Would you buy from someone who doesn't post a pict

I don't.

No matter how good a deal it may be.

No picture...absolutely no interest from this buyer.

So why does anyone post an item without a picture?

Don't know. I do know of a few people out there who actually don't know a thing or two about digital cameras, so they post the old-fashioned style.

I will buy from fellows who have no photo, but they have to have LOTS of good ratings.

I did take a slight "gamble" on recently buying a Tele Vue 40mm Widefield, which was posted with no photo. It came a tad dirty, but after an hour of deep cleaning, IT WAS WORTH IT BABY!!

Still, no picture is a coin toss...

All the best

If they have the ratings, or I have dealt with them before? Sure, I've bought items with no photo attached to the ad. The way I see it, most of us in this hobby are pretty decent honest folks, and many of us decent honest folks don't have a digital camera, or don't know how to post a photo.

If they just signed up that day and are posting from Spain and asking for a Western Union Moneygram, that's a different story.

Doug
Midway, FL

Probably the reputation of the seller, and the ability to have good communications with the seller, are more important than pictures. Pictures certainly help, but they are only one of many factors. If other factors are good, then I'm OK dealing. A couple emails or a 5 minute phone chat can often give you a better sense of things than some pictures.

I can certainly understand that some days you can't find a working battery for the camera, or all the memory cards have disappeared, or the charger got left somewhere 3 flights ago, etc. Or its a lot of trouble / delay / expense to get the film(!) processed and scanned. Not everyone has an iPhone or the latest Samsung Galaxy....

Pictures can also be misleading. I've certainly bought some stuff where the pictures look beautiful. But then you get the item and realize they were done in a very clever way so every gash, dent, paint scrape, etc., is out of view. I also know a few folks that take all their pictures from three feet away and usually out-of-focus -- OK it looks like an eyepiece -- but its not a very helpful picture. There also well-known cases of pure fraud on other sites where the photos are great, except they were copied from some other website, and there is no such item for sale at all. So while I would consider pictures helpful, they don't necessarily prove anything.