[Coco] NEW NORMAL

[Brian Blake]

On 7/15/2015 11:40 PM, Richard Goedeken wrote:
> I agree with everyone that $300 for a coco 3 seems very high.  It was only a
> few years ago that I picked up one on ebay for $25, and I got one that was
> supposedly NIB for something like 130.  But from looking at recent price
> history on ebay, I think the $300 was an anomaly; I have no idea why this
> machine with this really beat-up box sold for that much.
>
>  From my own thoughts on bidding on a lot of auctions; I have realized that
> there are only 2 people who matter in setting the final price of an auction.
> The person who bids the most obviously wins and makes the purchase.  But
> whoever bids the 2nd most amount is the one who sets the price.  Everyone else
> doesn't matter.  So seeing one of them go for this much, only means that there
> are at least 2 people in the whole market (which, for ebay, is enormous) who
> are willing to pay this much.
>
> Looking at prices of other Coco 3 auctions which have sold in the past 3
> months, I see:  $172.50 (w/ 3 joysticks), $150, $143, $125, $117.79, $150,
> $130, $129, $44.76, $199.99 (w/ floppy, manuals, games), $99.99, $107.50,
> $149.99 (w/ games), $102.50, $75, $92.51.
>
> So $300 is still exceptional.  I would say going market price is 125-150.  If
> you want to buy one and not pay too much, look for an auction that ends in the
> middle of the day, and use a sniping tool to bid in the last 10-15 seconds.
>
> Richard
>


I completely agree with what Richard says here. There are two pieces of 
hardware that seem affected by the ridiculous price increases - the 
CoCo3 and the MPI. The CoCo 1 and 2 seem to be immune, unless you happen 
across an educational CoCo 2 kit. I've recently purchased two CoCo 1's 
with HJL-57 keyboards, and price before shipping was $56 & $37.

Do I think $150 - $300 is a fair price for a CoCo 3? It'll be a cold day 
in hell before I purchase one at that price, regardless of who it's 
from. I've got a 512k CoCo 3 in a decent box with all original docs that 
I got almost a year ago for $75. These $300+ auctions have me 
considering selling it - if a 128k CoCo 3 can sell for $300, shouldn't a 
512k CoCo 3 sell for $500? Like I said - ridiculous...

I guess another way to look at is this: if we all keep the history of 
fighting among ourselves (eating our own, as someone once put it), we 
might piss these new CoCo collectors off to the point they let them go 
at a loss, flood the market and cause another price drop.

And for that to happen would be the saddest part really.


Brian



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tandy Color Computer <http://www.tandycoco.com>
Tandy CoCo Forum <http://www.tandycoco.com/forum>