Last year I received a motherboard shipped naked in a box. No anti static bag. No padding. No nothing. Just rattling around in a box. I thought that was the worst packing job I had ever seen.. until today.

I just received a CRT (Sony 100ES) shipped with nothing more then tissue paper. The seller couldn't even be bothered with taping the tissue paper around the monitor or crumpling it up. Just placed in the box. Unbelievably, the monitor actually worked... kind of.. The front panel buttons were smashed in. Thank god they weren't stuck in the depressed possession, but unresponsive non the less.

I sent a nastygram, left negative feedback, and requested a return.

The front buttons on the CPD 100ES break fairly easily - that's happened to mine as well. I think they're rare enough now that it's worth fixing 😀 They're standard microswitches and can be replaced fairly easily by removing only a couple of parts of the case. On my one, I was able to repair the buttons by putting the switch back together and bending its metal case back into the right shape.

1. A barely used VHS tape of Unsinkable Donald Duck that wouldn't work until I replaced the bottom half. I know that's not PC related but still I was pretty upset with that.
2. A microsoft sidewinder controller that had plastic literally broken off of it during shipping. At least I could get a refund for that one.

I should have known better...

To be fair on the seller, I will prelude this post by saying at this stage, I haven't yet been able to verify if the goods were damaged in transport or not.

Getting in to game collecting a few months back, I picked up a copy of Ultima V and Sword of Argon from an op-shop (thrift shop) for about a dollar each, both on 5.25" Floppy for IBM compatible, what a find!

I've been looking for a 5.25inch Drive to stick in my DosBox for some time now, Hola! - A Newtronics 5.25" Floppy Disk Drive Made in Japan 2C28K0397 shows up on ebay for a reasonable price none of that RARE, VINTAGE crap, the guy says the drive works, and it only needs to travel 135.5 km to get to my house. (2 hours by car)

Huzzah! It arrives the very next day,

In a paper envelope,

No bubble wrap,

Cardboard!

Tightly packed I'll give it that...

Shouldn't there be a cardboard placeholder disk or sacrificial disk to lock the read/write head?

So far it hasn't made any strange noises...

But I've been having trouble getting the thing to work in Windows 98 for a variety of reasons:

• Floppy cable orientation and placement on the chain,
• Dead CMOS battery and needing to tell the BIOS what format the drive is,
• The 5.25" Floppy Disk jumpers that I'm sure are correct and
• The disks I'm testing with, I am only confident that one of them works and it's a 720k disk (I know for sure a written on a 720k drive),
• I am pretty certain that my drive is a 1.2mb model given its build date (1992),

But this last part is for another thread, for all I know the drive could be DOA and I'm just wasting my time, but what a journey it has been.

What I should have done was been a bit more patient and messaged the guy and asked if he knew how to ship a drive like this and offered to send him a sacrificial disk to lock the read/write head.

Live and learn I guess.

DeviousMalcontent wrote on 2020-01-21, 12:30:

I should have known better...

I really doubt the drive has any damage from transport, nothing looks too beaten up and the packaging was far from ideal but not terrible also.

I once sold a computer, I don't think it was poorly wrapped but it arrived with front panel damage and a few bent bits to the case through the postal system.
Unfortunately due to ill health I wasn't able to deal with the buyers complaints for a couple of days, but in the end I gave them enough of a refund to buy a new pc case for the computer of the identical model it had.
Where I lived, you used to be able to (maybe you still can) get a ride with the post.
At one sorting point along the route, there's a sort of twisting S-bend road that goes from one level down to another.
I watched somewhat horrified while those collecting the post stood at the bottom, and those on the van threw the post (parcels etc.) from the van doorway (standing inside the van) down the slope, watching them slide/roll in a cascade down to those picking the items up.
Then we set off again to the next stop.
I never did get compensation for the parcel damage, but I have a suspicion of who was responsible for the damage that took place.

The next computer I sold I went overkill with the packaging needless to say - and yes, it survived the journey (which was fortunate as it was much rarer).

The last computer I actually bought came very well wrapped, but most of the drives etc. were missing holding screws, nothing really wrong with this if it's just sitting around being used - I've done it myself, however put that in a box and post it somewhere and receive disintegrated devices etc. Seller was good, generous refund etc. but still a shame.

Non-computer related items, I bought an induction hob and the seller put one sheet of bubble wrap on it, and put the plug facing into the induction hob - result, one hit in delivery, pins go into the hob - crack ! And the exact same thing happened with a sandwich toaster I had bought as well, different sellers - same month, talk about being unlucky!

when you buy a scrap lot with a bunch of motherboards and cards that also includes drives and power supplies... and you ask the seller real nicely to pack them in a way that the heavy parts can't move around and smash the other bits because I am a collector... package arrived today totally smashed up, of course because the box was half empty, everything just scattered around inside, cards between drives and PSUs just smashing around freely... bunch of broken off bits in the box.

I can understand that you don't feel like packing all the things individually if you're selling "scrap" anyways, but hey if you just want to throw everything in a box at least fill the rest with filling material so all the bits can't get tumbled around at each other... but no not even that.

I've had ISA/PCI cards and a hard drive go through the post in only Jiffy bags (slightly padded envelopes).

The cards were unscathed, the hard drive suffered broken plastic on the IDE/molex sockets but is functional.

The plastic on old PC cases or monitors gets broken easily. They need foam/polystyrene blocks around all sides.

Some of those IT recycling companies use new packaging. It was surreal receiving an ancient CD ROM drive meticulously packed as if it was new. It had a sealed bag, foam padding and a strong box, all new rather than reused. They could have mailed it to the moon safely. The packaging was probably worth more than the item.