I've coordinated several times with other Mac Gardeners on eBay auctions. It can be a little difficult to keep everyone on the same page though. It's a pain when you go to a lot of trouble to get something only to find out someone already had it in their collection...

Anyway I think it works okay on a case-by-case basis, at least.

@rpangrazio:
A problem I can see with this is logistics & distribution. The regular contributors here, plus the 99.9% lurkers & visitors who prefer to remain anonymous, live in different locations about the globe. I live in Australia & New Zealand. Many of the regulars come from various countries in Europe and one regular I know of, lives in Mexico. Also, some very interesting classic Mac software auctions take place outside of the US. Australia has its own variation of eBay, and in NZ, "Trade Me" is the auction site of choice for buying & selling old software.

To make it work there would need to be trusted buyers in various countries given access to a single pool of money and a non-centralized purchasing/distribution system. Many of us already do just that, albeit using private funds, purchasing off auction sites and uploading for archiving.

You also need to ask, who gets to keep the hard copy?

I'm thinking its simpler to preserve the status quo - re a garden software purchasing dept.

You understand that there is no pressure to do anything, but the easiest way to help would be to have a saved search or equivalent in eBay (or equivalent) that you perform once a week, or whenever you feel like it. I had about 7 in the UK, but most were for components, ie. Mac-compatible PC133 512MB DIMMs up to about £6 per stick or pre-Intel Macs sold locally for under £20. I mean that there was a strict upper price on it so I would only pick up on the real bargains. I scored a lot of good stuff, some up to £10, but the vast majority for under £1, including a Blue & White PMG3.
Now that I've emmigrated half way round the world it still pays off, $16 (£8 equivalent) for an LCIII, a Classic, an SE, two SE/30's, two Colour CLassics, printers, hard disks, keyboards, and more, enough to completely fill the boot of my car.

My point is that you don't have to do anything, but if yuo scour eBay periodically, you can pick up a real bargain with very little cash of your own. We also like to hear when you get such a bargain.

bah, missed it, but I have a copy already. I musy have still had my Auckland filter on - used when searching for Macs - when I did software. I know I missed an MDD that went for $10.50 at the start of the week.