Amiga listings on eBay Germany

[AmigaBruno]

Recently, I've done various searches on eBay Germany which often bring up some interesting results, but usually these listings say "Versand nach: Deutschland", meaning that the item will only be sent to an address or a buyer in Germany, not anywhere else. Can anyone think of a way to get round this restriction? I'm fairly sure this is against EU law, so I don't know how eBay has been getting away with this.

Here's a current listing of a recent attic find. You can actually collect this one in person, but it's "Versand nach: Deutschland" only!

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Commodore-Amiga-2000-inkl-Tastatur-Joystick-Quickshot-II-Turbo-und-Maus-/330922437407?pt=Klassische_Computer&hash=item4d0c83ab1f

[AmigaBruno]

Yet another preposterous EU law if it exists.

I think the relevant EU law is connected with single market legislation. It's not a single market if it can be subdivided by eBay or anyone else into Germany, Britain, etc. Apart from this, whatever can be sold anywhere in the EU must be allowed to be sold everywhere in the EU.

I was thinking of trying to contact someone in Germany who could have items sent to their address, then forward them to me. I'm also thinking of offering this service to people elsewhere for eBay items which are listed as UK only.

[AmigaBruno]

That would be quite an absurd and inconvenient law to apply to eBay sellers. What if they don't want the headache of dealing with shipping outside?

Heck, I guess they could ban Collect Only as well: Must ship to EU or don't list.

That would suck if you're selling a car or something that's usually locally sold.

The car would be for collection, so no problem there.

[AmigaBruno]

There's no law prohibiting sale abroad, neither German nor EU. The seller just doesn't want to.

If anyone's really interested I'd be volunteering for shipping that machine to the US or elsewhere. But make sure you prepare yourself for the cost - 10-20 kg to the US would come up to 68€.

That sounds like a great idea! How much would you charge to send it to me in the UK, though? Perhaps I could pay you in Aspirin or Paracetamol, which I may be prevented from selling to Germany via eBay due to trade protectionism by or on behalf of the company Bayer. Of course, one problem is that how could anyone be sure that you'd send them the Amiga items? You'd probably have to buy it yourself for this scheme to work, so how could you be sure you'd get back the money you paid, as well as the postage?

BTW, during the time after Commodore went bankrupt and before Escom took over, I was exchanging video cassettes, magazines and other items with someone in Berlin, but I sent him 15 video cassettes and only ever got 5 video cassettes in return. It ended when I sent him some money for a cracked Kickstart ROM, he told me the price had gone up, so I sent him even more money, then I never received the Kickstart ROM. Of course, this doesn't mean you'd do the same, but that's what can happen.

[AmigaBruno]

What usually (but not always) works for me is sending the seller a mail saying something like:

"Hi, I noticed that you are only shipping to Germany. Unfortunately I live in Belgium. As you can see in my feedback, I'm an eBayer in good standing with 100% positive feedback. I'm really interested in this item. If you'd be willing to make an exception and ship to my country anyway, please tell me how much shipping would cost. Kind regards, Username"

Most of the time they agree to sell to me. Sometimes they don't.

That sounds like a good idea! I just need to translate it into German for the maximum effect. So far, I've only sent messages saying "Wie wär's mit Versand nach Großbritannien?" (How about postage to Britain?), but I don't think this has ever worked.

[AmigaBruno]

"Hi, I noticed that you are only shipping to Germany. Unfortunately I  live in Belgium. As you can see in my feedback, I'm an eBayer in good  standing with 100% positive feedback. I'm really interested in this  item. If you'd be willing to make an exception and ship to my country  anyway, please tell me how much shipping would cost. Kind regards,  Username"

I think this is an accurate translation, except for Belgium and not having 100% positive feedback.  

"Ich habe bemerkt dass Versand nur nach Deutschland wird. Leider wohne ich in Großbritannien. Wie Sie sehen können bin ich ein eBay Mitglied mit einen guten Ruf und fast 100% positive Bewertungen.  Ich interesse mich sehr in diesen Artikel. Vielleicht wären Sie bereit sein eine Ausnahme zu machen und diesen Artikel zu mir in Großbritannien senden. Bitte erzähle mir wieviel das kosten würde. Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Benutzername"

[AmigaBruno]

Pretty good really. Slight improvement: "Mir ist aufgefallen, dass Sie nur nach Deutschland versenden. [...] Ich interessiere mich sehr für diesen Artikel. Vielleicht wären Sie bereit, eine Ausnahme zu machen und mir den Artikel nach ... zu senden? Ich habe bei DHL nachgesehen und das Porto müsste ca. xx € betragen. Viele Grüße und vielen Dank!"

I don't think I'd buy in lieu of someone else but I think anyone will be able to bid and just use me as shipping address. (I've been around a bit should you can probably trust me with that ) DHL shipping rates can be looked up at http://www.dhl.de. UK 10-20 kg should be 22€. Hermes might be cheaper within Europe but can take quite a while.

Vielen Dank! I started learning German from BBC courses, but later on studied various TV on the 5 VHS videos sent from Germany, as well as some more videos from a satellite viewer in Britain, before getting my own satellite TV system. A good way that people can improve their knowledge of German is by watching the soap Lindenstraße on http://www.lindenstrasse.de .

