A collector's dream. Review on Ebay

If you're looking for a good auction site on the Internet, go over to eBay and stop. Don't waste your time on anything else. Truly, don't waste your time on anything else.

While I'm not sure about the International appeal of eBay (the U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia United Kingdom, Mexico and some other countries seem to be represented well there), I can honestly say there's no better auction site out there for me.

I shop on eBay regularly in my endless quest for ''old'' video games. In particular, I've kept an Atari Jaguar and Sony Playstation up and running for cheap with plenty of titles I've found on eBay. I've also purchased an Apple //e, and Odyssey 2, some carts for my Atari 7800 there, and I tend to frequent the site often for my Sega Dreamcast and Atari Lynx.

The thing that makes eBay so great is that I can find all of that stuff and more at one site. This is very handy as I don't live in a large city where shops carrying all sorts of off-beat stuff are on every corner. Indeed, I live in scenic Arkansas, where there are few retail outlets won't look at me like I'm insane if I walk in and ask for, say, a copy of Lode Runner for a Nintendo Entertainment System (sure, there's Game Xchange, but there's only so many things carried at those things).

And, eBay has all sorts of things of interest to collectors. Items such as those handheld electronic games made by Mattel and Coleco are found on eBay, as are books, records, compact discs, all sorts of old toys, computer-related items and just about anything else you might want. According to the site, millions of items are available for auction at any given time.

Naturally, this ''auction site'' means just that. Items are posted, bids are taken and the lucky person with the high bid wins. What that means is, some extremely rare items are going to be expensive, while more common ones can be had for cheap. The site is totally driven by the market in that regard, and I've found that some fantastic bargains are to be had over there.

There are, of course, some drawbacks. Specifically, you might get ripped off by a rotten seller or a bum bidder might not pay after winning the item you've put up for auction. I'm not sure a lot can be done when either situation pops up, but eBay does have a pretty good mechanism in place to tell you about the parties to an auction. There's a rating system, see, and ''good'' bidders and sellers receive points for carrying on honest transactions. The ''feedback ratings'' of all parties to auctions can be reviewed at any time, so you can see what people those folks have dealt with say about them. That seems to work out pretty well.

I don't, by the way, know a thing about getting ripped off at eBay. Over the past few years, I've participated in about 30 auctions at eBay as either a buyer or seller, and they've all gone very smoothly. That suggests to me that the buyers and sellers there are, on average, pretty reliable.

Now, joining eBay is free and no credit card number is required so long as you don't use an anonymous e-mail address (such as a Yahoo! or HotMail account).

The fees to list items is quite reasonable, and parties to a transaction are expected to make arrangements for paying and shipping. Worried about handing out your credit card all over the place? Pay with money orders or use PayPal or another site to ''e-mail'' a payment. I don't particularly enjoy handing out my credit card number over the Internet, so I'm glad that can be avoided at eBay.

So, the ease of use, free registration and wealth of available items makes eBay the king of auction sites. Forget about those sites over at Amazon.com or Yahoo! as they make you jump through hoops to register and don't have the sheer volume of items you can find over at eBay.