Is it wrong to sell your restorations?

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Radio_Dave

The title of this thread is misleading. It should be something like "Is it OK to profit from the goodwill and generosity of this forum members".

Doesn't that sum up much of the purpose of the forum? I'm sure I've spent many an hour ferreting around for odd bits of information requested here, with the simple aim of making them available for the asker or anyone else to use exactly as they please.

Paul

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by Radio_Dave

The title of this thread is misleading. It should be something like "Is it OK to profit from the goodwill and generosity of this forum members".

I think that is the issue really - assuming profit is financial. If members feel their generosity has been taken advantage of for profit, without being aware of the intentions at the time, they may well feel aggrieved.

We have always had a fairly strong stance on members who are only here to trade (such as those who buy up loads of offered items cheaply and put then straight onto eBay) as that is not the point of the forum.

The forum is for normal collectors, who obviously sell sets from time to time to clear space and get some cash to buy different ones. Often the sale price will scarcely cover the original purchase price and parts cost, but as there is no intention of making a profit and the enjoyment is the repair/restoration we don't care.

I think if someone is intending to sell the set once restored then this should be made clear from the outset in any threads about it. Then members can choose whether or not to assist. Likewise with requests for parts.

The problem comes when an item we.ve have helped someone repair appears on eBay soon afterwards, especially when the same member does this several times.

[Radio_Dave]

Originally Posted by Paul_RK

Doesn't that sum up much of the purpose of the forum? I'm sure I've spent many an hour ferreting around for odd bits of information requested here, with the simple aim of making them available for the asker or anyone else to use exactly as they please.

Paul

I should have said "financially profit".

There must be lots of dealers on this forum but they give as well as take, which is fine. It's the very small minority of members who only come here for the purpose of making money that I have a problem with.

Regards
David

[GeoffK]

Originally Posted by PaulR

I think that some unease arises from the fact that this particular radio was not restored in the sense that many of us would understand. The part that actually makes it a radio was removed and the remains were sold to be used as something completely different from the original set.

Of course it is up to the owner to say what they do with their own property and if the RF section was beyond reasonable repair then there would be no problem but I was uncomfortable with what was done in this instance.

This was my concern that I mentioned in #196 of the original post, that it was no longer a radio restoration (and Philips sets are favourites of mine). It is a shame that idigo girl didn't ask for advice first if it was necessary to remove all the parts to sell them separately on eBay rather than to keep the whole radio as it didn't matter that the radio section wasn't going to used it was only necessary to leave it intact as it wouldn't have stopped the gram input from working.

As it is the parts could be put back in the radio even if not wired up so at least someone might be able to return it back to a radio.

[indigo.girl]

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this - I very much enjoy being part of this forum and always appreciate the help and advice given to me very generously by its members. I am an enthusiast first and foremost, but I also restore with the intention to sell on if possible. To paraphrase Julie, I'm one of those who enjoys catching the fish but has little interest in actually eating them. Ironically I'm not a music fan and only ever listen to radio 4 which is a great source of amusement to my friends now I spend my days mending record decks and radios

As a beginner I am not yet able to contribute to the forum by answering many questions but what I do hope I contribute is meaningful discussion and careful recording of results and outcomes thus capturing the knowledge base within this group making it available to others. I would hate to think anyone considered me a free-loader exploiting members goodwill. This is a great community to be part of and on the whole has a very welcoming feel to it - which is partly why I have got so enthusiastic and keep coming back with new challenges.

I was aware of the 'don't mention ebay rules' which is why I deliberately didn't mention my intention to sell. But at least its out there now and people can help me if they wish or not if they prefer. I personally hope people will continue to support me in my quests as its great fun and I do come up with some good head scratchers don't I

Thanks guys, look out for my next thread

[indigo.girl]

Originally Posted by Hetrodyne

It is a shame that idigo girl didn't ask for advice first if it was necessary to remove all the parts to sell them separately on eBay rather than to keep the whole radio as it didn't matter that the radio section wasn't going to used it was only necessary to leave it intact as it wouldn't have stopped the gram input from working.

