Need help putting a B&J 5X7 camera on Ebay

[Terry Witt]

Hi again. I'd like to thank everyone for their comments and thoughts and help. I've really appriciated it. I've thought about this for a while and I just can't see myself getting into LF cameras. There for I guess I might just as well find a home for this camera where it will be used by someone that will enjoy it. I just don't have the time and the interest to start a new hobby, way too busy. Not knowing anything about this equipment, it would seem like someone would be willing to pay a priemium for the whole package as nice as it is. But as some have said I should split it up and put it on ebay. If I split it, I've been told to do it 3 ways. Body, lense, and tripod. If I do split, what kind of a starting price or minumum should I put on each? Any ideas what I could get as a package or split up? Thanks for all your help. Its so nice dealing with experts in a field that I know nothing about. Here is a link to view pictures of it again. http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/camera.html
If anyone wants to email me direct you can at t.e.witt@juno.com
Thanks again Terry

[Brian Ellis]

Look in the completed sales section of ebay and look at the web sites of dealers that sell a lot of used large format stuff (e.g. MidWest Photo Exchange, Lens and Repro, KenMar Camera, Quality Camera, KEH) for starters. You'll find more B&J 4x5s than 5x7s but I don't think the price difference between the 4x5 and 5x7 B&Js is likely to be significant so the 4x5 prices should be a good place to start. When you sell on ebay you should expect to receive about 15% -20% less than what a dealer would sell for so take that into account when you're looking at dealer prices. While your system looks like it's in much better shape than most, B&Js aren't generally collector cameras, they tend to be users, so I don't think the fact that yours is mint will add as much to the price as mint adds to collectables but it still should add something.

IMHO you're better off protecting yourself on ebay by setting a reasonable reserve and letting the bidding start at $1 than you are by setting a fairly high opening bid. That's contrary to what ebay says. They say that "no reserve" auctions are better. However, in my experience people shopping on ebay are looking for bargains. When they see that the opening bid isn't much of a bargain they don't bid. I think it's important to get people bidding even at a very low price. That gets them interested , they start to think of the camera as theirs, and "auction fever" then may set in.

[Ernest Purdum]

I'm going to strongly differ with Brian. There was a large-scale survey some time ago which showed that sellers placing reserves on their items received less money for them. The best results were obtained by taking the risk of a low starting price, but it was better to use a high starting price than to place a reserve.

My advice is place it as a ten day auction on a Thursday so as to close Sunday late afternoon. Don't have it close on a holiday weekend. List the lens in both "Large |Format" and "Lenses for Large Format" categories. Mention your other auctions on each of your texts. Pay the extra for eBay's Picture Pack and Bold captions.

[Brian Ellis]

Ernest said: "I'm going to strongly differ with Brian. There was a large-scale survey some time ago which showed that sellers placing reserves on their items received less money for them."

I know ebay makes that claim and I've read about that survey though I've never seen the actual survey itself. However, if it reached that conclusion only by comparing selling prices of reserved vs. non-reserved items it may have been misleading because it wouldn't have taken into account the auctions with high opening bids that resulted in no bids and no sales. But maybe it's accurate and maybe I'm wrong, my suggestion was just my opinion based on my own experience and reasonable success.

[David Richhart]

The master in our midst, "Dagor 77" , is a true artist of the ebay game. He always starts his auctions at $0.77 and no reserve. It is likely that he occasionally sells something a little cheaper than expected, but it probably averages out in the long run.

His real success would be the result of good merchandise, sold with kick-ass creative and informative advertising, plus honest service.

[Joe Smigiel]

The master in our midst, "Dagor 77" , is a true artist of the ebay game. He always starts his auctions at $0.77 and no reserve.

Actually I have seen an occaisional auction by Dagor77 with a reserve, but only on a truly rare, and expensive item. I was shocked to see that because had grown to expect the $0.77opening bid on all of his auctions.

On a common item like the 5x7 B&J camera, I wouldn't place a reserve or high minimum bid although I might put an optional Buy-It-Now price on this one only because it is in such nice shape. That's a positive for it, the model and format is a negative: Most people will be looking for an 8x10 or a 4x5 camera and B&J cameras were sort of utilitarian cameras that don't have much collector value. List it with a BIN option that you find either acceptable or perhaps optimistically profitable. You might be surprised by a quick outcome.

Since it was "inherited" I wouldn't worry about the final bids.

Stress the fact that the camera and lens in shutter has seen little or no use and provide a good description of the model numbers for each. Because the shutter is mint, it may bring a higher price. The tripod is also a very good one with some nice features.

Don't go overboard with too many pictures either. Do a general shot of everything, and details of the lens/shutter, tripod extended, and state other pictures are available via email. The one thing that will make me skip an auction entirely is too many pictures that are usually way too high in resolultion for the web and which take forever to load on my dial-up connection. That sort of thing impedes my bidding especially at auction end when trying to reload the page to see the progress of the final minutes.

You will definitely come out ahead on this one by doing separate listings for the camera, lens/shutter, and tripod IMO.

[Michael Graves]

I think Joe makes some good suggestions in terms of A) separate listings and B) go EASY on the photos. How many times have you seen something that might interest you, but when you went to view it, it took so @##$@#$$%%# long to load you said, Screw it! and went on down the list. I don't think you'll have much to worry about as far as getting a good price. I've seen some pretty flaky stuff bringing premium prices in large format. I looked at the images you posted and that stuff isn't flaky at all. It's nice equipment. It should do well. You'll most likely get much more by piecemealing the outfit than you will selling it as an outfit. More people will be fighting over the choice items.

[CP Goerz]

Dagor77 here, AKA CP Goerz...neither of us are 'masters' though! :-)



I do have reserves on some stuff but I don't really like to. I noticed that I sold a number of items for nothing(less than $50) which others were selling for $2-300. I realized that sometimes no reserve auctions encourage people NOT to bid until the last second, but if you are like me you forget half the auctions you mean to bid on and so to cover my @ss on the less than stellar items I popped some reserves on.

I find that Sunday afternoon is the best but weekdays(NOT Friday) are just as good. I like to think of my fellow large format chaps as wasting company time on their computers by bidding on Ebay :-) Good pics always help and keep them smallish I generally set them at 577 pixels on the long end and a resolution(my term I guess) of 123.



Hope that helps!



CP Goerz.