[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Fair value for the Apple II on eBay



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.

-Ken

Well, I think I've got a pretty good idea of what "the going price" is for many Apple items. (No idea about whether it's "fair" or not.) I even research, occasionally, the "Completed Sales" section of Ebay to help form an opinion.

But even with that, there have been a couple of times in the past few years as I was rebuilding my IIGS system that I willingly "overpaid" above the "going price" because there were few offerings right then for something that I was anxious to acquire at that point. My "want to have" added a premium price to what I knew I should be able to get it for if I were willing to wait. I was satisfied, and the seller certainly was too.

Maybe you're talking about a 3X premium and I'm talking about a 30% premium... but here's one point of view.

     () ()
Rich ('-')