Almost two years ago, I put up some Ebay stores on my blog hoping to make a little bit of money. And that's exactly what happened, I made a... little... bit... of... money.
Now, if you really look at the listings of stuff they have on Ebay, it's pretty easy to figure out why (type in keyword "prepress" for search):

What do you see? Junk, lots of it. And it's not too hard to figure out why. One reason is that printers rarely throw things out, but work it to death or until it becomes obsolete or both. If you go to the prepress category of Ebay (not the same as the keyword search) you'll see a lot of imagesetters:

Okay, maybe I'm missing something, but in this day and age, who still uses imagesetters? I mean, is there some industrial output or process that requires film instead of a plate? And what about the imaging laser? Do you think maybe its on its last legs or something?
Hey, look: Ten years after the manufacturers stopped making drum scanners. People are still trying to unload them.

Actually, this gets sort of addictive. Surprisingly, there are no bids for lead type:

You would think that stuff is becoming collectible in this day and age. No wait, there is probably literally tons of lead type stashed away in old printing houses all over North America.
Okay, now there is ONE product that I think that should be bought on Ebay because it's such a great deal: used Pantone color guides.

Admit it, how many Pantone color books has your site lost over the years to clients who want to "borrow" the guide just for a few days. Pick up a used one for under $20, and you won't have to eat the $100+ cost of buying a new one.

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Tagged as: ebay, prepress