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Is Best Electronics gone?


jeff20

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14 minutes ago, gandalf1369 said:

Yeah - I thought it was kinda weird but I did give him the auction number.  Looks like I will have to see if I can get a 1200XL mylar from another source.  Speaking of which - does anyone have any ideas where I might be able to purchase one??  Thanks . . 

Maybe he suspected you'd just sell it off with a profit.... 

 

Overall my experience is good, although I once asked for a couple of items, got no reply, bought some of those items from B&C, then Brad got back to me and I bought some more from him not to be blacklisted....

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I've ordered from Best since the 80s through Antic magazines and through the internet for 30 years.  I never had an issue with him and he responds to emails. If you don't like his minimum amount to purchase online, just order from ebay.

 

Also,  his website might be ancient but there's some good gems on the site.  He's been around a long time so he deserves to run his business anyway he wants to.  

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19 hours ago, phuzaxeman said:

I've ordered from Best since the 80s through Antic magazines and through the internet for 30 years.  I never had an issue with him and he responds to emails. If you don't like his minimum amount to purchase online, just order from ebay.

 

Also,  his website might be ancient but there's some good gems on the site.  He's been around a long time so he deserves to run his business anyway he wants to.  

Best sells on Ebay?  I noticed a screenshot of his page that says he has 12K+ Positives.  It's puzzling since I have never seen his presence on Ebay. 

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13 minutes ago, gilsaluki said:

Best sells on Ebay?  I noticed a screenshot of his page that says he has 12K+ Positives.  It's puzzling since I have never seen his presence on Ebay. 

IIRC his ebay seller name is MyAtari.  Hope I am not confusing that with B&C.

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I tried to order a TIA and a POKEY from him the other day. Got one email back and then radio silence. Over the last few years Brad's quirks have become harder to handle. He's always been a unique guy with the whole speaking the third person thing but over the last while, each time I order from him it gets more and more trying to do so. If he doesn't come through on this recent order I think it's time I stop ordering from him. Heck, even if he does, it might be my last order with him. It's just too much BS to navigate the way to give the guy money for product. And I mean communicating with him, not the eye bleed from his terrible website.

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On 11/16/2020 at 4:13 PM, slx said:

You really have to wonder why he doesn‘t get an email address with his own domain name....

IMHO setting up a web server is much less hassle and easier to get accepted by rest of the world than setting up a mail server. Without looking into which kind of hosting he has, they might not even offer mail domains. There is all of this with SPF records, secure mail ports, not accidentally having an open mail relay, setting up good filters against spam and viruses etc which explains why many domains only do web pages and then rely on some established mail provider for the other part. It would seem many use e.g. Gmail or Hotmail even though they have their own domain name connected to the website. Sometimes it might be possible to link the MX records of a domain to an existing mail provider.

 

Also there is the aspect that some other people disregard mail sent from/to anything else but the major companies. It was many years ago now and I've mentioned it before, but once I tried to sign up to a different vintage computer oriented forum but never got verified. After contacting the admin, he admitted he didn't recognize my personal domain name and mentioned he regarded all applications from something else than Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN etc to be potential spammers, no matter how legit the address and the application looked like. It probably was an extreme exception, but combined with the technical hassles mentioned above could hobble his business even more than using an existing mail provider.

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51 minutes ago, carlsson said:

IMHO setting up a web server is much less hassle and easier to get accepted by rest of the world than setting up a mail server.

I do understand that, but at least here most hosting providers will throw in a mail or even Exchange Server with your domain name for free when you book a hosting package and it takes less than an hour to have it up and running. So if you want your own domain mail address, it's rather simple to achieve, but maybe Brad just doesn't want it ;-) as a complicated and changing mail address will achieve the suspected goal of limiting traffic...

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12 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

One of Brad's ebay accounts is bestelec, but I think he used that only for buying up commons etc., IIRC.  I haven't used ebay in regards to Atari in ages.

Yeah, my point in asking is: Where did he get 12,000 plus Positive reviews on Ebay?  I think that number is totally bogus.  Maybe he is tallying up all the positive comments he has received doing business for 35 plus years.  Who knows?  I know I have never seen his Selling presence on Ebay.  In fact, he rails against buying from Ebay in his, "This dude paid too much" comments inserted throughout his website.  Just an odd dude. 

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13 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

No that is Bruce from B&C Computervisions.  Bruce Has MANY more than 12K of positives.  

I got a NOS 65XE from him just last week and am getting the Ultimate Cart so I can play a few hundred of the almost-5000 titles of 8-bit programs on her. I am happy with her and can't wait to dig into my massive Homesoft Collection as well as Glenn The 5200 Man's 5200-to-8-bit conversions and all the hacks and homebrews for her.

 

But first things first though, finish off this month's bills, then get all of the other multicarts (Concerto for 7800, Harmony Encore for 2600, and the Ultimate Cart, I already own the Atarimax 5200 Ultimate SD cart)

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1 minute ago, BIGHMW said:

I got a NOS 65XE from him just last week and am getting the Ultimate Cart so I can play a few hundred of the almost-5000 titles of 8-bit programs on her. I am happy with her and can't wait to dig into my massive Homesoft Collection as well as Glenn The 5200 Man's 5200-to-8-bit conversions and all the hacks and homebrews for her.

