For me the biggest difference between eBay now and a few years ago is that for about 20 years I could make a living dealing in vintage memorabilia with eBay a primary source of inventory. Even though I was a bottom-feeder on most items, I won enough at a good enough price to keep my show inventory stocked with some basic things that I knew would move, in addition to the occasional big hit on something that fell through the cracks for some reason or because it was in my wheelhouse of knowledge of a niche area or two. That all stopped being the case somewhere around ten years ago, but by then it was time for me to retire anyway, so it was OK. No way I could do that today. For a number of reasons that have been discussed here, there are just a lot fewer vintage, and in particular rare, items available to pick up on eBay these days. I still have a number of categories I scan just about every day, and still manage to pick up some very cool stuff from time to time, but it's more a matter of serendipity than anything else, and that suits me fine at this stage.
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