[AmigaBruno]

It usually says that items will only be sent to Germany "Versand nach: Deutschland". I can use my eBay UK membership to sign into any eBay site I've visited so far. There was a Global eBay, but it closed down.

Here's an amazing find on eBay Germany. It's a Paradox SCSI controller, which is just an interface that plugs into the parallel port. I've never heard of these before. I bet someone could clone them. That would be much easier to buy than the "Hen's teeth" GVP SCSI controllers, although they're being made again now. You can use Google Chrome if you need a translation. "Versand nach: Deutschland", with the exception of the East Frisian Islands, North Frisian Islands, and Baltic Islands, which are just off the coast of Germany. Don't trust these pesky Frisian and Baltic islanders! Helgoland might be OK, though. Luckily, Sylt is connected by a narrow strip of land.

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200922891797&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:de

[AmigaBruno]

Yes SCSI at the rate of the amiga paralellport sounds like a speedfreak, not...
 
Have you even contacted the seller? I guess not

I don't know about the data transfer rate. I only know that it must be faster than a floppy drive and this device seems to allow any Amiga A500 or A500 Plus to have a SCSI hard drive drive fitted without looking for a "rare as hen's teeth" edge connector unit. No A500/A500 Plus units are available on http://www.gvp-m.com/productjapan.html .

I've just contacted the seller and will contact some more sellers on eBay Germany soon.

[AmigaBruno]

If you are interested in a SCSI-host for the A500, drop me a PM, I have one for offer.

Last month I bought a GVP Impact Series II HD8+ unit for the A500/A500 Plus, but the HDD stopped booting or being readable after 5 days. I'm now waiting for a replacement SCSI HDD from Zetr0 and a replacement internal SCSI cable from Amigakit. I'm not interested in buying a similar edge connector SCSI controller. I AM interested in alternatives.

BTW, I've just contacted several sellers on eBay Germany who are listing A1200s, A2000s, or A3000s.

[AmigaBruno]

ebay is global, if you have a url of an item on ebay.com and change it to ebay.co.uk then it works fine (the currency etc is based on which one you go to so it's often useful to do it).
 
Normally when you do a search the site only shows items that will post to the country that the url is for, but I think you may be able to override that with an advanced search. I've seen some international auctions where changing the url makes the postage to your country vary, so it's worth having a play with it.

I've been finding out about these items by logging into various eBay sites, but not specifying if the items are available to my location. If I use advanced search then I can specify to only show items whose sellers agree to send them to my location.

[AmigaBruno]

I'm now bidding on one eBay item which was listed as being available only to Germany!

[AmigaBruno]

Hopefully after checking with the seller first.

Yes, that's what I meant. I do speak German, anyway. I'm a linguist.

Of course, a much better solution would be to set up a portal by my front door which enables me to arrive anywhere in the World with just a single step through my door. This seems more logical, because I first read about it before the Amiga, eBay, or PayPal started. I think it was in The Fantastic Four, but I could be wrong.

[AmigaBruno]

I do speak German, anyway. I'm a linguist.QUOTE]

I envy you. That seems like a tough language to learn. But it would be cool to actually converse with some of my friends in their native tongue.

Good luck with the auction.
I've bought a lot of neat things via Ebay.

I went shopping, then watched lots of TV, then tried and failed to do  any more ADF transfers before checking back here and look what I've found! This thread has gone totally off topic now, like most threads!

Getting back on topic, I can tell you that German is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. This is because it's closely related to English, although the languages Frisian, Dutch/Flemish, Danish, and Norwegian are more closely related to English, but have more difficult and less clear pronunciations than German. Over a period of time one language spread over a distance develops into various dialects, some of which are different enough or have a high enough status to be different languages. Eventually, the common ancestral language dies out, leaving just the related languages, some being easy for speakers of other related languages to understand. Some words take on different meanings or are used slightly differently. There's also the rules of consonantal shift, as mentioned in the classic Doctor Who story "A State of Decay". This is basically where an unvoiced consonant such as t is replaced by a voiced consonant such as d or vice versa (e.g. Bett = bed). English has also adopted lots more French and Latin words than German has, so you often find similar words to Old English in German (e.g. Wohnung = flat/apartment, or home. Old English used Woning for any home).

English was being taught in schools before WWII, according to a reprint of a WWII book of advice for British armed servicemen in Germany dated about 1944.

BTW, I live in Britain or the UK if you prefer, so I should be able to buy anything I like which is being sold in Germany. There are no customs duties or restrictions, but there may sometimes be spot checks for illegal items or items not allowed to be sent through the mail. I'm hoping to buy some real Schweinebraten mit Knoedel (roast pork with dumplings), but it's not sold here and probably couldn't be packaged and sent over.

Finally, you can visit this site to read versions of the Our Father/Lord's Prayer in various languages. Each language is called by its native name. Dansk = Danish, Frysk = Frisian, and DE-Borbecker Platt is a northern German dialect or language similar to Dutch. Plattdeutsch (low German) was the standard language used by the old Hanseatic League trading organisation, which fell into decline after the League broke up. Standard German is called Hochdeutsch or High German.

http://www.vater-unser.de/index_de.phtml?lg=de