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NEKURAI

About Nekurai

A small, independently run secondhand shop in Texas. One person, sold online only, one of each thing — and a stubborn refusal to blend “how it looks” with “does it work”.

What this actually is

Nekurai buys secondhand and surplus electronics, games, consoles, computers and collectibles, cleans and grades them, and resells them — here, and through our eBay store under the seller name nekurai. That is the whole business model. There is no manufacturing, no brand partnership and no third party shipping on our behalf; the person who writes the listing is the person who packs the box.

It started as a habit rather than a plan. Most things now are built to be thrown away — it breaks, the repair costs more than a replacement, and the old one goes in the bin. Finding the thing everyone gave up on, working out what is actually wrong with it and putting it back to work is the whole point, and it quietly turned into a side business that still runs alongside a day job.

How something gets listed

Six steps, every time, and each one is checkable against any listing on the site.

  1. 1

    It comes in and gets cleaned

    Everything is bought secondhand, surplus or open-box, then cleaned up by hand before anyone looks at it properly. Nothing here is drop-shipped, and nothing is listed that is not physically on the shelf.

  2. 2

    It gets photographed — the actual unit

    Every photo on this site is of the exact thing that ships to you. Never a stock image, never a picture of a different copy. Flaws are shot close up and tagged as flaw photos rather than framed out.

  3. 3

    It gets a cosmetic grade

    Mint, Excellent, Good, Fair or Salvex — appearance only, with the plain-English definition printed next to the chip. It says nothing about whether the thing works.

  4. 4

    And separately, a functional status

    Bench-tested against a per-type checklist, with the checks and the date published on the item page. Or not bench-tested, and it says so. Or nothing to test at all — a boxed figure, a poster — in which case it is inspected and graded and testing is left out of it. Or sealed, never opened, so what we graded is the packaging.

  5. 5

    It gets priced against real sales

    Whole dollars, set against what comparable units have actually sold for. Where a genuine comp exists it is printed next to the price with the source and the month, so the same sales can be looked up.

  6. 6

    It goes up here first

    New finds land on this site two to three days before they reach eBay. One of each, so when it sells it is gone and the page moves to the sold archive with its price still on it.

The reason it is split like that: a cosmetic grade is never a promise that a thing works, and a claim that it does needs a bench record with our name on it. We would rather under-promise and have you pleasantly surprised than argue about a return.

What we don’t do

  • We are not an authorized dealer or reseller for any brand, and nothing here is new supply-chain stock. Every item is pre-owned, surplus or open-box unless its listing says factory sealed.
  • There is no physical shop, and no in-person handover. Every order ships by carrier.
  • There is no intake program. Nekurai sells; it does not take items in from customers or appraise them.
  • There is no phone line and no live chat. Email is the only channel, and a person answers it.
  • We do not run advertising pixels, cross-site trackers or session recording, and we set no cookies.
  • Direct checkout here ships within the United States only.

Where the name came from

A play on words — necromancy plus AI. Take the thing that was written off as dead and bring it back. Here that is a soldering iron and some patience rather than anything mystical, but the idea is the same one.

Best find so far

A little pyramid-shaped Bandai Pair Match, picked up on a trip to Japan for about twenty dollars. Everyone — me included — assumed it was missing its cables and controllers, which is why it was priced the way it was. The shape kept pulling my eye, so I took the gamble and brought it home. It had been complete the entire time. It just needed batteries.

It works fine, it lives in my own collection, and it is not for sale. Which is roughly the whole thesis in one object.

Business details

Nekurai — a small independent secondhand retailer, based in Texas, trading online. Orders ship from Texas by carrier. Payments are handled by Stripe on its own hosted checkout, so card details never touch our systems.

Mail:

Nekurai
5900 Balcones Dr, Ste 100
Austin, TX 78731

Email: contact@nekurai.com — the only channel, and the fastest one by several days.

See also the FAQ, returns, privacy and how to reach us.