"----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]>
> I would never advise anyone to collect anything as an investment. Any hobby > should be done for the enjoyment, not for financial gain. > The key with ANY collectable -- phonographs, coins, watches, whatever -- is > to buy the best you can afford. > Where eBay has led to declines in values is on the most common items. There's far more > supply than demand and prices have sunk as a result. > But at the higher end it's another story. Want a Class M? A Columbia > Graphophone Grand? An Edison Excelsior? A Zonophone B? Good luck!" I couldn't agree more, and how eloquently stated. I don't want to inflame any member of the community I revere and respect by saying the following, but I honestly doubt that I will: all eBay has done is bring knowledge and truth into the equation. It has allowed the market to regulate itself. Dealers who used to charge $1000 for a $400 machine simply can't sell them anymore, and I think that's a very, very good thing! Common machines have been 'found out' as common machines, and almost all collectors are much more market-educated than ever before because of eBay (except the high-end guys, like most of the folks on this list -- they're the ones educating the rest of us). I think Kurt Nauck's is simply the best vintage record auction that has ever been, run by honestly one of the kindest, smartest, and without question, most honest people I've ever been blessed to meet and get to know. Just a couple of years before eBay, I bid $1000 on a 10", 78rpm, RCA Victor picture disc of Enrico Caruso and ended up winning it for just over $600. That means that of all his customers, someone else out there wanted it $600' worth at the time. I've watched that same record go on eBay for $150 - $175 at least 10 times in the last 5 years. Do I feel duped by Kurt Nauck? Absolutely not! Am I sore that my "investment" (which I never intended to resell) didn't maintain the value of the amount I paid? Not particularly, mainly because of two reasons: one, thanks to eBay, I was finally able to buy one of the very first Path? discs for $300 instead of the $750 I'd seen them for in pre-eBay auctions; and two, because of the dissemination of truth regarding common-vs-rare records through eBay, non-eBay auctioneers and dealers have had no choice but to bring their prices down (in Kurt's case, where the records' minimum bids are already way beneath reasonable, bidders simply bid less now than they used to), because people aren't ever going to pay $100 for a disc they can find on eBay for $20. The only thing that seems unfair is that Kurt's auctions bring in slightly less money than they used to for the same amount of work, but he's such a rare case as an honest man that I think the trade off of gouge-'em dealers losing their shirts makes it less painful. I mean, at least we're finally dealing with the truth! And if the truth is that a particular phonograph is common enough to only be worth $400, eBay is the chief reason that a) I'd know that to begin with, and b) would be able to readily find one at that price -- its true and honest price. I will say this, however -- if we get one more single postage stamp increase, I'm gonna let the USPS have it. For however many people stopped mailing letters because of e-mail, there's been at least half of them spending ten to fifty times as much on postage to ship eBay winnings back and forth. I had never had occasion to ship so much as one single package in my life up to age thirty, but since eBay happened, my yearly spending on shipping has hovered around a grand a year. And I never really sent letters much. Man, do I enjoy being on this list! My best to you all. -Robert
