on 11/6/02 5:02 AM, Pedro Hobbyfrazoo at pjfraser_at_mac.com wrote:
> usually a reserve is meant to "protect the investment" of the seller -
> so the seller doesn't sell at a loss - or to signify the value of the
> item to the seller ("i'll get more joy from keeping this for myself
> unless you pay me X dollars, but not less").
>
> in this case the item was scavenged from a junk pile, and the seller
> isn't a computer collector or hobbyist. investment cost: zero,
> intrinsic value to seller: zero. and yet he somehow felt he needed to
> get at least $3000 for the thing.
The fact the person paid $0.00 for the item has exactly nothing to do with
what it's (potentially) worth. If there were a collector who absolutely HAD
to have one of everything Apple has ever made, and I had an old Apple 40 MB
tape drive, the fact that it's practically useless nowadays would be
immaterial. If that's the one thing the collector is missing, he/she might
pay a seemingly astronomical amount just to complete their collection.
The point is that setting an artificially high reserve can be a good way of
judging what a potentially collectible item could fetch. The owner can now
either re-evaluate the reserve price and re-auction, or can decide that eBay
isn't the right place to be selling the item. Consider the possibility that
virtually all of these devices may be polluting a landfill somewhere, with
one maybe in a display case somewhere on the Apple campus, in which case,
the item may indeed be worth more to *someone*.
- Eric.
--Eric Strobel (fyzycyst_at_NOSPAM^mailaps.org)
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