Hi,

As I live in the UK could someone explain, exactly, what a 'swap shop' is & how it works, please.

In the UK we have various 'charity shops' where people leave their unwanted/unused/surplus items & the shop then sells these items.

These charity shops vary from big charities, Oxfam, down to local hospice charities & the like.

But very few sell any electrical equipment, because they are un tested & might be a safety risk. I think that our local 'health & safety' & 'trading standards' & the local councils play a part in not allowing 'electrical' appliances to be sold from charity shops.

There is an Oxfam near to where I live which sells electrical items, but they have them tested by an inhouse electrical technician, but the items are usually TV's, computers & other smaller electrical household items.

But I am also amazed at the quality of some of the items that the ST members pick up at these 'swap shops' & the fact that some of these items are 'high end' hifi!!

So you are indeed fortunate to have these 'swap shops', I can only sit back with envy & look at what is available to you!!

All I can say is GOOD HUNTING to you all.

willie

WG: In the States, Flea Markets and Swap Meets are one and the same. It is a place where vendors can display stuff and sell. Check out one of my local swaps:

http://www.roadium.com/contents/photogallery.asp

Typically, sellers will scour garage sales, thrift shops, and even dumpsters to find stuff. There are amazing deals to be had but there is also a lot of competition. Luck is good to have on your side. For example, my buddy bought a HP Laserjet 2100 printer for $5 that sold new for $700! It works perfect.

D: I'm not sure I could review a Bose Wave radio! Anyways, someone is coming over for the Bose as I type this. I'm trading for a mid-line Marantz receiver. More later...

Hi,

Socal Sam,

Thanks for that info, as it helps me understand how you guys are always finding stuff & telling us all on ST.

It's interesting that you say that you have to be lucky, I totally agree & as always it's a case of 'being in the right place at the right time'.

Here in the UK we have had 'car boot sales' for several years now. These quite literally were places, usually muddy fields, where cars turned up & sold unused/unwanted items from their car boots, I think in the states a boot is called a trunk!

But as time has evolved 'car boots' have become more professional & people now have stalls & tables to display their items on.

I know 'dealers' who scour these car boots for allsorts of items & with the advent of Ebay, this is where a lot of their 'car boot finds' end up.

This means that sellers are now aware what items are fetching on Ebay & the prices they now ask reflect that, so it's had an adverse affect & true bargains are now harder to find.

As a matter of interest, do the people in the USA who scour swap meets, etc, also then put their 'finds' on Ebay.

Have you also noticed that prices for ALL things HiFi are steadily creeping up on Ebay?

I was at a local car boot last week, the last one at this location for this year, when I spotted something big & shiny on the floor by a sellers car. On looking at it I found it to be a Marantz SR4400 AV receiver in very good condition, but on asking the seller it was minus it's remote.

I asked the man how much it was & he said £30 ($50) so we haggled a bit & I bought it for £25 ($41.5). On arriving home I tried it out & it works perfectly, so far!!

http://www.marantz.com/archive/e_sr4400.pdf

But this, to me anyway, was a rare occassion, as I am not lucky generally, 'just in
the right place at the right time.

Once again thanks for your reply.

willie



:

WG: Your SR4400 buy is a money maker. You bought for 25 GBP. This one sold for 122 GBP.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=260500557896

The trick is knowing value when you are bargaining because if you have to go home to check, the deal will be gone.

The best deals are to be had when the swap meet opens. You have to get there early or your competition will win.

On a side note, my Bose Wave radio changed hands four times yesterday. It was bought at a garage sale and then sold to a thrift shop. I bought from the Thrift and then traded for a Marantz receiver to another ebay seller who will add a remote and resell to the final end user. What started out as a $25 item will end up being $250 with everyone getting a cut along the way!

Well, it wasn't today but in my quest for a better center channel to replace my Carver I picked up some Bostons, a Polk 10" sub, and a Yamaha 995 receiver ($1000 new!) and a box full of ICs and some licorice rope sized Monster speaker cable. Already found a home for the Yammy and the Polk went home with the new owner of my Carvers so that leaves me the Bostons...

The two fronts and the center are part of Boston's foray into something more "audiophile"...

Lynnfield VR-20 towers, two ways, which I'm currently using as rear surrounds, a pair of indoor/outdoor Voyager sats (still in limbo), and the real gem of the batch, a Lynnfield VR-12 center channel which at 30lbs and 25" long is the biggest dedicated center I've ever owned. Sounds superb too! And I've already recouped most of what I spent that day with the sale of the sub and the Yamaha

Now that is some Wheeling and Dealing. Nearly all of my profits goes into upgrading my gear. Over the years, the collection has gotten better and better.

I'm back with the goods. More later...

an all Marantz stack? if that pre is what i think it is ....

The pre is not, but the tuner is...

not a 7c then. still the 7t ss pre will still fetch a pretty penny. the tuner escapes me though.

The tuner is a 10B tube tuner, something I've been looking for a long time. The other pieces are sort of interesting but I'll sell them off and hopefully end up with a free 10B, even if it needs restoration.

These pieces spent the last five years in an outside storage shed. The rats had nested in the 10B. I've already put in two hours cleaning it and it is just passable to allow indoors. There is some surface corrosion here and there but not as bad as I thought. The 10B nameplate will never be right but I think I can get the rest of it looking decent enough. I took the bottom cover off to clear some debris. The components and chassis look clean with no signs of rust. That's encouraging. I'll have to do the tuner string, which will be a hassle.

I'm not close to powering any of this stuff up so I don't know what works. The 250 looks like it is close but the 15 doesn't look so good. It will need a thorough cleaning. The 7T likely works as there are no vent holes so it is probably clean inside. I'll inspect just to be sure.

Nice grab. Hope it all cleans up well. Any cases? Hard to tell from the rack.

ditto.

dunno why my mind went blank on the 10b, i was listening to Crooner's less than 2 months ago. its a sweet piece of gear that is highly prized, best of luck getting it back into proper shape.

Thanks. It wasn't near the grab your 10B was. No case but it likely wouldn't have survived the 5 year exile to the storage shed.

I have the tubes and tube covers. The tranny and tube covers will need to be repainted. I'll also remove the rusty screws and paint those. Sadly, the nameplate will never look right.