Pretty good story in today's The Oregonian. A fellow in our state started his own hobby auction web site to sell Hot Wheels products because he felt there was too much fraud on eBay. http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1050667088318260.xml
Interesting numbers to ponder in both that hobby and a web business of this sort. Also some nice observations about a collecting hobby. "Completist" is a term I hadn't heard before, a collector who aspires to have one of everything! This operater seeks to avoid fraud with a membership system to his auction site. Seems to me that chip collecting doesn't face a significant fraud problem on eBay because of the influence of and its members. Apart from excessive S&H and inadvertant ignorance by non-expert sellers, not too much peril in our little corner of eBay. BTW, I'm too old to have ever been touched by Hot Wheels!

Also another thing to add, I notice eBay added on a section to "My eBay" of items I might be interested in because of my past activities and searches. I find this part of computing facinating whereby software can discern patterns and anticipate the users wants and desires. As a result I picked up a couple of kitschy ceramic tumblers from Harvey's that were in the Hawaiiana section. Hoo boy, palm trees and topless hula girls for my piña coladas!