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T A B L E__T A L K Is this the winter of Bill's discontent? Follow the Microsoft trial and post your predictions in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk ___________________ Search barnesandnoble.com for
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R E C E N T L Y The unbearable realness of virtual being Floppy with your Frappuccino? Let's Get This Straight There goes the neighborhood The telephone toll - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE - - - - - - - - - -
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ADDICTED TO EBAY | PAGE 1, 2
When I found myself getting a little bored with Bakelite -- a day I'd once have thought would never come -- I turned to copper and enamel jewelry made in the '50s and found that I could get pieces for less than a third of what I'd have to pay in my city. Just last week I happened to remember how much I'd coveted a vintage rayon cowboy shirt I used to see on a girl around town. Someday I might find the exact shirt (it had playing cards embroidered on the yoke -- bellissima!), but meanwhile I've found a pretty good substitute on eBay that, the god of small things willing, I think I'll be able to get for less than 50 bucks. I discovered eBay last July and immediately fell in love with it, though I hesitated before turning any of my other obsessively thing-loving friends onto it. That may seem like selfishness on my part, but I'd like to think of it as a kind of generosity. I immediately sensed that it would be like turning someone onto junk: I may as well have said, "The first hit is free." As it turns out, I did initiate a few friends -- one who collects bobbing-head dolls and Hawaiian souvenirs and who, she'll be the first to admit, has had a blast. People have asked me if having such an overwhelming amount of stuff available at a single click doesn't take the thrill out of the hunt. And more than a few real-life, as opposed to virtual, Bakelite dealers have tried to assert their supremacy by warning me that buying over the Internet can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing -- at which point I usually draw up my sleeve to reveal an armful of what is undoubtedly the real thing, most of it bought on the Web. In terms of getting stiffed, I haven't found that buying by Internet auction is any different from buying from a real-life dealer: If you know your stuff, you'll be fine, and if you don't, sellers are always available (and, in my experience, usually happy) to answer questions by e-mail. What's more, if you tend to like antiques and vintage-goods dealers as people anyway, you'll find that dealing with them over the Net is perfectly pleasant, if not nearly as much fun as chatting face-to-face (a pleasure for which there's no real substitute). But eBay does change the nature of the hunt by dramatically collapsing it. You could spend years poking around in shops for a vintage mah-jongg set -- or you could call up a dozen at once on eBay and take your pick. It's easy to get spoiled, and you can't help wondering, with so many people buying and selling on the Web, if the stuff isn't just going to run out someday. But the sad truth is that vintage collectibles of all sorts are currently red hot, and whereas a few years ago it was just a few crackpots who were rooting out poodle-print tea towels and miniature Eiffel towers (here I raise my hand sheepishly), now, out of a longing for simpler times or simply the realization that old things look cool, everybody wants the stuff. If you can gorge yourself on eBay and spend less money than you would in a series of offline transactions, then why not? What's more, there's always the possibility of finding some oddball thing serendipitously. My bobbing-head friend was raving about the hot-pink vintage coat she'd found, and when I asked her how she'd found it (had she actually typed in "pink" and "coat"?), she couldn't for the life of her remember. And then, of course, there's the sheer entertainment value of eBay -- which is completely free if you can keep yourself from bidding. Most of the sellers' item descriptions are pretty meat-and-potatoes, but the occasional exceptions make sifting through them worthwhile. They tell stories in and of themselves: There was the woman who was selling off a selection of Hermès scarves that a former boyfriend had bought her in Paris. (The Hermès-scarf people are, in my experience, the most vicious and aggressive bidders on eBay, almost always jumping in at the last minute with an unbeatable bid, even for the least-desirable specimens. They're not people I'd want to meet in a dark alley.) One seller who was listing an early-1960s Barbie doll noted that the hands had been "chewed by a wild house kitty." Even the bidder aliases (users may go either by their e-mail addresses or by an alias) are sometimes good for a laugh. My very favorite is Rroseselavy -- a moniker formerly used by Marcel Duchamp and a little joke in itself (when you say it aloud, it's "Eros, c'est la vie"). I don't doubt that for me, the novelty of eBay will eventually wear off. There's only so much stuff to buy and only so much money to buy it with -- and as Stephen Wright once said, "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" But I think I'll always like the idea of using fairly new technology to buy really old stuff. It's just one way of ensuring that, as advanced as we think we are, there will always be ways to connect with the past. And someday, maybe, I'll even be able to say goodbye to most of the stuff and move into a monastery with a bedroll and a select stack of Bakelite bangles. I just don't think I could live without at least a few. Their clatter is like music to me, and if the monks don't like it, tough. Stephanie Zacharek is a frequent contributor to Salon.
Are you addicted to eBay? Is someone you know? Share the ups and downs of the online auction life in Table Talk's Digital Culture discussion area.
Going once, going twice and growing like crazy Everything under the sun is on sale in eBay's online auctions. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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