Ray; I can share my personal perspective on this.
With all of the talk of doom and gloom, I had vowed to be prudent and to hold onto my money and not to buy any phonographs at this time. Well, of course I was offered a phonograph that I had been wanting for a while. The seller was a very knowledgeable collector. The machine was what I would term a very scarce variation of a somewhat scarce model (how's that for being vague), and I had only seen one other offered before in 30 years of collecting. The price was twice what the standard model is currently selling for, but I bought it. It was, however, half the price of the only other example that I have seen, a few years ago at Union. My feeling is that all levels of the hobby have been effected, with the very rare items much less effected than the common items. I believe that even with one-of-a-kind instruments, that buyers are expecting to pay less. With common items, buyers are tending to sit on the sidelines unless the price is absolutely irresistible. On FridayFebruary 20, 2009, at 8:36 AM, Raymond Wilenzick wrote: > A friend asked me if this is a good time to sell his phonographs, or > should he wait for better times? So, how has this economic disaster > we are in affected our hobby? Common machines are selling for less > than they did 20 years ago. Better ones are holding some value, but > even they are down from a few years ago. Are the truly rare phonos, > that usually trade privately between collectors, still selling to > collectors with deep pockets? Is the hobby declining in interest > from new collectors? Are phonos selling at the shows? Any comments > along these lines would be interesting to hear. > > Ray > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
