Hey HN,<p>After scrounging the local classifieds and our version of Craigslist to find pre-owned equipment and getting frustrated I decided that there needs to be a flea market but for electronics tools and homelab stuff. The Berlin Swapfest follows in the same spirit as the MIT Swapfest!<p>I’ve partners with a long time hacker space in Berlin c-base who will be hosting this event!<p>Would love for local hackers to come by and buy and sell their old gear!<p>Details on the site!
Related events in other cities? To start:<p>* US Boston / New England area -- MIT Swapfest, <a href="http://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit/" rel="nofollow">http://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit/</a>
> find pre-owned equipment and getting frustrated<p>That's the problem - in the US there's an abundance of surplus electronics equipment at low prices. In Europe there isn't, and it's priced too high.<p>I.e. the problem is not the market venue, it's the amount of available stuff.
Nice website design - with the tearaway papers to download...<p>Would love to see a follow-up on what interesting items were brought there...<p>Good luck!
This sounds dope af. Also happy to see people here in the comments sharing similar events in their cities.<p>Kinda encouraging me to clear out my garage to bring new junk, err, stuff in there.
Woah, this is a great initiative! I hope it works out. I regrettably will not be in Berlin that day.<p>It is really hard to get second hand electronics and equipment in this city if you don't want to go online. Sign me up for the next one!
This looks really cool! Might do a few hours travel to join.<p>I did not know about c-base either. Are there similar associations throughout Europe? I'd love to join one — seems to have a very cool hacker-y spirit :)
Nice! Might travel to Berlin for this.<p>Any idea how non-german-speaker friendly this will be? The hackerspace website is german only, but I'm hoping we can expect most attendees / sellers to speak english?
Good luck with the swapfest!<p>Back in the day I loved to visit these kinds of shows in the Timmonium, Maryland area. Went to Gaithersburg once, too. If you were motivated to dig through cardboard boxes of cables and miscellaneous stuff, you could spend the entire day there. But as the internet grew they got smaller every year, to the degree that there wasn't much of a point anymore.<p>While I never got to one, I recall Columbus, Ohio having the biggest show in the mid-Atlantic. Wonder if they're still a thing?
Back I my days, on electronics or computer fairs , there were “trash seller” , where you could buy non-working equipment by weight , and we repaired some at home
It’s moments like these that I hate being a hoarder - just can’t let go of the dusty old gear lying around ;)<p>Btw one could get company sponsorship for a ewaste container so that one doesn’t have to take stuff back home - after all it’s the big companies that produce this stuff and then make it redundant. Perhaps ewaste could be segregated by company to see who is the biggest “offender” - I’m sure there’s many a Fritz box lying around…
Man, I remember going to swapmeets as a kid in 00s Australia. Online shopping killed it then, but I'm happy to see it make a comeback in one way or another - I have fond memories of meeting other enthusiasts and admiring hardware old and new :)
Already registered! I just happen to be visiting Berlin with my girlfriend on that day so I'll try and clear out some inventory (depends on the size of our backpacks and the amount we can take on the train). Thank you for organizing!
C-base is easily one of the coolest places in Berlin! I’m so going. Maybe I can grab a well loved laptop (sure I can get one from eBay, but this way I can give money to a fellow Berlin, c-base friend).
My Dad took me to the Dayton, Ohio Hamvention a few times back in the late 80's/early 90's. It looks like they still exist. I didn't really have a lot of money to spend, but it was fun experiencing the culture and looking at all of the neat toys/junk.
I've always wondered about the risk of expensive-to-dispose-of bulky waste ending up on site if the sellers can't sell - looks like you've taken account of that with the deposit system already though.<p>Hope it goes really well!