I'm with Sally... a bit scared to play the e-bay bidding games. Though the DH did search it quite a few times trying to find a treadle sewing machine for my mother and I (luckily he got one locally and at a steal from one of his customers who had it just sitting in their garage) And also we tried finding an old manual typewriter, while I was still taking college classes. Even with a quad-core processor and a pretty high end gaming computer, I still have the tendency to out-type it. Lost it a bit when the pinkies decided they didn't want to play but I've since adjusted.

We had thought that a manual typewriter might have worked out better because you need to apply more pressure to the keys so it should have slowed me down a bit more, but at the same time it had to be a fully operating one, not one with the a tendency for keys to stick or I'd have been running into the same issue as the computer... As I can say is good luck finding a manual typewriter nowadays where the keys don't stick after a good 20 years being out of production and suffering from at least 20 years of abuse and neglect from people.

I think he did end up ordering one or two that claimed the keys didn't stick... one had balding lettering and sticking keys, and if I remember correctly he did order a second one that the keys also stuck on, hard to remember because I don't know if that one was from e-bay or his mom. But I also got his sister's old typewriter that the keys stuck on, and then found my grandfather's old Notre Dame typewriter after he passed away that was thoroughly rusted and beyond salvaging for use.

But given the experience with the typewriters, it makes me a bit skittish for things I would think of checking e-bay for, like a piano. Or some other otherwise expensive or hard to find thing.

Now for books, I adore (my DH detests) Abebooks.com. I have found so many interesting books through their site and most of the time I just browse the $1 books. And yet even at a dollar I have found decent condition hardcover books from Jane Austen, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman... They aren't collector's grade condition by any means, but still in far better shape than many of the books which have somehow survived my youth to still sit upon the bookshelf. They more the quality that you would find in a library, well-'loved'. *to get the best deal on the books though, a lot of times ordering several from the same seller will drastically cut shipping costs if there are any. And for $1 books there normally is a shipping fee. But if you can find 5 or 6 or sometimes more from the same seller, you can get the shipping costs down to almost nonexistent per book.* They also do carry new books at often lower prices than what you find at Amazon or out in town. And have some "new" used books, like the latest James Cameron book a few months after release that you can snag for half the cost of running to the store and grabbing it right as it comes out. And even for those who are book collectors, always out for the one of a kind type of book that no one will have sitting on their coffee table and only a small fraction of the world's population may have ever even heard about it, they have some great rare books. Some are simply rare because of the edition, or containing a signature but they had at one point one of the lost novellas of Edgar Allen Poe, only I think it was something like 20 or 30 copies were ever made of the book and they were all paperback, and so uncharacteristic of "Poe" since it was more of a love story. Today I think only 5 of the copies remain, that we know of. It certainly wasn't a book I could ever afford to purchase, but was nice to drool over it.