In article , (Scott Dorsey)
writes:

In article , dxAce
wrote:
W4UDX wrote:

Check out this insane bidding!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...46&fromMakeTra
ck=true

$645 for an SB-104A? That's high, but not insane.

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?

Next time you go to
buy an item at a hamfest, the guy selling it will say, "well, I hear one of
these went for a million dollars on Ebay..."

I've heard that many times. My standard answers a

"This isn't eBay, it's a hamfest"

and

"Then sell it on eBay"

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.


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.

73 de Jim, N2EY