Whether you are shopping on eBay or Craigslist, you will probably face many tremendous opportunities to save money by buying use items. You’ve probably have looked at buying used electronic items like gadgets. You might have considered buying used furniture or muffin pans.
In those contexts, buying used or refurbished items make all the sense in the world. Besides the obvious issue of smell, used furniture is usually easy to size up when it comes to feasibility or practicality as well as hazards.
Now, when it comes to buying baking ware, or stuff that you use for your kitchen or oven, the answer might not necessarily be obvious. You have to juggle many different considerations. Here is a quick guide on whether it makes sense to buy the best muffin pans from places like Craigslist, eBay, or elsewhere.
The bottom-line: it depends on the base price
Let’s just cut straight to the chase. If you are thinking of buying used bake ware or kitchen items from Craigslist of eBay, pay attention to your base price. In other words, look at the price of that item when it was completely new. This is your base price. This is what you will use to determine if you’re actually getting a good deal or not.
If the price of the used muffin pans is discounted by only 50% or less, it might not be that good of a deal, seriously. The muffin pans may be really old. They might have a certain amount of damage. There are just so many things that could have been done to those muffin pans that you are completely in the dark about.
Keep in mind that this material is going to be used to prepare your food. Pay attention to these serious health considerations involved. Since this can be a health issue, it’s always a good idea to make sure that the base price is high enough and the actual sale price is low enough for you to more than psychologically compensate for the risk you’re undertaking.
Pay attention to damage
Look at the pictures of the used muffin pan. If you notice that the light is reflected unevenly on the surface, this might be an indication of damage. If you look at close ups of the image and you notice some nicks and cuts and slashes on the surface, this is a red flag. It’s probably not a good idea to pick up that item.
Beware of rust
Ideally, you should check out used items at a garage sale. This is the best situation, seriously. You park your car, you get out of the garage sale, and you actually handle the goods. When you are given this opportunity, you can look very closely at the muffin pan that you are thinking of buying.
There might be splotches of rust or oxidation. This is a red flag. If you see this, then you know that the muffin pan is either really, really old or it was exposed to the elements. Neither of these situations is good. If you see any sign of rust, leave the item and never turn back.
Beware of damage to non-stick surface
A tremendous amount of the value of the typical muffin pan involves its non-stick surface. While pans that don’t have a non-stick surface are still usable, they are usually a pain in the neck compared to pans that have a non-stick surface.
Handling muffins and cupcakes are much easier with non-stick pans. Cleaning up such pans is less of a hassle because of the non-stick surface. As much as possible, make sure that there is no damage to the non-stick surface. If there is, then don’t agree to the deal. It’s a dead deal as far as you’re concerned.
Does it still do the job?
Another question that you need to ask is whether the pan is flat enough to still do the job. Now, if it is warped or it has some certain design issues, it might not be up to the job so make sure you give this factor a proper consideration in weight. Don’t just assume that the pan can do the job as long as it retains its non-stick surface. I wish it was that easy.
How much time can you waste shopping around for used items?
Finally, you should ask yourself if the time you spend looking for used bake ware items could be better spent doing something else. If the answer is yes, then you’re just wasting your time and it’s probably a better use of your resources to just buy new stuff.
While you’re here, be sure to check out our kitchen product reviews!