Ron Ross writes:
We all want an item at a good deal and in certain areas of interest, this is almost always possible. However, Calculator geeks tend to be techno-geeks as well and are very internet and ebay savy and as a whole, end up driving an otherwise mediocre market into the stratusphere. That is why we actually screw up an otherwise modest market.
Most all of us took economics and learned about the shepard and the grazing problem. While each shepard came out ahead by overgrazing, the pasture went to hell with everyone overgrazing. Sort of like all of us on ebay. If you were to check most any other type of hobby, you will find a pretty flat price range, but not for us.
(<disclaimer> I have not taken an economics course so the following may be naive.</disclaimer>)
So what happens to the sheep? Many of them will end up starving. Eventually you reach a point where the pasture ends up supporting the "right" number of sheep. The sheppards will be forced to find the right balance where the pasture pays out the maximum sustainable amount. Under- and overgrazing are just signs that this optimum point has not been found yet.
Is calculator collecting any different? In the end, people pay as much as they feel reasonable to get what they want. No one is putting a gun to our heads while we write out the check. Every person's definition of "reasonable" is different of course.
Why are 10C's going for $300? Simple, there are enough people around willing to pay $300. The people who lost in the last auction will now decide that they're willing to pay a little more, say $325. A few people will drop out. As the price rises the number of serious bidders will drop. By the time 10C's are going for $3000 there will be very few people, perhaps none, willing to shell out that kind of money. At that point the price will stabilize. Collectors will remember the good old days when 10C's cost "only" $1000. "Gee, I wish I had gotten one then. What a bargain!"
eBay as such does not alter this process. It probably does accelerate it as on-line auctions are an efficient way to get an item in front of a large number of interested buyers. But even without eBay, the same price increases would have occured, though probably more slowly.
If the prices of other collectables have not gone up much lately, I assert that their prices went up in the past and have now stabilized. HP collecting is a less mature area -- people have been informally buying, selling and collecting since the days of the HP-35 but it has become a blood sport only in the last few years.
I guess I ought to conclude by paraphrasing an old joke. One man asks another, "Would you pay $300 for an HP calculator?" "Sure!"
"Would you pay $3000?" "What do you think I am, some kind of a nut?"
"We've already established that; now I'm just trying to determine your price."
Get 'em while they're cheap!
- Michael