N2EY wrote:
In article , (Scott Dorsey)
writes:
Why do you worry about how others decide to spend THEIR money?
Problems?
Because it raises price standards for everyone else.
That's a side effect of a free market. Would you rather there were price
controls?
No, in this case it's the result of two different markets that don't really
communicate well. Ebay has provided a market for buyers and sellers to get
together more conveniently, which is a good thing. But it has also provided
a way for people who don't know what they are buying to get into the act.
This results in things like current production items selling for higher than
list price on Ebay. This is a surprisingly common occurrence, and I have sold
a few items like that myself, sadly enough.
But when you have folks who don't know what the current value of an item
is getting into the act, the value is going to change. And it will change
even though the actual supply and demand don't change at all.
Inexperienced bidders who don't
know what things are worth, and bidding wars between people who desperately
have to have an item, tend to raise the overall market value of an item more
than it should be.
Whoa there!? "More than it should be"? Who gets to say what some piece of old
radio gear is worth, other than the buyer and seller?
eBay is just a great big worldwide online hamfest that goes on 24/7. Of course
it's going to raise prices - just like prices at Dayton, Rochester, Deerfield
and Gaithersburg are/were higher (on average) than at some small local hamfest.
No, in some cases, eBay reduces prices, when people out there realize how
many copies of a "rare" item there really are.
In the case of items that really _are_ one of a kind, there is nobody who gets
to say what something is worth other than the buyer and the seller. But in
the case of a readily available item, especially a current production item,
there's a fair market value.
The higher prices are bad for buyers, of course, but they're wonderful for
sellers. More important, higher prices tend to keep things out of the landfill.
I recall when ARC-5s were a few bucks each at most - and also when a lot of
them were dumpstered because the owner had gotten tired of carting them to
hamfests trying to sell them.
This is a good thing for the most part... the ARC-5 example is a weird one,
though, because some of those sets are worth a fortune while others still are
worth only a few bucks. This means if you're buying one, you really need to
know what you are buying so you don't overbid or underbid outrageously.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."