Re: coburlin: solved! Message #7 Posted by Ron Ross on 1 Aug 2005, 2:10 p.m., in response to message #6 by Howard Owen
"The price you pay for any one item may be higher than before, but those prices almost always beat comparable prices elsewhere. It's always a good idea to do a sanity check before purchasing by comparing other sources for the item you are considering a bid on. But that usually, not always, but usually, tends to show eBay in a favorable light price-wise. I'm not familiar with much economic theory, but it makes common sense that a large, unfettered market will end up assigning optimal values to prices for goods, where "optimal" is a complex winnowing of the interests of both buyers and sellers. No market is completely "unfettered" but eBay's is closer to that ideal than the local electronics store, to judge by the price spread."
Your logic applies to 90% of ebay, but doesn't apply to calcualtors and ebay. This is one area where economics is perverted by an absense of retail substitutes in comparision to yesterday.
Almost everything has benefited with progress. Antiques do command Antique prices due to rarity, not because they are as useful or more useful today than anything else available. Only since Hp released an Hp33s has the price of the Hp32s returned to below the $200 value it once commanded, not because of its rarity, but because there was nothing to compare it too until the Hp33s appeared.
RPN is not a popular calculator OS, but those that learn it, tend to become fanatical about keeping it. And that is one of the few things that skew this market. Another is the superior quality that these same fanatics are used to in a calculator that only Hp used to provide. Those two features are what has fueled this somewhat unique market. Normal marketing common sense doesn't seem to hold up in this market.
Now that Hp has released the new Hp33s and Hp49G+, there should be no real market for the older, but not antique HP32s or Hp48G series. Yet, both will still sell for twice the newer calculators list prices (and truthfully, both are worth twice the newer replacements). But the market HAS changed and most people do not rely on a calculator for the majority of their work. Therefore I have to be thankful for the Hp's that are available new so as to keep the older calculators value from skyrocketing due to user demand, not just collector demand.
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