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Apologies if you've already seen this on Canon forums - I'm gloating a bit...
On Tuesday night I was looking through Gumtree (a free ads site in Britain that is actually an eBay subsidiary), looking for interesting offers, when I found someone a couple of miles away who had an Eos 300D listed (with a link to an eBay listing) at £1.
So I clicked through to eBay and yes, it was advertised as working, with a minimum bid of 99p - and a buy it now price of £1!
So naturally I bought it.
What I expected was that I'd get a "sorry, there was a mistake in the listing" message and a refund. What I got was the name and address for collecting it and a pick-up time this afternoon.
My initial thought was that they somehow hadn't noticed that they got it wrong. Or that it was sort of scam. Or You've Been Framed / Candid Camera / some other reality show thing. Or something like the apocryphal story of the guy whose will said his valuables should be sold and the proceeds given to his mistress, but left his wife in charge of administering the estate... the car version of this has someone getting a Rolls for £50, the camera version is a load of Leica gear for a tenner, and so forth.
So around three on Wednesday afternoon I turned up, expecting there to be problems. Instead a very nice young lady invited me in and gave me the camera, a charger, and a spare battery that she thought was faulty. I didn't actually say "do you realise you sold me this for a pound?" but so far as I could make out she's bought a better body and didn't think it was worth the hassle of trying to get a high price for the old one, so advertised it cheaply to get rid of it to a good home.
I've tested it, and it's working perfectly. Condition is even more worn than mine, but the battery in the camera is good, it takes pictures, focuses lenses, etc. etc.
I'm going to give it a few days just to make sure that there's no second thoughts etc., then see if any of my family want it - one of my nieces was after an SLR a couple of years ago, not sure she'll want one with this low a specification but it never hurts to ask. I don't currently have any spare Eos lenses but several have come my way recently, I might pick up another.
If she isn't interested it'll be a nice one to list on eBay. They don't go for a huge amount, but I can be pretty sure I'll get my money back!
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