Re: eBay Auctions

carbide@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Michael J. Mahon wrote:


But a wise man once pointed out to me that if you buy something as an
investment, you must have in mind under what conditions you will sell
it. This is related to the principle that "Pigs get fat, but hogs get
slaughtered."



I think the state of the economy has a big impact. When times are good,
people buy toys. When times are bad, they sell them.

Supply and demand then dictate the price.

I seem to recall the market for Apple II collectables being red hot in
2000, and fizzling in the recession of 2001. There is some indication
we're going into that transition again- home prices are dropping. That
last happened around here (Nor Cal) in the early 90's, and it had a
major impact on the local economy.

I've read that demand for collectable stuff is driven by nostalgia-
kids who used Apple II's at school and at home in the 80's grow up and
a few of them rediscover the Apple II.

You can do the math on that- people who were 10 yrs old in 1985 will be
40 in 2015...
So I see growing demand as those people get into the "disposable
income" phase of life.
-Paul

I agree with all of that, but the principle still stands: if you
purchase something as an investment, consider when you will be
willing to sell it. Otherwise, you will ride its "market value"
curve up and down all the way into the dust. ;-) Very few markets
support values that are monotone increasing (perhaps not even the
California real estate market ;-).

BTW, you should also factor in all the folks sitting on piles
of Apple II gear who will be sloughing off this mortal coil and
having their troves go to auction, the landfill, or both. Demographics
cut both ways. ;-)

Both supply and demand are a function of time. And then there is
the potentially huge factor of "fashion". If the media start hyping
retrocomupting as "big fun for little money", then there could be
big swings in the market. On the other hand, if lead-containing
older electronics is named as contributing to some disease, then
our heirs will have to pay someone to haul it away. ;-)

Probably the biggest stabilizing factors in the "Apple II market"
are: 1) many participants either sell or buy, but relatively few
are "traders" and do both; and 2) there remains a huge reservoir
of gear that some fraction of trickles into the market each year
as people move or clean out garages, closets, etc.

Here is another place where media attention has a large leverage
effect. If Apple gear becomes _au courant_, then a much larger
fraction of the "passive reservoir" makes it to market instead
of the landfill. Unfortunately, the judgement about what is
saleable and what is not is almost always made by people who
can't tell a SCSI adapter from a wall wart, so a lot of stuff
will simply be trashed if it's not installed in a "system".

-michael

New, faster SUDOKU v2.0 solver for Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
.

Relevant Pages

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