January 23, 2004 - eBay, wonderful eBay!

They sell everything on eBay - kidneys, towns, virginity, and even Santa Barbara Sheriff’s patches. Sure it would be nice to own a whole town, but that would be nothing compared to the thrill of sewing an authentic sheriff’s patch on your coat and sneaking into the Michael Jackson trial.

eBay has changed everything. If you are a collector of stuff, you now have much greater access to all the items that used to sit decaying in boxes in people’s attic … and the prices of things are more obvious, and in most cases lower than sellers imagined. 

EDHAT.COM UPDATE 1. Recent Real Estate Sales - Today we introduce a new feature on our local info page.  Use our cool map to see how much houses are selling for in your neighborhood. 2. Free Hats - We still have a few edhat hats left to give away. Tell us two good reasons why we should give you a hat and might just do that!

For 20 years you have been saving those unused Who concert tickets from one of their many “final tours”.  You were sure that some day they’d be worth a lot. Oops, you were wrong … a pair sold last week on eBay for only 5 bucks!

Another cool thing about eBay is that it has become a dynamic archive of history. Old concert tickets, Sting Ray bikes, and vintage Broadway playbills … you can see them all without ever taking off your slippers or taking out your credit card. No other web site, even ones devoted to history, can come close to what is available from the “biggest garage sale on earth”.

The dedicated staff of edhat.com was surfing (are we still allowed to use that word?) around eBay yesterday as we waited for the Sheriff’s patch auction to close.  In the process we downloaded some historic Santa Barbara post cards to create a cool slideshow for today’s tidbit. One picture shows how Cabrillo Blvd used to end at Los Banos. Another shows oil rigs on the coast … as a good thing. Another shows the dam at the botanic gardens with lots of water coming through it.

Of course, the historical significance of the items is slightly diminished by the fact that the people selling them are often totally clueless about what they are auctioning off. We are pretty sure that the eBay seller from Virginia Beach is not telling the truth when she says:

“This postcard shows a spectacular panorama view of Santa Barbara and the Eastern High Sierra mountains as the city looked close to a half century ago. I suspect that it's built up much more now. Notice the beautiful blue hue to the mountains with snow still visible in the crevasses. I can see why people fall in love with California.”

Huh?

Of all the subscribers who entered the contest BEFORE the auction ended, LatinaDiva came the closest to the final bid price.  Her guess was $5.25.  The actual final bid price was $5.50. LatinaDiva will be LatteDiva next week when she uses the Peet’s coffee cards that she has won. As far as the eBay auction is concerned, the winner was  iambe711. We will be looking for ‘Be’ at the Santa Maria Courthouse.

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