Re: Fair value for the Apple II on eBay

[Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>]

On Sun, 9 Jan 2011, Ken Gagne wrote:

> Hey, all --
>
> I recently came across this message thread, in which a retrocomputing
> enthusiast observes that the asking prices for many Apple II products
> on eBay are too high, by his estimate:
>
> http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/175116-epay-prices-too-high-for-apple-ii-stuff/
>
> Certainly there have been some highly publicized recent sales of
> vintage Apple tech going for insanely great amounts, from Christie's
> Apple-1  for $213K to a Lisa 1 for $15K.  But are Apple II products
> being similarly sold for too high a price?  Is the hype from those
> other big-name sales causing an artificial inflation of market value?
>
> I don't do much retrocomputing business on eBay so don't have my own
> informed opinion.  But I'm curious what other folks' experiences have
> been, and to what they might attribute it.
Surely some of it comes from people suddenly deciding to get an Apple II.
Either because they had one when they were a kid, or because something has
suddenly aroused their interest.  If they haven't been paying attention, 
they wouldn't know how common the items are, thus they may be willing to 
spend more.  Or, they just jump right in, and "want it now" so money isn't 
a consideration.

There are plenty of people who don't look before they jump.  One of the 
things that's happened is that the internet used to be a select subset
of the population (because access was limited, because of cost, because
of the need for "technical knowledge), and now everyone is here.  That 
means a massive collection of people who just follow the crowd.  So they
see some reference to the Apple II, and instead of asking around to see if 
anyone they know still has one, or reading up to see what prices might be, 
they just jump in.

Then there may even be people who know that prices are high, but don't 
care.  They dont' want to go to garage sales (not that I see much Apple II 
stuff anymore at those), they don't even want to fuss with bidding.  So 
they pay the price, and consider it a good deal since they consider a 
percentage of the cost is to save them the work.

I have no idea if that affects prices overall, or if quantities are still 
sufficient that prices can't stay high.

I go to a lot of used book sales, and people have started to show up with
barcode readers.  They just rifle through the books with their scanners, 
trying to find items that carry a high price on the used market.  They 
don't know the books, they don't care, they are completely reliant on
the prices that already exist.  And they would likely tell you some story 
about how they are doing people a service, saving them from having to go 
to the book sales and stand in line and sort through the books, thus a 
higher price is justified.

And the sad thing is, the largest used book sale here is now addressing
that "market", raising the prices, and looking like they are presorting 
and leaving out the "riff-raff" books.  Last fall, I kept coming across 
very high prices on books I was just pulling out at random, and in some 
cases they even listed the "online price" as if it was gospel.  That 
online price only means something if someone is willing to pay that price.
They don't want the profiteers making the profit, so they are moving to be 
the book store or ebay seller, junking the "junk" books so they can charge 
premium prices, just like the barcode skimmers can justify higher prices
in the name of services.

That too may factor in, once prices can be seen to be going out, there 
will be profiteers who know nothing about Apple II items who will expend
the effort to find such things cheap, and then go with the listed prices,
which reinforces the notion of higher prices.

   Michael