There are List members who I have had to thank at length for their assistance in helping me describe items that hibernated in a closet for 35 years such as a set of Cinelli bivalent wheels (thanx, James Kadonaga), and for the jargon of eBay such as NOS, as virtually all my stuff was. And I have to thank the buyers who have been patient on occasion because I was very misguided in my descriptions (prior to CR membership assistance). I see Jay Sexton, who chided me for using carriers who would with a certainty mash any soft package and the box within; so I sent him a bunch of boxes, empty but certainly in praise of collectors. Now I know the source of his passion; it's a shared experience that transcends hobby to become a piece of history. I had a small herd of those lightweight classics back in the '70's, but they put me through grad school...even then. And I had another closet full of Thorens and Ortofon classics, still in their boxes, and they, too, put me through grad school and I discovered I shared that dual passion with one Ken Denny. I began by offering an item on eBay in the purist state of commercial ignorance: an Ortofon Model C with ESL arm, transformer, tonearm rest and documentation for $129 and received dozens of e-mails offering to buy at multiples and others calling me some sort of anthropomorphic throwback. It was then that I discovered a tribe of people who paid--handsomely, I must admit--for these classics if they met a threshold of excellence. My closets contained dozens of items of interest to "hobbyists." Like the folks who are careful with their prizes, I felt it was just too crazy to risk so many bucks on the streets. Stockton's Chamber of Commerce best avoid me when their mikes are on because I'll scare the wits out of would be visitors. The baseball bat is the like the neutron bomb, it leaves the goods intact while nixing the primate, and bikes are easy to turn into crack. So I live with my as-built, dusty Mondia, and an equally dusty Bob Jackson, and if I don't have to swim to England, that Claud Butler in my modest size...also dusty. But with the passion of someone who was once young, I drool over the lugwork of Dale Phelps' Hetchins--the same lugwork that fascinated me when I saw a Hetchins Hellenic featured in a centerfold of Bicycling 35 years ago. It's as if it were the same foot in two camps. There is no difference.
Hon Lee
Stockton, CA