And they gave away money for signing up new users, too! Man, that was great, especially since a new X.com user could sign up just by following a link from your own auction page. Ka-CHING!

Other random eBay memories from 1998 or so:

* No My eBay concept. I'm not sure how others did it, but I just bookmarked every single eBay-related page that I'd need for later reference;

* No BINs — it was all auctions, all the time. (Frankly, I'm not sure this wasn't a better way to do it ... but I digress);

* The "PIC!" icon. Anyone else remember those? And the long, multi-page tutorials about how to actually attach an image to an eBay auction?

* Moving ahead in time, I greatly enjoyed the Billpoint-PayPal wars. Despite introducing all kinds of rules and regulations to limit PayPal use, it still turned out to be one of the few battles that eBay has ever lost.

Heh, they were good and crazy times on the wild eBay frontier (before everyone else knew what was going on).  I didn't learn about the place until 1998, but I thought it was a huge opportunity in the making.

I made some hefty money buying out gamestores' D&D items so that they could make room for Magic tables back in the day:

* I once bought a store collection for $500 and sold it over a year for $12,000.
* Another time I bought a shrinkwrap collection for $1 per ($37) and sold them for about $1,200.
* Went to a couple cons and had my own highest sale prices quoted back at me, and when I objected they said I knew nothing (smirk).
* Once refused an offer to buy my eBay ID (!) for $2,000.  Reported him and got cyber-stalked.
* I bought a damaged WGR1 in 1999 for a small stack of Arabian (MtG) commons, and it sold for over $200.
* Sold 75 modules once for $0.01 each, because they were all common dupes and I wanted to draw in some new frequent customers.  (That idea worked too well -- couldn't keep up with the stock unless I was willing to put my entire paycheck into buying collections.  Girlfriend of the time nixed that little enterprise with profound enthusiasm.)
* Common modules used to sell for $20-30 if I listed them with nice scans.  Used to buy B2s for $0.25, open the bid for $0.01 and sell them for $5-10.
* I once lost about $600 honoring $0.50 top bids on an auction series where eBay was out of service for over 24 hours, and didn't freeze the auctions.
* Have much better stories but they require face-to-face time over the DM screen, no exceptions.  

Then everyone else swooped in, and the place changed dramatically.  Sadly eBay now is primarily a place for storefronts, and not for collector-sellers.  It's still a lot of fun but the "frontier-ism" is gone.

I still have hazy memories of the feedback system as well -- nukes of multiple feedbacks from the same user, customers asking for feedback not connected to a transaction to boost their ratings, people threatening me with violence or just negs if I outed their other IDs or deceitful practices, having foreigners try to say hi or seek translation by leaving feedback, having feedbacks stick from people who went to prison or were removed for fraud or threats, having no confirmation warning before leaving negative feedback … oy.  And so much more.  I hope I'm remembering some of that wrong -- I put up mental blocks for sanity.  People today think the system is broken, but compared to what it was, it's only mostly broken.  

I also miss the number of e-mail pals I'd get a year from selling stuff, and offering campaign advice; at one point I had over 130.  The "Wow, I haven't seen this in decades, thank you so much!" messages are non-existent now and replaced with "What do you think I can sell X for?" or "Can you give me free advice on how to compete with you and take your business?"

It no longer feels like a fan link-up resource anymore, it just feels like … business.  So I don't do it very often now.

Wow, that went long.  Hand me my cane plz kkthx.

darkseraphim wrote:I still have hazy memories of the feedback system as well -- nukes of multiple feedbacks from the same user, customers asking for feedback not connected to a transaction to boost their ratings ... [etc.]

Ah, good times! You're rembering it correctly: the feedback system was like the Wild West back then ... just about anything was allowed and it was every man for himself. I'll add one other component: any time a user went NARU — for whatever reason — that person's feedback left for others were all changed to neutrals. It was pretty much as stupid as it sounds.

darkseraphim wrote:Sadly eBay now is primarily a place for storefronts, and not for collector-sellers.

Too right. Visting eBay now is really not much different than visiting Amazon. It's all BINs and storefronts now ... bleh.

bclarkie wrote:

I think that you missed my point.  We both signed up for Ebay on the exact same day of the exact same year, January 21st, 1999. :wink:

b, I think you may have misread brute/goldenleaf's start date - it is actually Jun 21, 1999:





http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d ... goldenleaf

I guess you've got me by 5 months then b!

Great hearing the old ebay stories. I remember a little of that. Not quite as far back as Blackmoor and others!

Is Mars our "first on eBay" award-winner?  

November 1997 ... I haven't seen anyone mention anything earlier.

Howdy All,


I resisted eBay for about two years and stuck with my email auctions to the bitter end. Eventually I gave up on the failing practice of email auctions and started eBaying on Jan. 12, 1999.


Futures Bright,

Paul

ah, sorry if i had forgotten one extremely important thing!!! since al is going to be absent for the marathon, he asked me to update the current list:

killjoy32 (acaeum) / killjoy32 (on ebay) or cougarinnard (as a second best on ebay)

Flying_purple_monkfish = flying_purple_monkfish
oddly. lol

aia wrote:ah, sorry if i had forgotten one extremely important thing!!! since al is going to be absent for the marathon, he asked me to update the current list:

killjoy32 (acaeum) / killjoy32 (on ebay) or cougarinnard (as a second best on ebay)

Does this mean al is cougar   Please elaborate