LeftyBassist.com

isn't it possible to comment people on ebay so everyone can see that are so out of their minds to put such ridiculous asking prices on some things. blows me away

Agreed. You oughta see what shows up on my local CL. And unfortunately, it seems to be a growing trend.

It does seem like a lot of people throw up the "Hail Mary" pass on ebay in hopes that someone might be dumb enough to overspend, but I don't get it. Don't you pay insertion fees, etc. every time you list and re-list something? So aren't you losing money? That '52 Fender Esquire guitar has been listed on ebay for well over a year at $39,000. I'm tempted to e-mail the guy and say something like, "Why are you wasting your time?"

It would be a good warning for people who are about to spend waaaay too much money on an item worth a lot less. But then again, like in the example of the '52 Esquire Peter posted, you'd think the seller knows damn well what he's offering, and any potential bidders will probably know damn well too.

Here in Holland, we have a saying that goes "Iets is waard wat de gek ervoor geeft". The closest English translation would probably be "The value of an item is judged by what a fool is willing to pay for it". For sellers this is always good news, but for potential buyers it ruins the market during the course of time.

Because you'd be interfering with their sale.

If someone's willing to pay an insane price for it, that's what it's worth.

I don't know why it bothers people. The free market decides. If the seller asks too much, no one will buy it. If a fool buys it, the seller didn't ask too much.

I agree with you, but I guess it's annoying when you finally see a some juicy item for sale only to be turned off by the ridiculous asking price. The fear is also that such inflated asking prices drive the market value up across the board as well. If everyone decides to start asking 40% higher than what an instrument's worth than guess what, that's your new market value whether you like it or not. (Just ask Rickenbacker, who, in their infinite wisdom, decided to increase prices by almost 50%!. Fender and Gibson followed suit). We've already seen the vintage dealers pull this tactic over the past few years now, despite a hurting economy, as a lot of people seemed to think that investing in vintage instruments was a sounder long term plan than investing in the stock market. But while the recession has (finally) forced people to be a little more conservative in their spending you still have residual higher prices than there should be.

Well, I respect your perspective, but I simply disagree.

No one forces its customers to pay a higher price. The customers choose to do so. They have choices. Fender and Gibson wouldn't have raised their prices unless they believe that their customers would choose to pay those higher prices. Their are plenty of makers out there and therefore plenty of choices.

IMO, it's simple supply and demand. Annoying? Sure. But your first sentence says a lot regarding supply and demand. If you "finally" see a "juicy item" for sale. That pretty much says that there's not a a lot of supply ("finally"), but there's a lot of demand ("juicy,").