Re: Cost Whiners

["Payton Byrd" <plbyrd@bellsouth.no.spam.net>]

"vic20owner" <vic20owner@yahoo.com> wrote in message 1175531102.765797.231120@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com">news:1175531102.765797.231120@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> 
>> If you cannot afford this hobby, you should consider something a little less economically taxing.  I can understand the love of the computers and the experience, but almost everyone has a PC and the emulators are so good for these classic computers that anyone who's financially strapped could get just as much usage enjoyment from emulators as with the real thing.  If you've got to touch a machine to be happy, then you need to figure out a way to make the economics work for you and deal with the reality that any item is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.  If a PET goes for $1700 on eBay, then that's what that PET was worth.
>>
> 
> No, the problem is that certain "collectors" like to buy up every
> single SX64 or other collectible item that they can find at average
> prices, and then list them one after another or even at the same time
> at very high prices.

If you are buying stuff on eBay, and you don't look at the actual selling prices of items, then you are the problem, not the seller.

> 
> What this does is effectively make it *LOOK* like these computers are
> worth is a lot more than they really are (whether they actually sell
> or not).  Other sellers see the auctions and think that they too
> should list a C128 for $269.   It's obvious they are trying to over
> inflate prices so they can turn over old hardware rescued from a
> dumpster or good will for fat profit.
> 
>

It's been many years since I've seen Commodore, Apple or Atari hardware at a Goodwill.  Thrift stores have typically caught on to their value and don't even bother trying to put the items on their shelves, it goes straight to eBay.  Yes, you an occasionally find a nugget hidden away by a hermit, but it's the exception and not the rule.