Subject:
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Re: Fair Auction? (Was Re: Honest Capitalism)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:28:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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1565 times
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I know some of what I'm going to say has been said before, but I say it
again just to re-iterate.
First: Only a small number of sets fit into the "so highly desired" that
their price gets ridiculous. Very few are irreplaceable (ok, so the
Metroliner is among the best sets, well there's plenty of train sets,
and honestly, I think you can make just as nice a train or better with
what's available now). Of course town and pirates may become very hard
to get into for a decent price and not have town junior, or nothing at
all.
Second: Patience. At first I despaired of ever getting a 6285 Black Seas
Barracuda, 6286 Skull's Eye Schooner, or 6277 Imperial Trading Post.
Well, several months ago, I noticed one Tom Schlosser's auctions had a
BSB for what seemed real cheap. I e-mailed him to get an estimate of
what it would cost above my bid to get it here. I ended up sending Tom a
check for US $160 and now I've got a BSB (I think my final bid was
$120). Then Todd's 500 set auction came along. The bidding on the SES
got out of my league, and then Todd made note of the fact that the
minifigs were missing. Result, I got it for a final bid of $177.55, and
I regulalry get the minifigs for $2 a piece or cheaper. A couple weeks
ago, I finally scored two 6277s, one for $75 (less than MSRP, of course
it hasn't come yet - keeping fingers crossed) and one for $120 or so
(that one arrived the same day as Todd's part of the 500 piece auction
winnings - that was a big stack of stuff to take from the apartment
complex office...). I also despaired of ever getting many Wolfpack
minifigs. I've since gotten a bunch (I even got three in a trade for an
early castle torso which came in a mixed lot of pieces which I bought
for the pirate ship hulls and masts).
Third: The high prices are bringing out a ton of old sets. I'm not sure
we'd see anywheres near the selection without decent auction prices.
Fourth: The more money which is spent on auctions of these highly
desireable sets, the more likely TLG will realize that their missing a
market. I'm not sure how many of these old sets they could turn around
and re-release for a fraction of the normal "development and tooling"
costs of s set, but depending on the savings, they probably could end up
making a tidy proffit by re-releasing some of these "collector" sets
(they could even help the proffitability of them by offering them for
10-20% above what the MSRP would otherwise be).
I would love to see every kid who wanted a Metroliner to be able to get
one, but the only way that's going to happen is if TLG starts making
them again. Some cockeyed scheme to try and make a more "fair"
distribution isn't going to change _how many_ people get Metroliners
that much (only a couple people are getting more than one), and would
probably _reduce_ the number available.
So far I have passed up several opportunities to get sets at a decent
cost to auction because I'm not sure I want the hassle (the hassle of
dealing with the several times I've gone out and bought sets for people
definitely crosses my mind). I'm not going to go through this hassle to
just get a few percent (on the other hand, I'm happy to pass on the
locations of good deals).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (buisiness only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Fair Auction? (Was Re: Honest Capitalism)
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| In lugnet.market.theory, Frank Filz writes: <snipped lots of good points> Your arguments are pretty convincing - maybe now isn't a time in which we need a different system. Maybe we never will! But thanks to everyone who listened to my ponderings :) (...) (25 years ago, 14-Sep-99, to lugnet.market.theory)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Fair Auction? (Was Re: Honest Capitalism)
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| (...) Maybe I'm just on a different wavelength here, but I don't understand this desire to disassociate one part of our lives from reality. I work hard every day in the real world. I pay for goods and services in the real world. I earn a wage in the (...) (25 years ago, 13-Sep-99, to lugnet.market.theory)
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