Ok, now garage sales. Someone cleans out their son's closet and has $500 worth of comics they're selling for $5. Are you going to offer them more? What if someone is selling an antique gold pocket watch at a flea market instead of a jewelry store? So many factors come into play: The item, who they're selling to, where they're selling it, how much effort they put into selling it, etc. Most people have a max they'll pay, but practically no one has a minimum guilt value.
But the scenario you're probably in is a private seller has a shrinkwrapped Suspended mask and they ask $15 and you offer $10. Your conscience bothers you. Now consider the same seller but the buyer is someone equally clueless as to its value (they wanted it as a halloween mask). You hear about the sale. How would you feel? People can always get more for their titles if the put more work into it (how many bundles we've seen that could fetch 2x as much or more if sold individually). I feel that the sale of the item could have just as easily gone to someone else for that price, and its a factor of the environment. So no, I don't feel guilty that I just so happen to know I could resell it for more.
One of the finest additions to my collection came when I noticed someone on ebay consistently sold really good stuff, shrinkwrapped in many cases, for only a few dollars per title. I emailed them and they agreed to just send me nearly their entire collection... for $3-5 a title. I got some good stuff, and a few things I *really* wanted: A shrinkwrapped Origin Ring Quest, Hard Hat Mack, The Last Gladiator, dozens of SSI titles, and so on. Some of the titles were so-so, but for that price, I took them all anyway. The seller worked in an EB in the 80's. They knew games. They may have been able to get more for them, but if I didn't inquire, they would have just as easily gone to someone else for the same price. And no, I don't feel I ripped them off. I did not and will not resell a single one of those titles.
On Jan 21, 2004, at 6:51 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Just curious, how do people here feel about buying an item you know is valuable but the person selling does not? Such as collectable software. Do you feel funny bargaining down a price when you know it is worth a lot more than what you are paying? I kind of figured myself that the knowledge of what is valuable justifies paying a low price, the person selling does not have that knowledge, we do (when it comes to collectable software at least). I just sold an item I've had since the early 80s (not software). Got what I thought was a so so price, but turns out it was worth about 4-5 times what I sold it for (not a cheap item either). Felt kind of bad but learned something from the deal which will help me in the future. What do you all think? Ever feel guilty buying a game for $5 that you know is worth maybe $100 or more?
Tom
Visit my web page for many games for sale/trade and screen shots of Ultima Escape from Mt. Drash,�Tom's Ultima, Infocom and RPG page
