Yes, these sellers are called "book jackers" by legitimate sellers. A book-jacker will advertise a book at a higher price than a legitimate seller and then sell the book to you. The book jacker buys the book from the original seller and then ships it to you or has ir drop-shipped to you from the original seller.
One can sometimes spot this when a book for which one is looking comes on the market, listed by the original seller, and then shortly thereafter shows up with the exact same description (word-for-word) as the original seller's description but at a higher price. Also, it is sometimes evident that the book jacker lacks experience and card when packing the book before shipping it to you.
This started happening about fifteen years ago.
Another point that I was going to make in this thread is that the website bookfinder.com is a good resource to find all copies of a given book that are available from ABE Books, Alibris, Amazon and the rest of the other second-hand online book sellers. I almost always try to buy from book sellers who list their books on ABEBooks or Alibris, and in many cases, I can purchase used books from sellers from whom I have purchased in the past (for instance, Zubal books). I don't buy many books anymore since I have too many now. I have had lots of problems buying used books through Amazon and I tend to not buy used books through Amazon anymore.
I found my copy of "Typical Oscilloscope Circuits" in a surplus parts store decades ago. I don't remember how much I paid for it, but ISTR it was just a few dollars. I've since collected all of the other Tektronix "Concepts" series of books; I wonder if they are still out there and, if so, for how much. At least many of them are available from the TekWiki, DavMar and K04BB websites (for instance) in PDF form and so have been preserved in a useful form.
DaveD
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On 3/29/2019 4:04 PM, Dennis Tillman W7PF wrote:
Daniel,
Good for you!
It is my impression from watching scarce items like this that there are many companies that will advertise an item at an outrageous price even if they don't have it. They rely on finding some other company that claims to have it and then if you meet the price that justifies them actually hunting down a real copy the will do that and pocket the difference.
The reality is that all there needs to be is one copy and these companies make it appear that there may be more than one copy or even many. Daniel discovered that in the case of Stan's book there was only one copy. Now the price has jumped back into the stratosphere where it usually is.
I suspect there isn't more than one (or two at the most) of the Typical Oscilloscope Circuitry books either and now that Daniel bought one of them I think the price will skyrocket like Stan's book did.
Dennis Tillman W7PF
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Daniel Koller via Groups.Io
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2019 9:45 AM
To: TekScopes <[email protected]>
Subject: [TekScopes] Old Tektronix Books
Hi Folks,
The recent conversation about 500 series scopes prompted Dennis to
recommend two books,
"Oscilloscopes: Collecting and Restoring a Classic"; ISBN-13:
9780963307156; Publisher: Stanley A. Griffiths; Publication date:
01/28/1992;
"Typical Oscilloscope Circuitry", (C) 1961, 1962, Tektronix,
Inc., S. W. Millikan Way, P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, Oregon.
It occurred to me that though I have not *needed* those books to
repair my scopes in the past it sure would be nice to have a better
Idea on how the circuits work, and to be able to learn more about the
scopes in general, so I looked them up.
YESTERDAY, I was able to find a couple copies of Stan's book on
Amazon, used, for about $22. If I still have the website up at home
and it has not refreshed, I'll get a screen grab for proof, but there
were one or two copies available from at least two sources, through
Amazon. But TODAY, the least expensive copy is $94.09!! So, it
seems likely to me that this very discussion, within out closed group,
prompted someone to buy a book or two, and those actions drove up the
perceived demand on a limited resource to raise the price
significantly.
Question: Did anyone here, reading those messages yesterday go
ahead and buy Stan's book on line? What was your price and through
whom did you make the purchase? I sure HOPE that someone here bought
the book. Otherwise, I have a more nefarious theory; The bots are
actively scanning our conversations to manipulate the prices of things
on line. That is not a pleasant concept.
I found a copy through Moe's books for $28 and bought it. Let's
see how the price changes tomorrow.
As for the Tek book, "Typical Oscilloscope Circuitry", also found 3
copies in good condition for under $20 and bought one. We'll see
what happens to that as well.
I just figured I'd throw this out there as an FYI / buyer beware
sort of thing. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to some fun technical
reading!
Dan
