Experiences buying second hand, positive and negative...

Just Passing Through

Just Passing Through

The Wildcard
I few months ago, wandering through the online e-tailers, I noticed that someone was selling second hand copies of Bubblegum Crisis volume 2 through Playtrade. As it was the only volume I didn't have, I pounced like a fat leopard.

When the said disc arrived, it was as new. The only thing missing was the cellophane on the case, the playing surface was pristine.

Today I wandered into a CEX, never bought there before, and I picked up a Macross Plus Manga box. I asked them their policy on guaranteeing playback, and they said repair or replace. That didn't sound too bad, so I asked to see the discs.

They looked like they had been stored in a toolbox. What is it with some people and the way they treat their own property. Suffice it to say, I didn't buy Macross Plus, regardless of how much I want to see it.

Anyone else have positive and negative experiences buying second hand? Got any tips where to buy from?
 
I've bought a few second hand OOP things, mainly off eBay. I've been lucky in that they've usually been pristine; the odd scuffed box/case but for the lower prices and the with the knowledge that it's second hand I've never felt the need to complain... you pay your money you take your choice. It's certainly good advice to always check the discs if you're buying in person; bad experiences with second hand games and having to pay another rail fare to return them taught me that in my teenage years.

One thing that certainly has changed in the age of the download is my attitude to the amount I'm willing to pay for second-hand OOP titles. If it's unavailable new I find it harder to justify paying over the odds for it second hand. None of that money is going to the original creators as it's been bought new once already, so I find it hard to see what difference it makes if I simply download a fansub instead.
 
Arguably if something is selling for £500 a pop used it will seem more desirable for a company to rescue it than a series which is just sitting sadly on the £1 shelf in CEX; I assume the crazy used situation contributed to the enthusiasm behind the excellent rescued titles like Utena and CCS, a model which sort of breaks down if old items aren't able to become valuable. I think it's also seen as good to train customers to want to buy things promptly instead of prioritising other shows, and it certainly works better than training everyone to wait for a cheap set as our anime distributor overlords have been doing over the years ^^;

The truly obscenely marked up out of print items can get stuffed though. Thankfully I am usually ahead of the game when it comes to picking things up.

I have a large number of used goods and find it very variable. In Japan, a used item will often be in mint condition with any microscopic imperfection pointed out to you, but here it's a mixed bag. I ordered two OOP volumes of manga which were described identically from two different sellers the other day. One arrived in mint condition, the other was covered in glue from stickers which had been placed all over the cover then removed without the residue being cleaned off properly. I'm going to have to spend some time restoring the second one :(

CEX do at least let you look at the discs before purchase, so I find them one of the safer options. In the past (before the brutal £15 customs limit kicked in) I picked up quite a few OOP titles from Second Spin in the US, but I can only half recommend them. Their customer service is excellent and they refund without question, but they do let an awful lot of rubbish slip through and receiving an incomplete, incorrect or destroyed item isn't unusual. I've ended up with all kinds of weird things from when they've sent the incorrect item and told me to keep it as sending it back would be too expensive.

R
 
My experience of buying second hand goods from Second Spin is similar to Rui's. I've had a copy of Green Legend Ran so badly scratched it wouldn't play; a Megazone 23 bootleg; a copy of Gun Frontier containing the wrong disc; and several damaged cases, some to the extent that they had to be binned.

But I've also picked plenty of good quality items from there, as well as many VG/mint condition art boxes that would've been difficult to find elsewhere. I even got a brand new copy of Tokyopop's second GTO box set, complete with t-shirt, for about £12.

The few things I've bought from CeX online have been awful: games with missing manuals, discs scratched to buggery, and an official 360 VGA cable missing the audio adapter. Never again.
 
I used to buy a fair amount in CEX, it seemed like there was someone local who would buy anime as soon as they came out then flog then right away. After playing frisbee with them apparently, but never had one that didn't play.

