Personal sales—a tool established in the pre-internet era.
Starting in high school and continuing until the internet became widespread, I bought and sold all the time, making great use of it (*’ω’*).
Have any of you ever used it?
The magazines that got my heart racing the most were probably the monthly Clubman and Bikers Station.
With those two magazines, you’d read from the very back… that kind of feeling.
Since these were free listings in the magazines, there were almost no photos. It was more about reading the text and price to sense the seller’s feelings… (basically fixed prices).
If people didn’t want to list cell phones or electronics in the sales section, it was standard to say “Send a postcard!” (a reply postcard). If it fell on a weekend, it would take time for the postcard to arrive. Plus, since it was a reply postcard, the return was slow too.
That’s when the “telegram” system came in handy. If you dialed 115, it would definitely arrive the same day if it was within business hours.
*Now that I think about it, it was a bit intrusive…
By using this, the feeling of “Oh no, I was beaten to it!” decreased dramatically.
And when you’d go pick up parts or a bike from the sales listings, you’d meet the seller and chat with them, right?
Since basically only people who were crazy about bikes used this, there were a lot of genuinely great people. “Want this part?” or “The price is a bit odd, so how about ○○ yen!” or they’d give you a drink—now that I think about it, back then had its own charm and depth.
And you could buy rare stock items on the spot, and that joy was huge and addictive.
With the spread of the internet, Yahoo Auctions and the like were truly revolutionary. In recent years, prices for things have become established, and both sellers and buyers seem to have lost a bit of their human touch.
Way back, there was a brand-new TMR-MJN listed in a certain magazine’s sales section for what I think was 50,000 yen over several issues… O-territory, probably. The darkness runs deep sometimes…
That’s the old story!
