That is NOT what I said. I said it's one thing to
overpay on a stand-alone
basis; what Dennis K. is doing is overpaying on a consistent basis. Very
different things.
As far as I know, there is no Ministry of Classic Computers that sets what
each item "should" sell for. The value of an item in a market is, by
definition, what the seller pays.
And since this dkdkk is buying via ebay, in an auction format, it's not like
dkdkk is saying "you have this item listed at $25, I'll pay $250". There
are
other bidders involved who are willing to pay something very close to, but not
quite, what dkdkk ends up paying. So dkdkk is not singularly responsible for
"high prices" of items on ebay.
I interpret Sellam's point as being all this really interesting equipment is
going into a "black hole" and disappearing. It's the same problem in any
field with rare antiquities - some valuable (in the information and research
sense) items disappear into private collectins, where they can't be studied by
others in the field, or appreciated by the public.
Whereas on this list I've seen people post a question like "I have a tape in X
format, but no reader - can anyone help", and the one known person with that
obscure tape reader will offer to read the tape and convert it to a more
usable format.
Jeff