I do regret removing the parts now Heterodyne. The irony is I only removed them thinking someone else might be able to make use of them rather than them laying redundant in my set. It was a pain to remove them and I wish I hadn't bothered now. I'm currently working on a Philco and have left everything intact and will always prefer to do so. The originality of an object is also important to me and I do get pleasure and a sense of pride from bringing an otherwise dead piece of history back to life. I wasn't alive when valve radios were first around but I can nevertheless see their beauty. I love seeing the gentle glow and hearing the radio slowly come to life as the valve warm up.

[PaulR]

I do like the idea I have seen elsewhere here of permanently connecting a bluetooth receiver to the gram input and getting a power supply for it by rectifying the heater supply. It is a pity that many sets don't have a "gram" setting on the wavechange selector.

PS - In fact I am going to get one now!

[Herald1360]

In answer to the original question I would simply say no, it isn't wrong. If you even manage to break even on the investment in parts let alone time and trouble, you'll have done well.

How that affects the forum is another can of worms altogether.

I will raise the question of safety / liability though. If the set is repaired to the state it left the factory, fine. If it's modified in any way, even to "improve" safety it could be a legal minefield if anything untoward happens down the line.

[HamishBoxer]

If we all read and understand the Ebay rules,I don't see any future problems.They are fair and clearly laid out.

[Brigham]

My problem here, having read the original thread, is that a restoration hasn't been carried out. Instead, an interesting radio has been made into something else; and that is not what the Forum is about.
I cannot imagine that so many people would have offered so much help, had they known that the end product would be in worse condition than when the job started.

[stevehertz]

It's not easy to categorise many of us as being this or that in hard terms of being a collector or a trader. I find that my collecting and restoring choices meander within the broader category of vintage wireless. At the moment my 'thing' is mainly, though not exclusively, concerned with large hifi receivers from the late 70s and early 80s. Since I got into this mode, around a year ago, I have purchased and restored a number of such 'sets'. For a variety of reasons including..

* Having restored them and 'had my fun out of them'
* Moving it on to fund another purchase
* Didn't like it as much as I thought I would
* I only have so much room
* etc etc...

....I sometimes sell sets that I've only recently bought and restored, and in the process called upon help from the very nice, helpful members of the forum. Does that make me a 'cold' buyer/seller who only uses the forum for help in order to 'make money'? not at all. From my standpoint I have slavishly written and photographed quite a few restorations with viewing figures in the 1000s, so without blowing my own trumpet, I do give back to the forum, and not just with those 'tomes', but daily too.

The point I'm making is, I think 'the forum' often takes too hard a line with anyone who so much as mentions the auction site. Apart from that, and echoing previous posts, I have also had posts removed seemingly on a whim or for nebulous reasons. I also recently suggested a sticky. The suggestion was not taken up, the response being, "..the problem is, people don't read stickies". In that case, why do we have them at all if people don't read them?! I love the forum but I'm afraid more and more I feel that my hands are tied when wanting to say the most innocuous of things. Good, tight moderation is essential for any forum in my opinion. No doubt about it. I have been on many forums, in many subjects, where people use expletives, bad mouth each other etc etc, and no-one wants that. But I do feel that things could be a little 'looser' to the benefit of all on this forum. That's my honest opinion.

[indigo.girl]

Originally Posted by Brigham

My problem here, having read the original thread, is that a restoration hasn't been carried out. Instead, an interesting radio has been made into something else; and that is not what the Forum is about.
I cannot imagine that so many people would have offered so much help, had they known that the end product would be in worse condition than when the job started.