--edit--

Mind you, whenever I've popped in more recently when passing by, the prices on anime, when they have aything worth getting, haven't been that much cheaper than Amazon to make it worthwhile 'cheating' the distributor of a sale.
 
All my stuff I've got from cex has been okay. As a general rule if the box looks in poor condition the disc will be too. I have only ever had trouble with a dvd of spaced that froze and wouldn't play. They wouldn't exchange it for me as the other discs they had in stock were worse. In the end I sold it back to them.
 
Just Passing Through said:
They looked like they had been stored in a toolbox. What is it with some people and the way they treat their own property. Suffice it to say, I didn't buy Macross Plus, regardless of how much I want to see it.

Anyone else have positive and negative experiences buying second hand? Got any tips where to buy from?
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Do not get me started =P As love film customer I ask myself this regularly. They must fill their DVD players with sand to get that kind of scratching... I when I borrow stuff from others I treat it like it's made of radioactive glass i.e. very carefully :p yet some lovefilm subscribers clearly don't subscribe (HA) to the same principle.

Generally I've had good experiences with 2nd hand stuff, I think the one thing that was REALLY bad was a "used-good" (never trust any worse than like new...) copy of Return of the King for Gamecube, the case of which looked like it had been smeared with dirt...

People need to understand that rating the quality of a product means the damn box too... sigh...

Corra said:
All my stuff I've got from cex has been okay. As a general rule if the box looks in poor condition the disc will be too. I have only ever had trouble with a dvd of spaced that froze and wouldn't play. They wouldn't exchange it for me as the other discs they had in stock were worse. In the end I sold it back to them.
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That is so weird, I had a disc of Spaced second hand that wouldn't play either (don't worry, not from Cex :p) but I took it for a disc clean and it was fine after, even though there was only an infinitesmially small mark on it =S

May I ask which disc if you recall? It was the second series for me, froze when they were going to the pub in the shootout episode.
 
Only thing that did annoy me was a few years ago when I ordered a copy of the (then-)out of print Pokémon Adventures manga and while it was described as mint condition, I noticed someone had obviously given a little kid a pink felt tip pen, which was used to scribble on a panel. It was cheap, so I didn't complain, but still annoying.

However, when I bought the Toradora! Volume 1 Limited Edition from afoia, it came in mint condition - so much so that it's proudly displayed on my shelf (next to my new volume 2 of course - you wouldn't guess that it was second hand!).

Personally, I avoid getting second hand if I can. I'm a person who worries about everything (even if there's no need to), so you can probably see why I do xD
 
My experience of buying second hand has been mixed. In my Giant Tower Of Wobbly Eyed Drama, as my DVD shelf has been christened, I have the following secnd hand discs:

Spriggan:
Unbelievably plays without a hiccup after looking like Torville and Dean danced the Bolero on the back of the disc. Bought for just 99p on the assumption that it wasn't a lot of money to lose if it wouldn;t play properly.

Patlabor 1 & 2 double pack:
Bought from a DELIGHTFUL Ebay seller who actually exchanged messages with me about how much fun the movies were. Dics and cases were pristine, cardboard slipcase was rather badly scuffed. I tossed the slipcase and have no regrets.

Patlabor: Wasted 13:
Bought for a low price, and I regret it. There's a very clear crack in the center of the disc, which doesn't affect playback - but I ain't gonna be able to watch this movie in ten years time. It's the sort of instance of 'oh noes! I broke my stuff! I know - I'll sell it to someone and pretend it's fine' that drives me mad.

Macross Plus:
Movie and OVA in one pack. Again, cardboard slipcase was annihilated, discs and cases were fine.

Detonator Orgun:
As above. Except the disc came with a pretty big ding in it that I was able to buff out. Plays perfectly now.

Steamboy:
Mint condition.


In each case, the goods were described as either 'like new' or 'very good'. So as you can see, it's a bit of a lottery.

