I went on a quest to find a new one.
And, I found out they're incredibly expensive on the used market. A broken one usually sells for $100, and a NIB or a refurbished one can go for as high as $300. More than I willing to spend.
I am fortunate that I am still employed in the pandemic, and with the lack of commuting fot myself and my wife, each month had a bit of extra disposable income. I bought about a half dozen trackballs. I kept some. I returned some. I settled on the Kensington Slimblade.
But I kept trying to find a reasonably priced MSTE, and nothing came up. I found out the average repair service for the MSTE was $50.00. So I set a budget of $50.00 for the trackball, and $50.00 for repair. I would buy it one month, and get it fixed the next month.
I had eBay searches set up. And Craigslist searches. Nothing reasonably priced.
Then for yucks I tried offerup.com. There was one trackball up. And the seller wanted $100. But the lising had also been up for quite a while. I decided to try a lowball offer. I offered $60 for it. And the offer was ignored. It expired after a week. 2 days after that, the seller pings me and says she missed my offer. Offer $60.00 again and she'll accept.
I hopped right on it.
2 days later the seller pings me and tells me the lines at the post office near her are REALLY LONG, and she doesn't feel safe standing in line because of the pandemic. She wanted to know if she could ship it UPS ground. I asked her to give me a shipping quote. She told me it would another $6.00. There's a pandemic, and I am not an @ss. So I paid the money.
I expected the trackball to arrive in poor shape. At a minimum I thought it would need new bearings. My some buttons would have issues. I figured I'd throw it on a shelf and send it off to be refurbished with the new year.
And it arrived on Wednesday. It was a little dirty. But it all worked. All the buttons are fine. Even the bearings are in good shape. I wiped it down with some alcohol and immediately put it into service.
It's still a little dirty. But it works. It sits proudly next to my Model M now as my daily driver.
I wish Microsoft would re-release this trackball. In my opinion, I believe it's the best trackball ever made.