I'm sorry but I must dispute what you have said there. My Philips radio IS in a restored condition, albeit partially, and is undeniably in a better state than it was before I started. I have not ripped out the guts and stuck a radio inside or stuck a bulb in it and called it a lamp! The amplifier stage has been carefully restored which was not a trivial piece of work plus I have effectively just plugged in a bluetooth receiver into the original gram pick up sockets rather than a gram. This radio was designed to receive inputs from other sources and that's what I've given it. Surely a partial restoration and sympathetic update is better than no restoration at all and it ending up down the tip.

[Heatercathodeshort]

The only thing I find unpalatable is when so called professionals advertising for work, immediately place a help thread about an item that they have received for repair. Often a very basic fault finding knowledge would resolve the problem.

I don't have a problem seeing items sold on Ebay but if help was sought and received via this Forum on a particular item I would hope that they would at least offer it first via this very Forum.

Just my thoughts, John.

[Brigham]

I'll have to clarify my previous point.
The radio in question superficially appears to be in better condition than before the work started.
However, it would require far more work to restore this set now, than it would have done previously.
Now, in my opinion, this Forum is for vintage radio enthusiasts to share their experience and enthusiasm with other like-minded people.
It would surprise me greatly if anyone on here would assist in turning an interesting vintage radio into some sort of digital remote loudspeaker for a mobile phone, had such a proposal been made.
And so I repeat. A restoration has NOT been carried out. Parts of an old radio have been overhauled, to be used for something else.

[Nukeybrown]

It seems to me that its split, some people may have a problem with it some people may not, im not sure how you could know that someone has restored a set with the help of the forum and then put it on ebay? How do you even know this?.

Personally i have sold a few sets on ebay but like most are saying no profit involved when you factor everything in.

I have sold lower value record players as i built up to a hacker gondolier, while i was learning all the way to the hacker.

I have also had valve radios etc which have come and gone. All repaired etc while learning all the time which has helped me and in turn will help others.

So am i at trader? Some would say yes

I would say no, i currently have 40+ hacker radios in my collection which are not for sale at any price. Most of which i have had help from this forum along with the hacker forum.

Since last years episode with me mentioning ebay relating to bluetooth in dac90 sets and now being on moderated post since, this has put a bad taste in me and most of my time and any assistance i now go elsewhere for, which is sad.

I would also point out that even though some people are asking for help then selling on at least that will:

1 keep the vintage radio going for the future as someone has spent the time fixing avoiding it going to the skip.
2 learned on the way which may give them the interest to explore it more and be hooked as i did.
3. This person could become a new member and could help others in the future, every forum needs new members and turning our backs on them because of a ebay thing i thinks a bit counter intuitive.

Keeping with the same members and not helping new people because of ebay , i feel is a bit living in the dark ages and pretending it doesnt exist this will eventually end the forum as obviously new blood will help it survive.

[ms660]

I think some on here should give the lady a break, she is a relative newcomer to the forum and a relative beginner as regards troubleshooting and restoring radios, she has made the point that her second radio project was completed with the radio section fully working....C'mon folks, surely.

No fear, no envy, no meanness.

Lawrence.

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Brigham

I'll have to clarify my previous point.
The radio in question superficially appears to be in better condition than before the work started.
However, it would require far more work to restore this set now, than it would have done previously.
Now, in my opinion, this Forum is for vintage radio enthusiasts to share their experience and enthusiasm with other like-minded people.
It would surprise me greatly if anyone on here would assist in turning an interesting vintage radio into some sort of digital remote loudspeaker for a mobile phone, had such a proposal been made.
And so I repeat. A restoration has NOT been carried out. Parts of an old radio have been overhauled, to be used for something else.

it wasn't so long ago that advice was given to someone to put a lamp inside a set to use it as a prop in a cafe. In my opinion, very good advice and included amongst those giving that advice was a moderator. What am I saying? There's no right or wrong way wrt restorations, but some people do get decidedly uptight about it. In the main we're talking about massed produced wireless sets, not expensive rarities. Creating a 'tick list' of what someone can and cannot do with a vintage radio is for the individual, not for someone to tell others.

