Telescope Reviews: 4" UNITRON on AM - seller taking interviews now

How to price and sell an item is something that can be debated until the end of time. Having both bought and sold on either AstroMart, Cloudy Nights Classified or eBay and having plunked down my fair share of money on new purchases, I am not without my opinions and practices on this topic. Additionally having owned my share of Unitrons ranging from 50 mm up to 102 mm, both equatorial and alt-azimuth, some purchased new and some purchased used, and having sold some too, I will share my thoughts on that. In addition I will add some general comments.

Where to sell? AstroMart, Cloudy Nights Classified, or eBay or local? I do prefer to sell locally if I can, avoiding the hassle of suitably packing an item and taking the risk, as small as that might be, of having something happen (or allegedly happen to an item during shipping). What do I mean by allegedly happening? Who is to say that something was damaged in shipping or after someone opened a package, put a scope together and broke something? At least if you sell locally you know exactly what the condition is at the instant of sale on both sides of the transaction. One disadvantage of a local sale is relative lack of interest and usually a lower selling price than what you would get with a wider audience. Disadvantage for the seller, but an advantage for the buyer.

AstroMart, CNC (Cloudy Nights Classified) or eBay? For astronomy related stuff, I go with the astronomy related forums. I have bought and sold on AstroMart for years and have a good record there, but I also look right here at Cloudy Nights, although I sometimes forget. I do believe that this site is good, but the ad volume is not where AstroMart is with current ad volume being about 4 times as high on AstroMart (I checked, looking at the past 7 days). This site however is coming up in volume and I predict that by next year at this time the ad volume here will be virtually as high as what we see on AstroMart. The disadvantage of sites like AstroMart or CNC is if you set your price too low (uninformed seller) it will be gobbled up right away and you will get that sinking feeling that you did not price your item properly. At the other end of the spectrum the uninformed seller may overprice his item and will either get no interest or will be subjected to offers below asking. Some may be afraid to give you a more realistic offer. Other than these comments, I believe all the advantages lie with AstroMart and CNC vs. eBay in that on the astronomy sites you are dealing with an audience very much like you, you can post multiple photos without cost and dealing here is a natural filter that screens out a lot of knuckleheads.

So why eBay? For my non-astronomy stuff like model kits, confederate currency, electric trains, camera lenses, etc. One disadvantage of eBay for a seller are the fees, and the uncertainty about whether or not you have set your starting bid or reserve price too low. As a buyer I have had some really good buys on eBay, but I have also sold a few things at prices that I thought were too low, but you make the deal and you have to live with it.

I believe services like eBay have tended to drive the prices of some items up too high. A great example is the prices we are seeing on some Unitron items. As the owner/moderator of the UnitronTelescopes Yahoo Group and as the owner or former owner of 9 Unitron telescopes, I believe I can speak with some credibility here.

Unitron has been around for a long time (very early 50's) and they did put out a quality telescope on a very good, classic equatorial mount with great setting circles. They had a great catalog that has become quite collectable itself, just check those ads on eBay. However is a Unitron really head and shoulders better than what else was available in the 50's thru the 90's? Not really, at least not the tube assembly. It always held it's own, particularly the 3", which has been the most consistent of the Unitrons, but it was not worlds better than any other good quality refractor of similar size and focal length. My first 3" refractor was a Sears 3" f/16 (blue-grey tube with darker blue trim) on an equatorial mount and that scope was optically as good as it gets. I have owned three 3" Unitrons and while they were very good to excellent optically and while they had collimatable objective cells which allows one to tweak collimation to the highest degree, none of them were optically better than the Sears. They may have been close, and one may have been the equal, but none were better.

Where the Unitron did shine was with the mounts - the alt-azimuth mount being really different from anything else out there and quite functional and the equatorial mount being very classic, with very functional setting circles, and in comparison to other mounts offered in the same time frame, much more capable. However in terms of function and useability, time did catch up to the Unitron. The Celestron C80 equatorial and Super Polaris C80 (really Vixen products) offered a more portable package at half the price, with a better mount. This one scope probably did more to kill Unitron than did any other product. Yet the #1 specification that killed Unitron was an over-inflated price which really got out of whack compared to the inflation rate by the early 80's and really killed Unitron by the late 80's/early 90's. This non-competitive price, seems downright cheap now that prices are really crazy on eBay and with what people are asking for Unitrons elsewhere.

So, are these prices fair? A scope, as a collectable, as with any other item, is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. All it takes is just one person to think that a 4" equatorial Unitron that sold new for $1995.00 in 1985, is worth $3500 in 2008 in obvious used condition with some paint chips, some accessories missing and some parts substituted for other parts. Maybe 98 of 100 visitors to an eBay auction site will pass thinking that the reserve price or the current bid price is too high, but the two people who really want it for whatever reason will drive that price up. Accordingly when the next one is offered the benchmark has been raised and that high price looks just a little bit more reasonable.

One final comment specific to Unitron prices now that puzzles me is the fact that Unitrons are really not all that rare, particularly the #114 alt-azimuth 60 mm, the #128 equatorial 60 mm and the #140 and #142 alt-azimuth and equatorial 75 mm models. Granted excellent condition scopes are getting harder and harder to find as time marches on, but the true collector should remember that collectability of an excellent condition scope means an excellent original condition scope, not a rebuilt and/or repainted scope.

For those that want an excellent working telescope, you may be better off purchasing something of a newer vintage like a Celestron Super Polaris C80 which is now becoming somewhat collectable itself. An excellent condition Super Polaris C80 with dual axis motor drive may sell for anywhere between $500 and $750 used and a good Super Polaris mount or later Great Polaris mount are much better mounts than the current crop of Chinese made clones of these mounts.

So for the seller, when you do decide to sell a collectable, do some homework in the way of archive searches to see what the going market rate is for your item and price accordingly based upon condition. If on eBay, don't have a starting price or reserve price that is too low, but be realistic. Don't be ashamed in pricing something beyond the old retail selling price of an item if the current market price is higher; you do not run a charity. However for current stuff you cannot expect a buyer to pay more than what he or she pays retail from a dealer (unless you are selling an AstroPhysics scope brand new that you just got in after having been on the waiting list for 7 years). In general I keep all my stuff in excellent, very hard to distinguish from brand new condition and I usually ask about 70% to 75% of the current selling price on an item I am selling. This typically is a very fair price for both buyer and seller.

Barry Simon

Edited by BarrySimon615 (01/03/08 01:02 PM)