Reply 20 of 22, by Doornkaat
I hope my post didn't come across as hostile. Not being a native speaker I seem to have a somewhat awkward wording that is often interpreted as hostile by native speakers. If that's the case here, sorry!
The open market prices are not some great contrived ripoff imo, they are a general reflection of real supply and demand.
I agree with that statement but I disagree with(what I believe to be) your method of estimating open market prices.
My point is mostly that at any time the lowest current BIN price is the lowest known price an item doesn't sell for right now.
Therefore if this thread is about the money one would realistically have to spend to buy a certain item one would have to calculate the average price of the last few actual sales, especially at open auction.
If it is indeed just sort of a rant like Stiletto suggested then I was completely besides the point in my previous post. Still if I want to buy a specific desireable item right now I'm looking at pretty much the same asking prices you're looking at. And I agree that those are pretty insane. Asking prices for correctly identified items may be a tad lower here in Germany where supply is still higher but generally sellers tend to aim for international BIN prices on ebay. If you want deals you'll have to spend some time looking, develop an eye for good items in scrap lots and the likes (potato cam enhancement vision😄) and be patient. But others have already pointed that out. 😀
And I will also agree that obviously supply is shrinking. Still imho the bigger factor in increasing prices is rising interest/hype (Like the GUS which is mostly a collector's item: It's really not good for anything except a select few games and demos but for some reason it's often portrayed as the holy grail of DOS sound. Similar situation with the Vortex2: It is a better compatible card than the GUS but the impressive capabilities of A3D 2.0 have only been utilised in a couple of games and those are pretty good with EAX as well. The cards are nice to have but I guess the average BIN price is mostly due to them being collectors' swag and overhyped.) and the increasing fear of missing out in newcomers like you express in your last post:
If anything, it's a reminder (to the rest of you in more supplied countries) to not wait too long to fulfil your retro dreams.
Those are some of the examples why I disagree with the sentiment that talking about (perceived?) scarcity and value does not increase prices. (And really I think we're not in conflict for disagreeing on this matter considering we don't have enough data points to actually determine supply, demand and average sales price locally or globally. We're both portraying our subjective perception of things and that's just fine. 😀)
Again I'm not hating and I'm certainly not going to pretend you're not well within your right to buy retro hardware at asking price and then talk about it.
But if somebody buys an item at inflated BIN price this person is making this price a reality and also making the next higher BIN price become the new lowest current BIN price. It's a thing to keep in mind if price inflation is bothering you.
I have no experience with the NZ market at all so I really can't say what your alternatives are or even if there are any. But I know I didn't score all the sound cards you say you bought in your first year of collecting within my first few years despite starting out way earlier. 😉
Cheers! 😀
