What's the best 'Psion' bargain you ever got?

[PlutoPants]

Now many members of the forum are buying spare machines (or selling them!), I was wondering if anyone would like to make everyone else really jealous by telling us what their best 'Psion'- related bargain was.
Has anyone ever won a silly bid they put on a 5MX?
What is the cheapest Netbook anyone managed to bag?
A fully-working 3MX for £30 - was it a real bargain?
Considering I paid £499 for my first Psion 5 last century, picking up an MC218 for £100 seemed like a bargain to me. I am sure others here have done even better.
Is there an art to buying second-hand Psions? ~Is it easy to spot those who know what they're selling and those who don't?
Go on, make eveyone jealous by sharing your best purchases. This could also serve a useful purpose for anyone considering buying a second/ third machine and who is tempted by the limited amount of stuff available still through POS, Expansys, Pulster etc. Is a buy from these safer or is an online marketplace such as Ebay or PsionPlace a worthwhile risk with the nature of Psion machinery?
George:confused:

[Graham Tanner]

I buy and sell a few Psions on Ebay. I prefer to buy old/damaged Psions for spare parts so that I can repair other Psions. As ever, getting replacement screens is always a problem.

Earlier this year I found an Ebay auction for a 5MX. The 'seller' had not set hiself up correctly in Ebay, or not entered the Ebay sale as well as he could have. His 5MX had a reserve of £35, and it was fully working/functioning. He had left his 'country' as USA, but his town was Coventry in the UK. It seemed that very few people had viewed the auction, and nobody had bid on it.

With 20 minutes to go before the auction end, it was still at £35 with no bids... so I bid £35.

And I won it!

With postage, I got a fully working 5MX for £39. Yippee!

I also check other sites for Psion sales, and I have just acquired a 3C with slight damage (battery case, centre pin broken) for £15.

[donkeyontheedge]

My 5mx bargain was from "The Link" about 4 years ago. I had recently purchased 2 Revos, one for myself and one for my wife. Actually, they were bargains too, but that's another story. I was in "The Link" looking for any related equipment when I spotted a 5mx on display for £170. The list price everywhere else was £399 at the time. They had none in stock but I pursuaded them to sell me the display model which (fortunately) came without a box (and hence a barcode). The reason it was so cheap is that they had mistakenly put the price of a Palm unit against the Psion.

I tried to go back and buy another one at the same price a week later but my wife couldn't help blurting out about the £399 price tag. The store manager visibly aged when he realised his mistake!

The best bit was, as it was "shop-soiled" I replaced it a week later for a brand new one in another store!

Ho Ho!

John :D

[MartinG]

Bought my netBook in Feb. this year on Loot.co.uk. It was 4 months old with the new 'power-modified' motherboard (for GPRS cards, etc.). Came with PSU and the 32Mb memory upgrade. On eBay at the time, 2nd-hand nB's were going for about £350 on average - without the memory upgrade.

Got mine for £250 all in. :)

Martin

[Ed_Ca22]

I repair alot of Psions and build machines from spares (and yes screens are a bas***d to get hold of). Back in 2001 I got a Psion 5 from a friend for £5.00 which he had spilt Pepsi on. Upon opening I found that it was quite corroded, but after a couple of hours scraping at it with a needle it worked fine, and I still have it now, that was a real bargain. I also got a 5mx for £50.00 from another friend and then sold it for £150 on ebay (I really needed the cash at the time - plus I have loads of Psions - although only a single working screen).

Ed

[Graham Tanner]

Another Psion 'bargain' comes to mind. Somebody (possibly one here) asked about repairs to a 5MX which would randomly switch-off after a few minutes operation. I offered some advice, and we (the person and I) sent some emails back and forth. As I knew it had a working screen I offered to buy it in case it could not be repaired.

My offer (of purchase) was accepted and much to my surprise the owner/seller lived only about 1 mile from me. I bought the 5MX (which came from a second-hand shop) for something like £30 ($50 -ish), knowing that 5MXs with damaged screen were plentiful.

Within a week I had identified, bid, and won an Ebay auction for a 5MX with a damaged screen for a cheap sum (£10 possibly). It only took about 30 minutes to dismantle and re-combine the working bits. Lo and behold, a fully working 5MX, subsequently sold for £115 on Ebay. Luvverly, and furthermore, jubbly, as my mate Del-boy would say.

I was initailly unsure about the price for the first 5MX with the 'switch-off' problem, but with hindsight if I was to announce on here that I'd found a source of £30 5MX screens I would expect to get trampled in a stampede! :)