 

But first things first though, finish off this month's bills, then get all of the other multicarts (Concerto for 7800, Harmony Encore for 2600, and the Ultimate Cart, I already own the Atarimax 5200 Ultimate SD cart)

If you have a few hours to kill around the holidays, just give Bruce a call.  He will literally tell you his whole life story.  A fantastic guy.  Bruce, an ex-USAF Officer/Engineer, saw a need and he and his now ex-wife started B&C.  They used to run a brick & mortar store back in the day.  At the height, he said he was making millions a year on sales.  Then he moved out of the rat race and went into the hills and has been selling goodies for years.  I just wish he'd put his webpage back up.  His prices have gone up dramatically since Ebay.  I know he has to pay all those crazy Ebay fees.  He will tell you straight up that he is getting a bit long in the tooth and needs to liquidate a lot of stock.  I have looked at his property via Google Earth (maps?) and it appears his main house is right next to a fairly large steel warehouse building.  Unlike Brad (Best), I think he has some family or younger employees (may one or two) to help in the location, retrieval, packaging, and mailing of his goodies.  I can just imagine that the small local post office knows him very well.  Anyway, he is a class act. I just hope he hangs in there for a long time.  He knows Brad well and talks about him (not negatively, mind you).  He says that when Atari had too much stock, wanted to liquidate excess inventory, they'd give him, Brad, San Jose Computer, and a few others a call.  At first they'd bid on the lots.  Then Atari just said, "Give me an offer".  Usually it was pallets & pallets of NOS items and parts.  Bruce said he could have bought more, but was limited by space.  Then he rented warehouses, no cheap in California.  He let Brad have a lot of the bit parts.  Although Bruce did/does carry some parts.  From my conversation, he and Brad get along, although they are not friends and do not talk.  The 'C', Cathy, portion of B&C divorced Bruce and moved on to who knows.

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On 11/18/2020 at 3:52 PM, gilsaluki said:

Best sells on Ebay?  I noticed a screenshot of his page that says he has 12K+ Positives.  It's puzzling since I have never seen his presence on Ebay. 

You know, I got it mixed up.  Sorry.  Yeah, MyAtari is B&C not best.

But I have order from Best for years.  Been pretty happy with all my orders.

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I ordered a Best Electronics catalog earlier with a postal money order and it just arrived today!

 

Besides looking through it more thoroughly later on, I need to download the addendum to make sure items are still available.

 

In addition to the Atari light gun, I'm still in the market for an Atari XE game system.

EnYLUHQXYAA6YnQ.jpg

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On 11/21/2020 at 2:06 PM, 7800Knight said:

I ordered a Best Electronics catalog earlier with a postal money order and it just arrived today!

 

Besides looking through it more thoroughly later on, I need to download the addendum to make sure items are still available.

 

In addition to the Atari light gun, I'm still in the market for an Atari XE game system.

 

 

Show some pictures of a page or two.... really curious if it is laid out like his website :lolblue:

 

How old is the print?  It is still old that he prefers a printed catalog and maintaining an addendum versus just getting a proper website up and running.

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4 minutes ago, fdr4prez said:

 

Show some pictures of a page or two.... really curious if it is laid out like his website :lolblue:

 

How old is the print?  It is still old that he prefers a printed catalog and maintaining an addendum versus just getting a proper website up and running.

The last edition of the catalog must be well over 10 years old, probably even over 20. I got mine ages ago. The layout isn't as confusing as that of the website. Don't have it handy at the moment, so I can't offer scans, but there are two sample pages here. I dimly remember the catalog taking ages to be finished because it was revised and revised and revised. 

 

Today most of what's in there is probably somewhere on the web but when it was compiled a sizable portion of the contents were not that widely available, so somehow it's a collectible in itself.

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On 11/21/2020 at 5:06 PM, 7800Knight said:

I ordered a Best Electronics catalog earlier with a postal money order and it just arrived today!

 

Besides looking through it more thoroughly later on, I need to download the addendum to make sure items are still available.

 

In addition to the Atari light gun, I'm still in the market for an Atari XE game system.

EnYLUHQXYAA6YnQ.jpg

I contacted Brad a few years ago for an XEGS and light gun.  He didn't have any back then but sometimes he open a crate in his warehouse and finds stuff that he didn't know he had.  I did purchase one of his light guns in lieu of the XE gun which was out of stock, it may be my TV but I don't like it's accuracy.  Good luck.

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The Best catalog is completely worth it, not only does he list parts that aren't on the website, but there are other random bits and photos in there that are fun to look at. I've been ordering from him for years, I always send polite emails with the part #s and prices ready and he gets back to me very quickly. Sure the site is outdated, but I've never had a problem finding anything on it and for a lot of these parts he is the only source for finding new old stock. I'm glad he's around and still putting out new/upgraded parts and accessories.

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On 11/21/2020 at 11:06 PM, 7800Knight said:

In addition to the Atari light gun, I'm still in the market for an Atari XE game system.

 

If you can't get the Atari light gun and can solder, you could consider a Sega Lightgun conversion or adapter. Apparently its more accurate than the Atari gun (and probably easier to get). Can't report personally as it's still in my to do box.

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I can confirm he's no longer taking PayPal. I told him I would be making payment with PP but he didn't bother to tell me he wouldn't take PayPal but now wanted GPay until I was ready to make payment. Sadly, I will no longer be ordering from Best. Had many good dealings with him over the years but he's just too much of a headache to deal with and now with PP payments no longer an option It's just not worth it anymore for me personally.

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