[TonyDuell]

My 2p...

Firstly, I took the original comment to mean that as the radio was now for sale on Ebay (or anywhere else for that matter) it shortly would not be owned by Indigo Girl, and in fact might be owned by somebody who is not a forum member. If a forum member does end up owning it then I guess they can start a new thread about it if they so wish.

I do find the way the moderators close threads often for no real reason to be one of the worst features of this forum. I know I am not allowed to discuss the moderation policies under the rules here, so I won't comment further, but suffice it to say that if there was a similar forum with no moderation I would be over there in a picosecond. Most, if not all of the other fora and mailing lists I take part in (admittedly most are American) have almost no moderation. The only reason on said lists to close or delete a thread would be a personal attack on another member. It is common for threads 3 or 4 years old to get new messages. And I prefer it like that.

Now as for 'benefitting from others on the forum', surely we all do that. I have asked questions here, and benefitted from the answers. I have answered questions and benefitted (a) from having to think about the problem and (b) from reading other answers. I have bought things here and benefitted by getting something I want in my workshop. I have given away things here (never actually sold anythng) and benefitted by freeing up some space. Now, while I agree that it is 'bad form' to ask about a set you are repairing for money (and not say so), how far does this go. If I get a good tip here on how do so something more general (how to make some part, say), am I forbidden from using that information in a 'for profit' repair? I probably won't remember where I got the tip from by then.

I do agree, though that the set in question has not been 'restored'. To me, a 'restoration' involves bring the set back to the original _electronic_ condition. Appearance doesn't matter too much to me, which is why I never re-stuff components (that is a separate can of worms...) but the original circuitry is. I am quite fanatical about this, I will not replace a linear PSU with a SMPSU even if the rest of the unit remains the same. The original design was a linear PSU after all. As an aside, there is one computer where the processor unit is cooled by 3 special fans. Each runs off 35V, 70Hz. Produced in the power supply by a full-H circuit running off a 36V rail. It is generally said that the repair for this is to replace the fans with 3 12V DC fans in series connected across said 36V supply. In my case I stripped the original fans. replace bearings, and even re-wound one of them. To keep the design original. For much the same reason I cringe when I hear people saying to disconnect 'unnecessary' voltage selectors, earphone/tape sockets, etc. They are part of the original design and should be kept.

My view on said radio is that it should have had the RF circuitry left intact. Adding a
bluetooth receiver by plugging it into the pickup sockets is fine, it can be unplugged again. But not ripping out most of the circutry of the radio. I would only buy a set that that had been done to if I needed the parts to restore a similar set.

[Biggles]

From my experience most forum members are keen to help, whatever the outcome. We don't want to put off people who are keen to learn about a hobby which, let's face it, probably hasn't got too many new followers. I just want to pass on the knowledge that I have. At the end of the day, you can't control what people do with things they own, so if they decide to sell it, break it for parts or otherwise, so be it. I get a lot out of knowing that I have successfully diagnosed a fault. That's been my job for over thirty years. On the subject of deleting posts, although I realise that the moderators have a difficult, time consuming job to do, the result of a deleted post will, I suspect, leave the poster feeling a bit miffed (after all we are all human!). This may result in them staying away from the forum, which ultimately means that they are not providing much needed help for other members. Just my slant on things. Worry about the important things in life instead.
Alan.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by HamishBoxer

If we all read and understand the e-bay rules, I don't see any future problems.
They are fair and clearly laid out.

I've read them and re-read them often, especially when I am unsure if I am about to write or propose something that might break said rules. Moreover, I understand the reasons for their existence and to me, those reasons make sound sense.

However, with regard to your above comment, if the rules in the e-bay section had a simple statement that it is not acceptable for a member to advertise an item for sale on the Forum and simultaneously on e-bay (or any other outlet), then the cause of such an accidental mis-demeanour would thus be prevented. On that, I speak from personal experience.

Al.