Hashtag profundity/buzzwords/keepyoureyeontheball...

or, Fear and loathing on the E-bay...

borrowing from Hermit of the Hermit blog, and that other fellow famous for frantic forays into gonzo journalism....

Had to take a break from my spree of buying on E-bay... so far it's been good, no burns, parts as described, fair prices, no surprises. Been purchasing parts for my '71 CL 450 Scrambler....(an old school Scrambler, I like to think of it as...when 'Scramblers' had high level pipes....that set them apart from their 'Street brothers'....unlike what passes for a Scrambler these days...( Not that I'd poo-poo a new Ducati version...)

Yeah...started to look at what was available for Honda 350's...SL 350's in particular. There seems to be plenty of 350 stuff out in the world still...a lot more than 450 stuff it seems....and therein lies the problem...I believe. As I dug deeper into the morass of new, used and abused 350 stuff....it seemed there was more flim and flam, double talk, mis-representation and mis-information, and down right stretching of the truth...or, is  it just naivety on the sellers part? Buyer beware! ( a voice in my subconscious bellowed )  Illegetimi non carborundum!! another shrill voice uttered... a half remembered memory of the only bike purchase I ever really got burned on....kept surfacing...a 1974 Honda CB 350 I purchased for $ 400.00 ( back when 400 bucks was a lot of money ) I paid about 375.00 too much...I used the frame and cases to build a bike from many other parts...it was that worn out...it ran when I parked it, the seemingly friendly seller had said. Well, I'm certainly older now...and possibly a little wiser...so, best to take a break on the buying spree.

I'll admit I'm pretty new to this on-line buying thing... some years ago I sold some stuff on a friends E-Bay account, and used to listen to the horror stories...

N.O.S....hmmm.... new...old...stock, O.K.... as long as it wasn't returned to the original point of purchase because it was defective and shoved back into the original wrapper and returned to stock....'shop worn'...'shelf wear'....both terms set off my buyer beware radar... 

Fuzzy out of focus pictures, with wear surfaces conveniently obscured or out of the frame...beep! beep! keep scrolling.

As a former bike mechanic....on E-Bay, as it was when you used to be able to get parts at a bike shop...I'm thinking I'm probably a tad more knowledgeable than the sellers...and am particularly disgusted, with compatibility with various models claims, that seems to happen a lot...but, to be fair there are some sellers who seem to have done their homework and don't mis-represent their wares.

done gabbing....pictures...borrowed here and there...

Some Scramblers ...as I remember them...

The new Ducati Scrambler

And the bike that inspired it...