At 19:54 5/9/00 -0400, you wrote:
> > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310884521
>
>Funny how a lot of people here think the prices are inflated. These prices
>are established by *demand* and availability (as with anything else). I sold
>my Altair 8800 serial #80 just like this one with my collection :-(
>
>john
However, as it's been pointed out before, it only takes *2* bidders to
make a runaway auction. This hardly qualifies as an "ordinary" price.
And in the case of the above auction, it only took *1* as it was a
reserve auction, with an apparent reserve of $10k. There was quite
a spread between the highest and next highest.
As most dealers in antiquities or other "rare" goodies will tell you,
the price of a single (or even a few) auctions doesn't really set a
"price." Now if you saw the same event for several auctions in a row,
then you can start to take it as evidence of a trend.
Not that I think eBay (or auctioning in general) is bad - it's just
that a single, outrageous price is not an indicator of a trend.
But to belie my words, eBay *does* seem to have it's share of high
bidding fools - I've probably been one myself on occasions when I
*really* wanted something I'd been seeking for a long time...
-Gary
Received on Tue May 09 2000 - 18:43:07 BST