I tend not to buy second hand these days if I can help it, restricting those purchases to hard-to-find or OOP goods. And if I'm EVER sent anything that does not meet the quality description, I demand an immediate refund.
 
[/quote]
May I ask which disc if you recall? It was the second series for me, froze when they were going to the pub in the shootout episode.
It was 3rd episode of disc one for me.
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Trying to remember most of the stuff I have bought preowned.

Lets see most of the manga I have bought usually have been in good condition:

Miyuki Chan in Wonderland - When I wanted to buy at the time quite a few years back, it was hard to get hold off. When I found a auction for it used on ebay, I won it and when it came in the post, it was in perfect condition.

Record of a Fallen Vampire volume 1 and Black God volumes 1 and 2. I got them brand new in a charity shop in town.


DVD wise, it is more mixed on the conditions.

Pretty much all the DVDs I got in CEX were scratched but they play perfectly, and the cases were fine.

Some of the anime I have bought in a preowned shop, were like new with a few minor scratches and play fine. But then again they don't accept badly scratched DVDS :p

The other preowned shop I buy from is kind of even. I have bought stuff from there were scratched to kingdom kong but luckliy play fine. Apart from the last disc of Tokyo Underground where it freezes at the ending. However I did get Perfect Blue in there in a like new condition, in a double pack with Millenium Actress which was scratched.

I have got stuff on here from Necromancer and otaku010884 which came in great condition.

I got Mao-Chan volume 3 from a Amazon marketplace seller, I think was called Second_Spin which came in great condition.

And when I get preowned games from the shops, they tend to be in like new condition with a few exceptions.
 
See, I'm not that picky about books. For me, they have to be intact, have all the pages, and be legible. And that's about it. It's also in the nature of books to deteriorate with age.

Leafing through a used book, you can quickly see if it's in a condition worth buying. You can't do that with an optical disc. It's, as been mentioned, a lottery. I've bought second hand books from libraries that have been through hundreds of hands, and still get as much enjoyment out of them as if they are brand new, because the content isn't damaged.

I've also bought some histories and biographies as presents for my dad, books which were seriously out of print, up to 100 years old, and he appreciated them.

I do agree though that there will be a difference between text and art, and admittedly I've never bought a second hand manga or comic book.

Untrue, I do have some second hand Peanuts and Garfield anthologies which looked as new when I bought them.
 
Lawrence said:
In fact, if you're willing to give a little, you can pick up some nice things cheap. As with the forementioned Gundam or for example, a copy of Lucky Star (Beez anime legends) in which the first disk was broken.

Considering that the boxset sold for £1 and that the first few episodes are the worst of the series, it's a pretty braw deal.
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Given that I have the first US volume with the box I would jump at that.
 
Argh, Eternal Darkness came today, with chocolate on the case. This is like the 3rd time. What the hell are these people doing? DO they never wash their hands?

Actually, probably best I don't give that line of thought too much concern :p
 
Generally, second hand stuff that I have is either from people on forums, or Japan (as Rui says, the people and the shops there seem to actually care about keeping things in good condition, but this is also incentivized by the second hand sellers).

I will buy second hand things from GAME or Blockbuster once in a while, since it is a short walk for me to those stores if I need to return anything. In general, movies from Blockbuster are fine even if they tend to look a little scratched.

Just Passing Through said:
I pounced like a fat leopard.
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Is... is this a thing?
 
ilmaestro said:
Generally, second hand stuff that I have is either from people on forums, or Japan (as Rui says, the people and the shops there seem to actually care about keeping things in good condition, but this is also incentivized by the second hand sellers).

I will buy second hand things from GAME or Blockbuster once in a while, since it is a short walk for me to those stores if I need to return anything. In general, movies from Blockbuster are fine even if they tend to look a little scratched.

Just Passing Through said:
I pounced like a fat leopard.
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Is... is this a thing?
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I like to believe that I have a feline grace and poise to my movements, but everytime I stand on the scales it seems otherwise.
 
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