Cheapest used scopes and meters on eBay, live right now.

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How to buy used test equipment

Counterfeit Fluke meters are everywhere, and they are convincing. This is the one that costs people money. A fake 87V looks right in a photograph and fails in ways that matter: the input protection is not there, the true RMS is not true, and the fuses are ordinary glass rather than the sand-filled ones that stop an arc. Ask for a photo of the serial number and the inside of the battery compartment, and treat a suspiciously round price on a boxed 87V as the warning it is.

Calibration matters far less than you think, unless it matters completely. If you are doing hobby work, an out-of-cal meter that reads within a percent is fine, and almost everything secondhand is out of cal. If you are signing off work for someone else, you need a certificate, and a used instrument without one costs the price of calibration on top. Decide which of the two you are before you look at the price.

On a scope, check the encoders and every channel. The rotary encoders wear out from being spun for years, and a scratchy or skipping timebase knob is the most common fault on a bench instrument that has done real work. Ask the seller to show all channels displaying a signal, not just channel one, and look closely at the screen for dead columns.

Bandwidth on the cheaper scopes is often software. The reason a Rigol DS1054Z has been recommended for a decade is that the hardware is the same across the range, so the entry model is the one to buy used. Check what the seller says it is currently set to rather than assuming.

Soldering stations are sold without the consumable that costs money. Tips wear out and genuine ones are not cheap, so a station arriving with a single burnt tip is a worse deal than it looks. Ask what tips are included and whether they are genuine.

Value. Fluke holds its money for decades and a twenty-year-old 87 still sells for real figures, which is why the discount against new is modest. The volume-brand scopes and supplies fall hard in the first two years and then flatten, so that is where buying used pays best, and it is exactly what the ranking above shows.

Common questions

Cheapest by model, at a glance

A daily snapshot of the lowest genuine eBay price for every model we track, and how good that price is right now versus its usual level, updated automatically. Prices last refreshed 12 October 2026. Tap a price to see that model's cheapest listings on eBay, or tap a model name for the full live list here.

These are second hand prices, listed by sellers as used or pre-owned, taken from live eBay US listings in US dollars. In collectible categories a sealed or unworn item is sometimes the cheapest genuine listing, and it is included. The same number works both ways: it is what a buyer pays today and the resale value a seller can realistically ask. Every model also carries a price history, the daily record kept since tracking began, which is the part to read before you buy or resell. On a day when a model has no listing that passes these filters, its row keeps the last price we recorded rather than inventing one, and drops off this table if that goes on for more than a few days.

Under each model is the actual listing that price came from, so you can see whether it is the thing you want or a bundle, a variant, or an accessory that happens to share the name.

Over the period we have tracked, this category is down 2.1%, while the used market as a whole is down 0.3%. See the Used Price Index, which is built from these prices and published as a free CSV.

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