by Bruce Whitehill
An editorial published January 2006 in Knucklebones games magazine
Am I the only one who hates eBay? Well, maybe “hate” is a little strong—after all, like many of you, I have made some super buys and sold a few items at a good price on eBay. What I hate is what eBay has done to the community of collectors and players.
Whether we have an attic with thousands of old games or a shelf of fifty great games to play, we are collectors. We continue to buy games, and we buy more than we sell. I always found it amusing when I would ask a game player if he collected games, and would hear, “No, I’m not a collector.” When I asked how many games the person had, the answer was always something like, “about 150.” He’s a collector.
Anyway, I first noticed the “problem” when a number of years ago I called a friend I hadn’t heard from in a while. I had been selling him games for ten years. “What are you still looking for?” I asked. “Nothing.” His reply startled me. “I spent years looking for the last ten TV games to complete my collection, and then I went on eBay the first time a few months ago, and in a number of weeks I found all I was looking for.” He now had everything he wanted, and yet I felt bad for him. His collecting was over.
In 15 B.E. (15 years before eBay), collectors and players (those who “collected” games to play) would go to as many as ten major flea markets, antique shows, and toy shows every year. I used to set up at a number of shows in the Northeast. Liberty Park was my favorite, in a restored train station on the Jersey side of the Hudson, overlooking lower Manhattan. At that show, you were guaranteed to find at least one thing you were looking for, and lots of stuff that you didn’t need but you bought anyway because it was so neat or so cheap. And during the course of the day you’d meet at least 15 people you knew by name, and countless others with whom you’d exchange a friendly hello, though their name escaped you for the moment. Even my folks—as non-collector as you could get—would visit this one show, bringing a chicken or NY deli for the pack of friends that would always seem to congregate at my booth around lunch time. The Liberty Park show and so many like it are gone now. The ones that remain are just not the same.
You can blame the economy, the aging of the baby boomers, and a host of other things, but the days of scurrying through shows, scouring cluttered tables, and rummaging through boxes are almost over, and the reason is eBay. Whoever thought I would miss waiting on line (that’s physically standing on a line, not going online), at 4 A.M., then running to my favorite booth as soon as the gates opened, hoping to beat the competition that was lined up at a different gate? Getting to the right place at the right time was what counted. There was luck involved in which booth you went to when; soon after you passed by, the dealer may have uncovered another carton, the contents of which you would have loved but which were bought by the admiring couple that just happened upon them soon after the box was opened.
Now, it’s the one with the most money who gets the item. No getting up early, no traveling, no physical searching, no weathering the elements. Now you can sit in front of a keyboard, look for something specific or just see what’s being offered online in your area of interest. You don’t even have to look at who else is bidding (though most eBayers check to see), and you don’t even have to be there for the finish—just place a “snipe” bid, and if you win the item, you’ll have an email waiting for you the next morning. If you didn’t win, it means that someone was willing to pay more for the item than you at that moment. And they didn’t have to get up early or wait on line either.
Just as playing computer games removes the element of live, human interaction among players, so has eBay taken away the personal connection that led to the enjoyment of the hunt, the discovery, the bargaining and the banter. The dealer is now an unseen face who will give you an “A++” feedback if you’re prompt and polite. The joys of discovery and examination are gone—the different elements of a game don’t even get revealed to you until after you’ve purchased it.
The halcyon days of bumping into old friends at shows, sharing meals, and showing off your finds of the morning are almost gone. But that’s not the only toll of eBay. The price guides have slowly disappeared, as have the magazines on collectibles. You can find the value—that is to say, the highest prices paid for the item in question over the last three months—on eBay. And the magazines have died because the dealers and collectors stopped buying advertising. The former publisher of Goldmine, Greg Loescher, for example, said that in the early to mid-90s, the magazine averaged 180 pages; now it’s averaging about 64.
Baby Boomer Magazine, Collectible Toys & Values, Collectible Trend$, Games Annual, Inside Collector, Toy Collector, Toys and Prices, and Toy Values Monthly are just a handful of the collectible magazines in the games area that are now defunct. Some of them may have died before eBay took hold, but the demise of many others was hastened by or brought about by eBay.
The solution? I’m not sure there is any. I think those days are gone forever—though I hope that small-town America is still holding on to some of the flea markets and antique shows where people can meet people and wonderful finds can be found. As for me, I see my collector friends far less than I used to, and some almost not at all. I still buy on eBay, and will probably try to unload a few things later on. But it’s not the same. So if you tell me about the great deal you got on eBay, don’t be surprised if I respond with an unenthusiastic “uh-huh”—it’s just that I long for the way things used to be.
