Used equipment sources

Just curious (new to AM and finding this all very interesting): While it seems some sellers are amateur astronomers upgrading (or recovering revenue) from their stuff, it appears that some are more professional in their trading of used equipment. Where does all this stuff come from?

A lot of us are just a bunch of gear heads.
Buy a toy that interest us, play with it, keep it longer if we like it, sell it if it sits for months, or buy something for a particular event or project and then sell it. A lot of gear comes as package deals and a lot of the accessories are duplicates or not of interest. A WANT ad may come up and buy a part of a PACKAGE at a good price, rendering the rest of the PACKAGE to getting parted out.
This is probably most of us. I've bought from AM, garage sales, estate sales, craigslist, personal aquaintance, pawn shops, been given things for free, have given things for free, even traded substantial furniture for substantial astro gear, and more.

Then there are BLUE members who are ongoing sellers of particular products, or who are selling as a business or to make profit. This is different than just being one of us gear heads.

Either way, if you deal enough, you get a feel for the market and develope a style.

One other source of the stuff is that people "rent" equipment. That is, they buy, try for a while, and then pass it on to somebody else who does the same thing. This means you can temporarily own something if you like.

Another thing you may notice is that every once in a while a person may get inspired to clean out a lot of things. And you will see a whole lot of ads from that one person. Then you won't see anything from that person for a while. If you look during that time, you would think the person sells a lot all the time, when in fact, it is a rare thing.

Alex

Thank you for these helpful insights.

Scott

Another source is what some people call the mid life crisis. Mainly guys, who have had the Astronomy bug since they were young. Now they have income that they never had before. They research until they are blue in the face and then buy a hundred things they never use. Realizing that it is more work than they envisioned or their interest wasn't as strong as they had thought. You see this often with astrophotography gear too. Learning curve is steep there and after seeing the beautiful images that others produce, many people can't help but think they can do it too. Many can, but just as many or more fail miserably and take a loss on the equipment.

I know of two people personally who went this route. At first I felt bad because it was after observing with me their interest was rekindled. I advised them to start with something small and see how the interest held up. But they insisted on only the best gear. Next thing you know they have a closet or garage full of unused astro gear.