I am amazed by the old skis I see on craiglist for high prices. I feel like emailing the sellers " Hey those K2 Fours/ Hexcel's/ 1970 Rossi's/etc... were awesome back in the day but they are best used of making chairs today."
Ponderous.
You should be there on the other side of the table at ski swap check-in time. Many oversized memories and over-inflated sense of true market value are fully crushed when they ask "what should I price it at?".
Fortunately, for most of those, we have the handy binding indemnification list to play heavy for us: "Sorry. We can't sell. The bindings are no longer backed by the manufacturer. No shop will touch." After a typical confused, bewildering glance at this unanticipated dynamic, there's often a "Well...dang. I need to clear these out. Got a dumpster nearby?"
In some years, the chair guy may have already stated a place we can direct them towards for his use to create another useful life.
Speaking of which, is a there a complete list of indemnified bindings online? Most of the sites with an indemnification list state that it is not necessarily a complete list. For instance, http://www.skibum.net/do-it-up/gear-guide/indemnified-bindings/
wgo wrote:
Speaking of which, is a there a complete list of indemnified bindings online?
I've never tried to look, but presumed there was. What we typically have on hand seems to be an online printout. Unlike the cover note on your provided link, I've never gotten the impression it's something the "industry" tries to keep confidential, but what do I know. The fact it's hard to find seems to prove it may be. The shop holding the swap usually provides copies.
As you also state, the list on that link is very, very short. It's usually a dozen pages of small type, arranged by manufacturer. A lot of close ones "well, I see the Marker 7.4 but not the Marker 7.2 like these". It seems perhaps 7 - 8 years is the length of indemnification..but that's just a hunch.
Well, most post Y2K bindings are covered for about 10 years. It's the bindings (and boots) from the 70s and 80s that are the most notorious for blowing apart. The plastics they used during that era fail at much higher rates than older or newer ones do.
As for shops. It's not that they "won't touch it". Some will but will FAIL it under the inspection part and make sure the customer knows that the binding did not pass visual inspection. They may still set it up for the boots and even run a release test on them, but also with an F due to the lack of converage..
crgildart wrote:
As for shops. It's not that they "won't touch it". Some will but will FAIL it under the inspection part and make sure the customer knows that the binding did not pass visual inspection. They may still set it up for the boots and even run a release test on them, but also with an F due to the lack of converage..
True. But we won't sell them in a swap to an unsuspecting, unsophisticated customer who later learns some shops won't touch them and/or this issue arises. Thus the 'we can't sell them'. Otherwise, they demand their money back a week or a couple months later.
..at our latest swaps, the shop owner will often work on them - and we may comment accordingly - but still we can't label those skis with an asterisk to the incoming swap goer who perhaps arrives several hours later... "Can't sell them" is thus the easiest response.
Besides, those skis are usually crap and the seller still thinks they're worth $375. ;-) We'd rather save the rack space.
