really didn't want to pay that much, let alone $660, and I didn't think I'd have to. But, following my own rule, that's what I bid. Turned out that that $303 was all there was:

(I've blacked out my eBay user name.)

You can see that there were just a few nibblers, possibly because the auction started fairly high to begin with. Then I show up at 9:12:48, bid $523.21, and the eBay computers ended the auction at 9:12:54, entering $308 for me, and that's what I paid. My remaining $215.21 wasn't needed so I didn't have to pay it. (Of course, I didn't really bid at 9:12:48. I was at a meeting at work. This was just one computer talking to another.)

Remember that what you bid is not what you pay!

How to Pay When You've Won

Rule #4: Always pay with PayPal. You can read the fine print for yourself, but PayPal provides protection in case the seller doesn't send the item or it's not what the listing described. (PayPal is owned by eBay.)

Pay immediately, as soon as you see you've won. But, if you and seller have agreed to a lower shipping charge in advance, don't pay until you get an invoice with the right amount, as it's too hard to get a refund later. You might have to remind the seller (gently!).

What If There's a Problem?

If the item doesn't show up or isn't right, don't do anything official with eBay or PayPal yet. Just email the seller. In all but one case I've gotten complete satisfaction. Once I had a stuck lens and the seller refunded about a third of the price. Another time a shutter was stuck and the seller refunded the full amount and told me to keep the camera! (I sent him back $25 anyway.) I only returned one camera during the return period.

But, if you can't reach an agreement and the seller won't take item back, you can open a case with PayPal. Sellers take this very seriously.

Leaving Feedback

If the experience was bad, you can leave negative feedback, but then the seller may retaliate in kind. This is why I think the eBay feedback system is broken.

The Rules, Again

1. Never buy a used camera without first checking KEH.
2. There is always maximum amount you want to pay and you have to figure out what it is.
3. Bid only once, for the maximum amount you're willing to pay, and not until 5 seconds before the auction ends.
4. Always pay with PayPal.