Insanity . . .

[TelePlay]

 . . . is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I've seem this key chain bauble in the collectible telephone listings before. Why, I don't know. It has nothing to do with phones unless the seller thinks someone into phones may have graduated from Arizona State. It's always has the opening bid price of $95. I just don't understand, or care to understand, this seller's insanity. But it is a bit humorous.

http://tinyurl.com/7k3qwso

Here's the picture for posterity.

[twocvbloke]

I think it's more a golfing item rather than telephone or Ping-pong as they state in the description, especially as it's a golf ball (cos it's dimpled) with a depiction of a devil playing golf with his fork, so could be from a golf club somewhere in Arizona...

[LarryInMichigan]

Alot of totally non-phone items are listed in the telephones section.  I figure that some people are just too lazy or careless to bother to post their items in the correct category.  What I find REALLY annoying is that some seller in Hong Kong regularly lists hundreds of new junk quality watches in the collectible clock (1930-69) category.  When I browse for antique clocks, I have to skip pages of this junk.  I have flagged a number of the listings, but ebay apparently will not do anything about it.

Larry

[twocvbloke]

but ebay apparently will not do anything about it.

Probably cos china threatens people with nukes if they don't comply...

I hate seeing listings of rubbish from china, I can click the "UK Only" option on the left and, depending on what I'm looking for, I lose a few thousand results, just getting rid of the junk for sale from the PRC, but there's still the ones that always seem to be located in London who always apparently ship from the UK from UK stock, but it takes forever to arrive (presumably cos they're getting it in from china, then repackaging it to make it look like it was sourced here!!), so, I tend to get a bit annoyed with that, but that said, they kind of make themselves stand out with the chinglish descriptions and the insistence of UK origins plastered all over the pictures, so they're easy to spot & skip over...

[TelePlay]

Well, it expired at $95 so it's back for a 4th time but at the reduced price of $79. A little less insanity.

It's a Ping brand golf ball painted in Arizona State colors with their mascot Sun Devil stamped on it. The golf ball is drilled and has a hook loop attached to make it a key fob, a bauble on a set of keys. It might sell for $5, maybe.

http://tinyurl.com/6mz9c9x

[LarryInMichigan]

I would expect that with a bit of shopping in Tempe, AZ, one could find all of the golf balls with ASU logos they want. 

Larry

[dpaynter1066]

I think a lot of times it's deliberate, They list stuff all over to foist it in your face and try to get impulse buys.

I collect (and sometimes use) antique scientific apparatus and have seen this sort of thing in the laboratory listings too.

As for ridiculous prices, A lot of times I also see a price "Echo" of a lousy deal that happened earlier.   Sometimes someone who wants instant gratification, and has more money than sense bids up something to a ridiculous price and gets it.  The next day, some shmoe wants to list an identical item and does a search on ended listings and see the ridiculous price and lists his at that price too.  It doesn't sell and in the meantime a lot of others do the same and all list theirs sky high because all the other listings are all that price.  It becomes a vicious cycle of inflated re-listings, each determined to get a "fair" price until some regular listers come along and lists a few at the going reasonable price and the "Echo" eventually fades away.

Case in point: Complete with all accessories American Optical / AO Spencer 820 Microtomes can be readily found at around $99 dollars.   Incomplete junkers are available for 350 to 400 dollars. (the echo price)

Universities and commercial entities also often list  identical microtomes for $600 and up based on what they paid for them 30 years ago.   

The lesson here is to use Price range and  filtering in brackets  -( term, term2, term3, termxx) to toss out all the junk.