Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

The way it worked back in the day was this: you waited for the mailman to deliver this slim little black and white pulp-paper magazine full of blurry little ads for astro-gear each month. If you were lucky, the smudgy ad that interested you was accompanied by a dark black and white photo. If you were really lucky, the mailman brought your issue before he brought your friends their copies—and before those danged Yanks got their issues. If not, you were sunk. All the bargains were gone by the time you got around to ringing up long distance charges (no “10 cents a minute” back then).

Then along came the Internet and Astromart with it. Astromart wasn’t the first classified venue for astronomy ads on the ‘net. I believe, if what few brain cells I have left post weekend Rebel Yell fiesta are still working, that the folks at Astronomy Mall were there first. Why is it, then, that your buddies are all the time calling you up and chirping about the cool stuff they saw/bought/sold on Astromart and not on Astronomy Mall (or Cloudy Nights, or wherever)?

The answer is a simple one: Astromart’s owner, Herb York. Lots of people like Herb and his Astromart. Some, however, think he is too tough. In addition to being an imposing figure in person (big enough to squish your ol’ Unk like a bug), he runs a tight ship on the Internet. Astromart has a set of rules. Violate those rules and your Astromart membership is gone like the wind. 

Now, there is no denying that some of these actions seem, well, arbitrary at best. And that the Astromart staff could be a lot more responsive when someone has a problem with the service (in lieu of just deleting the person's membership, which has happened in more than a few cases)...but I guess you gotta take the bad with the good. Astromart is safe.

Why does Herb have to be so darned strict? Why does he do stuff like refuse memberships to folks with Hotmail and Yahoo addresses, insisting that a prospective buyer/seller present a “real” Internet addy? Easy. Go look around Ebay. That’s what Astromart would look like if there were no mean-old-rules. There is no way all the scammers and rip-off artists can be kept off any classified ads site, but Astromart is, I think, about as good as it ever will get in that regard.

Some folks also complain about the one-time $12.00 registration fee being “too much.” Don’t make me laugh. You’ll soon find you’re getting more fun—and use—out of that “expensive” Astromart registration than you do out of some astro-things that cost far more—a subscription to Astronomy Magazine, for instance. In addition to the exciting prospect of seeing new ads every day, Astromart also features forums, reviews, news, an auction site, and other fun and interesting things.

I doubt Herb and crew are getting rich off your 12 bucks, either, if that’s what you’re worried about. In fact, I’d guess Astromart ain’t exactly a gold mine, period. Sure, A-mart probably attracts some customers to the Yorks' other business, Anacortes Telescope and Wild Bird, but I doubt that makes up for the money Herb has to shell out to keep Astromart on the air. Frankly, I don’t know why Herb and company keep on keeping on given the expense and the headaches, but I’m sure glad they do. One thing your 12 dollars probably does do is keep some of the riff-raff out. I would guess that it provides at least some deterrent, as some of the bottom of the barrel thieves no-doubt balk at paying anything to run their scams.

I said I don’t do much used trading, but, as I implied, that might change. I recently sold my second item on Astromart since its inception and I was impressed. It was just so easy to sell my small doodad—an OIII filter—and so much fun to see the responses roll in, that I’ll probably find myself hankering to do some Astromart horse trading again soon. It made doing something I’d been putting off because of the hassle, selling a piece of unneeded gear, an absolute joy instead of a pain. I can sure understand how buying and selling the Astromart way could become, well, addictive.

2020 Update

I don't hear as much about Astromart as I used to. Maybe because my focus is no longer on seeing how much astro stuff I can accumulate. But it is still there with its classified, its reviews, and even its forums. Now, there's no hiding the fact that Cloudy Nights long ago surpassed Astromart as the astronomy discussion place. But one other thing remains true that has been true for a long time--you're safer buying from the Astromart classifieds than you are from the Cloudy Nights classifieds.